It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!!!

The first day of December,

and the girls are getting ready with their new Advent Calenders.

This year I couldn't find the ones with Chocolates, so we are doing these Princess Stickers.

Madison doesn't get it, why stop at one a day?

I know all these flaps have stickers, lets play!

She also loves to put them back where they came.

Why are we taking picutres again?!?

Visiting Santa when we went to get Emma's tree.

Emma wanted to go to a tree farm (or lot) this year,

So we decided to go get her a real tree.

I didn't know that I missed the smell of real trees so much,

until this came home with us.

IT SMELLS WONDERFUL!!

Emma walked the entire lot, and picked this perfect tree,

with no help from us.

The tree on the car!

It's not much bigger then Emma!

Daddy's idea of putting the lights on!!

Thanks Dad!

(He did do it right, after teasing Emma)

This gives me the best of both worlds,

A tree upstairs with my matching ornements,

and a tree downstairs with all of the kids homeade ornements,

and all of our memory ornements.

This is our annual trip to wheeler farm.

We love to go see Santa in the farmhouse,

have hot cocoa by the fire, and

ride the tractor around to see the lights.

We have been every year since Emma was one.

Emma waiting at the door to the farmhouse to go see Santa.

Val and Madison catching up.

Madison got close to Santa just long enough to get a candy cane.

But Emma loves Santa.

This guy does a great job as Santa, he has been at Wheeler farm every year.

Standing by the fire, trying to keep warm.

Both kids loved the lights all over,

but got so cold we were all ready to go home

by the time we got off the tractor.

October and November Highlights...

These pictures are not in order, sometimes with blogger I just don't get it right.

But anyway...

This is Madison's first time in the snow this winter.

She was sure it was bubbles when she saw it on the lawn, and could spend all day every day outside. Unfortunatly for her, her mother doesn't have a very high tolerence for cold.

Didn't understand what it was doing on her car.

Painting pumpkins for Halloween.

They had such a great time.

The girls wore these costumes in Disneyland,

and when Emma wanted to wear it again,

I figured it would be so cute for them both to be Minnie.
Pretty soon Madison will have an opinion, and I won't be able to do this.

Emma's showing her tail.

Madison with her "Madison shirt"

given to her by her aunt Brandy.

The girls are painting

(a favorite past time),

and Madison is talking on the phone

(one of her new favorite past times).

She will bring me the phone and say, "talk daddy?", or "talk grandma?"

If I am on the phone she is right there asking for a turn,

so if you call, you may have to spend a minute saying Hi to Madison.

Cousins

We were so blessed to have 2 baby cousins born this month.

My girls were so excited about the arrival of the babies,

but Emma doesn't seem to care much now that they are here.

This is my sister Robin's little girl, Bailey Ann Touchard.

She is so beautiful!!

Bailey with her eyes open.

Both babies together on the day after Thanksgiving.

My brother Mike, or also refer to as Tomestone Jesus.
He wanted to hold Madison at the same time,
but she didn't want anything to do with him.
Madison loves to hold the babies.
This is her with my brother Eric's little girl
Lyndsee Dawn.
She is pointing out the the baby has a binky.
She is so jealous!
Madison loves the babies for a few minutes,
but then shoves them out of her lap like "get her away from me!"

Emma was just so excited to see her cousin Taylor,
nothing else really mattered.
She was happy that she was able to spend the night with Taylor
over at her grandparents.
Will, Reagan, Taylor

Zoo

We took the girls to the Zoo in the first of November to see the baby elephant before it got too cold. We had a great day. It is so much fun to see the zoo through their eyes.

Happy Birthday Emma!!

On October 26 our first born baby turned 5 years old

despite all the times I tell her to quite growing.

She says, "Well God makes me grow!"

The Saturday before we had a huge birthday party at our house,

with 15 little kids.

Her party list was over 20 kids,

and we made her scale it down a bit, since we live in a pretty small house.

We did a Princess Tea Party.

We ate little sandwhiches, chocolate covered pretzels shaped like butterflies,

unicorn horns filled with ice cream,

and this cake that she saw a picture of and had to have.

The kids made crowns, we played some fun games (like pin the kiss on the frog),
ate, and they all eventually ended up outside.

Emma got an Easy Bake Oven for her birthday.
These are the first cookies she made.

She also got this froster.

What a mess!!

But a fun mess.

She loves these heart shaped cookies that her friend Sierra sent her from Colorado.

Family Pictures

Emily Hatch did such an amazing job on our family pictures this year.

Here is a good sample of what she took.

It was SO COLD the morning that we went out to do pictures,

which is why we stayed in our coats the whole time!

Thanks Emily!

To see more of her great work check out...

www.carpediemportfolio.com

www.carpediemphotography.blogspot.com