Family Time!

Marie's Preschool Christmas Program

Marie was so cute during the Christmas Program at her preschool. She was really excited to see us! She kept smiling and waving at us. This is a cute poem about candy canes on a Christmas tree. It may sound a little garbled. Well, what can you expect from 45 3-year olds? Here are the words:

Way up high on the Christmas tree
two little candy canes looked at me.
So I shook that tree as hard as I could.
Down dropped the candy canes,
mmm, they were good!

Yuck!

This video was taken in December. Jacob was being so cute so we thought we'd try to catch some cuteness on video. It was going okay until . . . well, you'll see.

February 2012

Bill captured this rainbow one afternoon. Who would have thought - a rainbow in the middle of winter? Only in SE Alaska I guess.

Jacob is just getting to where he likes to watch Baby Einstein. His favorite so far is Baby MacDonald. Marie has enjoyed revisiting them too. Marie wanted Jacob to sit with her. So I gave it a try and this is the super cute result!

Sitting pretty.

While she is a great helper (most of the time) in the kitchen, I learned my lesson with this one. Never let a 3 year old stir the filling for chocolate pie, because she will never stir as good as you. Jacob was demanding some solid food, but I was in the middle of this pie. Well, I thought I could accomplish 2 things at once with this little helper. The result was a disgusting looking filling that was slightly scorched! So much for our Valentine's Day chocolate pie.

Jacob loves bath time. He sits, turns over and nearly does flips trying to get to his toys. If he's on his belly, he can turn around so fast! I don't know how he does it!

Caught these 2 being cute again!

I love this shirt that Santa brought for Jacob. It's getting a little tight, so every time it snows now I take the snowy opportunity to put it on him because I know he'll out grow it soon.

January 2012

Our friends Jake and Kristina got this bear for Marie before she was even born. Well, Jacob has taken Bernard over! Sorry Marie.

This girl has great hair for braiding!

I just couldn't catch his smile for this picture. He's pretty cute anyway, though.

We took Marie to see her first movie in the movie theater. It was so much fun! But I did learn a couple of things. First, the 3-D glasses are not going to stay on. And second, the next time I take her to a movie it will be one that she's never seen before. That way hopefully it will keep her attention longer since she won't know what's going to happen at the end.

I hope Jacob is catching all those chords there.

Marie's first haircut. Well, more of a trim really. Thanks to our friend Vera!

We had a big series of snows in January. Notice the monsterous snow berm behind Bill and Marie. They are actually standing in a ditch. Bill would stand on the street side of the berm and then throw Marie over the berm and into the ditch. They had so much fun!

Christmas 2011

Christmas is becoming one of my favorite times of the year. And I think that is mainly because we have children now. So this blog is to share some of my favorite holiday activities.


I have a group lesson at my house for my piano students every month. And they are usually themed around the current holiday or season. I can't speak for my students, but Marie and I have a lot of fun. In the picture above, we're making Christmas tree ornaments by cutting out music printed paper and folding them. If you look at the center of the table, you have an idea of what a finished one looks like.

Here is one of my students holding up our snack that we made. We had hot chocolate with snowman marshmellows. I got the idea from the holiday Martha Stewart living magazine and tweeked it to what I had on hand. This student did a better job on her's than I did on mine! These were a lot of fun to make.

This is a picture of our governor's mansion all decorated for Christmas. At least once a week in December, and additionally on Christmas Eve, we love to drive around and look at Christmas lights. They are so pretty! And people can be really creative. Marie really enjoys looking at them too.

Every year the Lutheran church down the road has a live nativity. I had never been to one until 3 years ago, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to do at Christmas. What a wonderful and tangible reminder of why we are celebrating Christmas. These 2 little angels attached themselves to my little angel during a couple of the stations. Although Marie doesn't fully understand the meaning of Christmas now, I'm hopeful that she will in the next few years.

This is Marie's preschool class during their Holiday performance. They were all so cute, but of course I thought Marie was the cutest! She kept looking at us and waving and nodding her head. She was so proud to show us everything at her school.

Here we are at Christmas Eve. Someone looks ready to open some presents!

Marie is thrilled that she got a game of her very own! (Thanks Liz!) Santa had planned to give Marie the same game, but instead gave it to another child since Marie already had one.

You can see what Pippin thinks about the whole gift opening time.

Finally Christmas morning!!! This was the first year that Marie was excited and looked forward to opening presents on Christmas morning, and it was so fun!!! I can't wait until Jacob is old enough to get excited about Christmas too! Speaking of Jacob, he was asleep while we opened gifts on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. But rest assured, he did get his share of presents.

Isn't this a precious little Christmas present?

Just look at these two! I love them!

Hope you all had a wonder Christmas!