Bowling

I would say that Emma's favorite past time is currently bowling.  She asks about going all the time!  So today we went with Papa, Grammy and Miranda.  Of course, the boys had to come too!






The boys had a fun time watching.  They all got a turn bowling too!

Ice ice baby

Today Emma got to go ice skating for the first time!  She's been asking about going for a while.  I thought it would be fun to go when Miranda was visiting. 

She had no problems standing off of the ice.  The last time Miranda and I went ice skating was oh, about 8 years ago!


We linked up and off we went.


As the time went on we slowly got a little more stable!

 



Cutie cousin!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we felt more comfortable we started attempting pair skating tricks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures can be deceiving - am I dipping her or is she slipping?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy girl! Emma wanted to keep going, but we skated for close to 2 hours. I was getting sore not from falling (which I amazingly didn't fall), but rather bending down to her!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ted had fun too :)

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!  A Christmas greeting from Emma and her babies:

 

 

Emma's having a fun morning playing with toys!














Santa brought Emma a snow bike and Daddy had her pose behind it.  I love this picture!  We probably won't have enough snow around the neighborhood to ride on this, but it will be great on the sledding hills at the mountain!

Even Zoe girl loves Christmas, especially when her toys are wrapped up!











The boys each got an outfit from Santa.  Emma was thrilled!











Hey now, you're a rockstar, get your show on....  Emma wanted a "rock" guitar for Christmas.  It's a kid guitar, but it works great for her :)














Jingle Bells:

 

Christmas Eve

Today we visited Nana's house and got to spend some nice time with the fam.  Emma had fun playing with the boys and running around!











After that we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service.  It was incredibly full but we knew this would be the case!  Emma got to go to her classroom and made this glittery manger scene:

Tonight Emma wrote Santa a note and left it out with milk and cookies for him.  This drove Zoe absolutely crazy - she sat under the cookies whining and groaning for a long time!

Before bed, Daddy read us the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible.  We sat around a lantern and drank some hot chocolate.  A great way to end the day!

Winter

Happy first day of winter!  No snow here, just rain :)

Preschool party

Today I got to visit Emma's class early while the kids put on a little party for the parents!  First up, they sang a few songs.

Five little bells:

Santa was his name-o:

Jingle Bells:

Old Saint Nicholas Had a Tree:

We Wish You a Merry Christmas:

Later they served us cookies and we got to sit in the teeny tiny kids chairs!  I only banged my knees a few times on the tables...  Emma wanted me to take pictures of her around the class before we left.









This is Emma's teacher, Mrs. B.  She is a great teacher and Emma loves her class!

Window fun

Yesterday while it was pouring rain outside, Emma painted a scene on the window from the inside!

Zoe was excited to "help" - but really she just wanted a chance to look out.  We moved her couch to put the tree in the window, and she really misses keeping an eye on the neighborhood!

Emma started with a big snowman.

Once she was done with the daddy snowman, she decided to add a kid snowman and a mommy snowman.  I did some of the mom and then Emma finished her off!  She added some snow on the ground and snowflakes falling from the sky.














This was perfect timing, as today we got a tiny bit of actual snow!

 

Winter Wonderland

Tonight we went to Winter Wonderland, and you get to drive (slowly!) along the track at the raceway!  Here's just an assortment of photos of the lights on display.  This is always a fun family tradition!

 





And to all a good night!

Sing songs

Today was the annual Christmas kids singing performance at our Bible study.  Emma was ready this year, she's been singing the songs around the house!  They have two Bible memory verses put to the tunes of easy songs, and then they sang three songs.  All with sign language, I love that part!

Do not be afraid, your prayer has been heard (Luke 1:13).  What a great message for kids!

Nothing will be impossible with God (Luke 1:37):

We Bow Down (she was lightning fast at bowing!):

He's Got the Whole World, in His Hands...

The Little Baby (I really like the sign language on this song!):

Fire engine ride

This afternoon one of the nearby fire stations was hosting fire engine rides, as well as seeing Santa!

Emma decided that since she already saw Santa, she just wanted to do the ride.  Well that's really what we went for - none of the times that we've been to an open house at a fire station have they ever offered RIDES!

We didn't get there right when they opened which turned out to be good.  One gal told me that the line was much longer in the beginning.  So we only had to wait about 15 minutes!

The two firefighters that drove us were very friendly and chatty.  They brought their truck in from another city just for the rides.  The three of us sat in the back, all buckled in!