Merry Christmas with our friends!

Katie and Tyler came over for a Christmas celebration :)

Ohhhh these kids are so much fun!!!! Here's Tyler working on his gifts :) I hope he loves them!!! I had so much fun picking songs for his little player :)

Now it's Mikayla's turn. Katie totally set our little teacher in training up with a full set of teaching materials!!! AMAZING!!!! (I love how T wants to see "what's in der")

Oh baby baby baby uhhhh (spoken just like Justin) LOL

PROJECTOR!!! OMG can you believe this!!!! This projector was Katie's when she was little and a "teacher" herself!! I see many many many hours of serious play time with this bad boy!!!! (I'm sure not just for her...LOL - as I sit here hiding the ink on my fingers LOL)

Tyler says.... "what's dat"

ooohhhhhh...

Seriously Santa knows the Easter bunny....right? So what's Christmas with out Easter eggs :D

What's Christmas without a little Twilight too?

After the gifts, we let the kids ride their bikes out front for awhile. Tyler got the coolest bike ever, it's a strider...no pedals or training wheels...he pushes with his legs to go, and lifts them up so he can learn his balance to ride, he will be on the smallest bike EVER with no training wheels!!! What a great idea, right?

notice the legs on the right of the picture below...yes, Katie's running.....

running to be the "mamaratzi"!!! LOL it's all about the pictures hee hee (never mind the curb or car, get that picture!).... LOL

here they come!!! weeeeeeeeeeee

"Miss Kayla....wait for me"

the cruisers.......... seriously they had so much fun! I LOVE Tyler's strider, it is so cool!!!!

here they come...now please notice Tyler.... he looks a little tippy in this one....

UH OH, he's GOIN DOWN....

"I OK"

Phew!!! Good times!!

Give me a scream for fun....

:) please don't think it was only Tyler doing the screaming!!! LOL

FUN FUN FUN

Ohhhh scream again LOL

Well why not!!! What fun we all had!!! They were both totally sweaty when they were done, it got warm with all their winter gear on but that sure didn't stop the fun!!! :)

Santa's Wonderland

Christmas Day night (not confusing at all, right?) we drove to Santa's Wonderland. There are acres and acres of lights to drive through. We had so much fun!!! Mikayla had a blast, she has already taken over 500 pictures on her new camera and surely 100 of them were here, she went from one side of the car to the other side!! She even drained the battery on the camera!!!! We had a near melt down about it but thankfully my phone charger is the same plug size as her camera so it was trying to charge while she kept snapping pictures :)

Seriously stunning light displays.

HE CAME..... HE CAME..... HE CAME.......

Christmas morning!!!

WOW!!!!!

This was by far our best year to date, each year gets more and more fun. Mikayla was really incredible this year. She slept with her Nana on Christmas Eve. I figured we'd have plenty of warning when they came down so I could get into position for her surprises.... well...it didn't exactly go that way. Michael was up and had just fed the dogs and came back to bed, and I suspect that Mikayla heard the pantry door close and she is 100% positive that sound she heard was Santa. So I guess she and Nana had quite a conversation about it and Mikayla HAD to check it out. So Nana said, ok then come back and tell me what you find....well....

she came downstairs...quiet as a mouse.....when all of a sudden the SCREAMING started!!! HE CAME....HE CAME.... MOMMY, DADDY, COME QUICK.....HE CAME......NANA!!!!!!

She scared the you know what out of me because I was soooo asleep when the screaming started :) WHAT FUN!!!!! I have been waiting for this kind of reaction...and I WAS SLEEPING right through it!!!!! I wish I had been able to capture it on video but maybe next year I'll be able to beat her in there!!!

Here is the little set up she came in and saw.



She asked Santa for a camera, dress up clothes and a guitar strap. I was able to capture her expression when she saw her camera!!



Ohhhh the clothes!!!!

and beaded hand bags of course ;)

YAY!!!!!

She's READY to open the other treasures!!!!

Some of her favorite things that she opened are below not all of them though :)

Blankie I made her :) it was quite a project and ended up being so big when I started, that I had to cut it back to make it manageable (and finishable).

Fun little hat and scarf I made her.

She had a GREAT TIME!!!! (we did too!!!)

Here she is taking Nana on a "hunt" for animals, she put her new back pack on Nana and was taking pictures of the animals as they ran past.

Nana and Jingle.

Cowgirl Mikayla

The first picture she took with her new camera.

So after some play time and clean up, we were waiting for my dad to come over so we could open our stockings! Now our Santa does have a tendency to over do the stockings so the goodies don't fit inside...so they have to be filled then secured to a gift bag so the goodies don't get all mixed up. My mom started that years ago...and well, I guess the tradition continues.

Mikayla is READY to open!! :)

We really had a fabulous day. We enjoyed a traditional turkey dinner with all the fixings and hopefully made some more really great memories for her to remember. I know I'm really having a great time!!! It wasn't all about the gifts either, what made it even more special was that we celebrated Jesus birth.

Merry Christmas Eve!!

We met up with the family for lunch on Christmas Eve. The food was fantastic, the company was even better!!!

LOL, taking a picture of MIL taking a picture (yes....dork...I know... LOL)




The kiddos always have a great time!

Then we went over to church. This year we actually got seats inside and all together. This was our view to the other side of church. It was an amazing service, absolutely beautiful!

Then out to our traditional place for dinner :) the white sweater coat she's wearing, my grandma made about 40 years ago, both my sister and I wore it when we were little.

I love the goofy shots!!!

My dad painted some fantastic gifts for Mikayla....at this exact moment, she was just overcome!! She couldn't help herself and I'm pretty sure she put as much love into this hug that she could!



Merry Christmas!!!!

Last Day of School

What a season we've had!! I have so many pictures to share!!! I'll start at the beginning and mid January you'll be all caught up LOL!

Here is Mikayla's last day of school party. I went to the part of her party I was allowed to attend and then brought her back to work with me. She has been a busy little girl! Here she is sharing with the class the book she opened. The kids did a book exchange gift. They had a blast and it was really funny when the kids wanted to keep the book they brought but they weren't supposed to LOL.

So after her party, she came to work with me for the rest of the day, then she went to my dad's house for Wed/Thurs (had a sleepover on Wed too), then Friday came to work with me for 1/2 day.

She was a busy beaver for sure!!!