First Christmas

When we got back from visiting my family for Thanksgiving, Chris' parents came to our house to spend an early Christmas with us! They will be traveling to China to visit Chris' brother, Colin, & his wife, Elizabeth, so we were lucky to have them come here early!

Oma went all out and made her traditional Christmas meal, Chicken kiev! YUM!

The girls opened their first Chrismas gifts...Mouse House things!! They were so happy! Thank you Oma & Opa and Colin & Elizabeth!! We also got to drive through Tilles Park...filled with Christmas lights through a huge park. I love these special holiday fun activities!

Go sparky!

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for taking us to the ASU football game! It was so fun to tailgate (great food Grandma!), see the cheerleaders, cheer for sparky's team, and eat lots of fun treats!

While we were at Grandpa & Grandma's house the girls got to go swimming (their favorite AZ activity!) and help decorate the big Christmas tree! Thanks for making it such a special weekend for us!

Cutie cousin Nora with Ali and Elizabeth

An Arizona Thanksgiving

We spent a special day with Nana and went on the light rail into downtown Phoenix to visit Poppa at work and out to lunch at Paradise Cafe. It was a fun day with grandparents! We also got to go to the Children's Museum...it was the greatest place! Thanks for all the fun times Nana and Poppa! :)

Thanksgiving day...Here is Matt (Wendy's friend), Chris, Elizabeth, me, Nana, Poppa, Daphine, Sheila, Pete, (Front) Wendy and Ali

Beautiful gingerbread decorating!

November decorating

Since we were going to AZ for Thanksgiving and wouldn't be home the weekend after when we usually decorate for Christmas, we decided to do it very early! But the girls were so excited about it and really got into looking at all of the ornaments. They made lines by year of all of theirs, all of our family ones, and all of the ones I had from when I was little. What a fun time of year!

The lastest Ty saga

For a while I was very upset with Ty...he tore a hole in our screen door, scratched our dining room chairs, clawed a hole in one of my new shirts, and jumped on the mantel which made our clock tip over and break.

Here is our mantel MINUS our clock...

Here is Ty and you can see the tear in the screen behind his head. Okay, so I was keeping this litany of bad things he has done in my head...and then two nights ago he DISAPPEARED! He escaped out of the house at night, we kept the garage door open a crack so that he could come back, and in the morning he still wasn't home. He had never been out that long and it's freezing now. I thought he was gone forever and I felt so guilty for thinking bad things about him! He was gone all day...the girls and I went out looking for him, Chris drove around looking for him....and then our neighbor saw a sign posted that said, "FOUND: Black cat!" It was Ty and now he is home. The girls are so happy and....so am I!

We're Proud of you Dad!

My Dad ran for State Representative in Scottsdale and he and his "team" (mostly Janey, Erin, and friends) worked SO hard to get him elected in November. I know he would have done a great job supporting education and making the best choices for the state...but alas the voters were not in the mood to vote for a democrat! The silver lining was that the girls and I got to go to AZ to visit and keep them company!

Erin and I went out the night before the election and put up more signs...it made me realize how usually I am not a very informed voter and that in the future I really should do more research into the candidates. Thank you Dad for inspiring me!

Carving...I mean painting pumpkins

4. The girls like PAINTING their pumpkins a bit more than the carving part!

3. Daddy finishes by himself! And I clean all the seeds and roast them! YUM!

2. Then they get bored and start hiding candles around the house and searching for them.

1. The girls start out helping and watching.

Halloween 2010

Some of our neighbors at our 3rd annual Pre-Trick or Treating Halloween pizza party!

Belle and the Bunny!

My Martha Stewart moment with the Halloween party food! Yes, all of my fun food ideas come from my friend Melanie's cooking blog...so once again here are some of her ideas...the cheese sticks with cranberries are "Witches Fingers" and the homemade breadsticks dipped in marinara are "Bones and Blood"!

Welcome Tooth Fairy!

Alexandra's first lost tooth!! This was a parenting first for us...and it was pretty exciting for her as well! :) It took about a week to go from wiggly to really loose. I reached in and told her that I wouldn't pull it, that I just wanted to feel it and TA DA! It just came out in my hand!! :) The tooth fairy came and she left TWO DOLLARS! :)

Happy Fall!

I never thought fall was my favorite season...I always like being warm and being on vacation so I thought I loved summer and swimming...but Chris' absolute favorite season is fall and being cooler and the holidays and football and....well, I think I'm being won over! This fall has been gorgeous and we have gotten to do so many fun things outside. I LOVE going to pumpkin patches with our kids! This year we went to a smaller farm where the girls could pick a pumpkin from the vine and actually see how they grow. I loved it! However, Elizabeth was not very impressed...she did NOT like it that the pumpkin had DIRT on it!

We went with a smaller group this year which was a bit calmer!! It's so nice that Elizabeth has a friend her age just a few doors down from us!

Thanks Nana and Poppa for the cutie pie T-shirts! They love their "Scaredy" Cat Halloween shirts...almost as much as they love their Ty-ty!! :)

1st Slumber Party

The girls really wanted to sleep together one night over the weekend so we pulled out the sleeper couch in the guest room and they loved it! Although, Elizabeth (since she no longer naps at all) is exhausted by 7:30 so she didn't last long! I think she was asleep by 8:00 and we could hear Ali talking away! And then Ali woke up first in the morning (about 7am which is early for them...they usually sleep until 7:30am!) and of course woke up Elizabeth too. But it was a fun little sleep over! :)

Early Thanksgiving

Maybe it's the unexpected gorgeous weather we had this weekend or maybe it's just because we stayed at home and relaxed a lot, but I am feeling SO thankful for everything in my life. We are so lucky to have moved to this great neighborhood where there is never a dull moment (there are so many families with kids here now that there is sometimes an overabundance of activities to choose from!), our girls are happy, easily entertained, like to play with each other, like being at home but are flexible when we go out, are good to each other, Chris is such a wonderful husband and father (we are communicating really well right now!), and I just feel so blessed. So, why a picture of my refrigerator and pantry??? Well, obviously that is part of the reason we are so lucky (and I also love feeling so prepared and food-organized so I had to show you!) but I want to remember to really appreciate all we have. We have SO much in our lives from groceries to friends to our wonderful families and we are so thankful for it all.

I love Costco....probably too much!!

Our kissy girls...I love it when they aren't in fighting moods and love on each other so well!

Breakfast around the island...just a regular morning but I'm going to miss it so much when things start to change and the girls get bigger. I don't want to take this time for granted.

BLING!

Both girls now have ear BLING! Ali had been talking about getting her ears pierced for a while now and we finally decided to go. Elizabeth wanted her ears pierced also and I didn't think she'd be brave enough. But both girls did GREAT! They didn't cry or even squirm too much between the two piercings...I was impressed! They are so excited to have pretty earrings now!! :)

Ali got green emerald earrings (her birthstone) and Elizabeth picked out pink earrings (her favorite color).

A full house!

Uncle Colin, Doug, Oma and Opa and Ali around our fire pit outside...I loved having so many people at our house...it was really fun! We had air mattresses in 3 different areas plus the guest room being used...it was quite cozy!

Playing a game of cards after all the guys got back from their trip! They looked a bit tired but had a great time in Iowa!

I loved planning meals and everything for so many people! I got all of my recipes from my friend Melanie's amazing cooking blog!! :) Thanks Melanie! I love trying new recipes and making homemade things but I get some resistance from the little girls in my house....so when I get a chance to make a lot of grown up food... I love it! We had Honey-Lime Enchiladas, Minestrone soup, Frank's hot sauce chicken tacos, Pesto Pizza, Chocolate Truffle Sauce over ice cream, Granola for breakfast...YUM!!