Brrrrr....I mean Let it Snow!

We have gotten quite a lot of snow already this season - each of the last three weekends.  It already feels like more than we had last year altogether.  And, I don't mind it.  In fact it looks beautiful and we're not quite at that annoying, ugly February snow.  Right now we're still in the "it's new - it's snowing" feel of December.

I took some pictures the other night when the girls were playing and thought some turned out ok.  I was playing around with my camera settings to try and get the Christmas light pictures right, and am still learning.  But here's two girls out by all the lights, with lots of snow falling all around us!

 And Margot was catching snow flakes in her mouth.  She didn't last much longer - as you can see her hat and gloves were covered in snow and so she got cold pretty quickly.

 Sawyer and Isla lasted much longer - playing with the sleds and just generally running around - with some occasional posing for me.

 Isla was pretty psyched to be outside...

 Sometimes they play well together....

And while we got another couple of inches today, there's no playing outside because it is apparently 2 degrees, which feels like -15 degrees, and is certainly not a day to be outside for any amount of time. Though we do hope to get to the sledding hill over our holiday break after Christmas for some fun.  I will be sure to take pictures if we do.

And that's life around here lately.  The kids and Mark are headed to Michigan for a few days while I close out work for the year, and then will be back on my last day for us to start our Christmas celebrations together.  As the many Advent calendars show, we are counting down....

Many Visits to Santa

Well, like any good Christmas season should have, we've crossed paths with Santa several times.  First up was at the Lester Holly Days where we the kids did some holiday shopping at their school.  And while Sawyer wasn't willing to get in a picture these two girls were!

Then, at Margot's preschool party, Santa showed up to give each of the kids a present from the teachers.  It was really special, and they let each family get a picture of their kid with Santa, or even take family pictures in some cases.  Love how excited our girl is in this picture.

 Sawyer and Isla also saw Santa at the Indian Princess Caroling party the other night as well.  And because I had promised we went to "Santa's Grotto" as Isla calls it in town this weekend.  It is a little gingerbread house that is up from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and Santa is there on Saturday and Sunday for visits.  Margot went first - not scared this year!  She asked for a horse - hopefully a fake one.

Isla went second - asking for Barbies.  She was really surprised that Santa knew who she was when she walked up, and asked if Sawyer was being a good girl too.  Lucky for Sawyer, Isla said she was being good.

 Because there was no line, Santa came out to where Sawyer was standing against the toy store window and said "Come here Sawyer - if you don't come see me, I'm going to have to talk to Mrs Rhoades".  Ha - you should have seen her face - she was so surprised, and told me Santa must be real because no one told him who she was.  She was even convinced to take a picture which she was previously dead set against.

The girls were so well behaved, and had good manners, and so they were rewarded with a quick trip to the candy store before we headed home to relax.  They even indulged me in a picture with the four of us - I love it!

Hard not to have Christmas spirit with all this fun...

Recitals and Holiday Shows, Oh MY!

Isla and Margot both did ballet and tap this fall, and it all culminated in a small recital last weekend. Sadly, Mark got stuck in Vegas an extra night and had to miss it, but thankful for technology I was able to record each of the performances on my phone and he saw them anyway.

Both girls were excited, and happy to be wearing a bit of make-up.  Truth be told, Isla sort of scares me in makeup.  She's so darn pale it just didn't really work well on her.  Note to self when she gets older :).  But she looked darling otherwise.

Sawyer had a birthday party at the same time, and so because Mark was also not there, it was just me flying solo with these two.  I dropped them both off in the appointed room - here is Margot first in line for the first show!!  She looked adorable in her new ballet skirt and her hair in a pony tail.

I went and found a seat towards the back where I could record from, and had a great view of my girl waiting in line for her show to start.  Both were doing a tap routine - Margot's to Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Isla's to Jingle Bell Rock.  To say Margot was adorable is an understatement.  I know I'm biased, but I think others would agree.  She was probably the youngest/smallest in the group and certainly not the best dancer, but she kept up really well and made me smile.

Isla's group wore Santa hats and did a great job. I had watched the rehearsal the day before and I can say that they did a better job for the full performance than the practice.  Here she is about to start her performance on stage.

 It was great because they had six classes in each performance - and five or six performances throughout the day, so you only went to a show that was about 20-25 minutes long.  Luckily, my two girls were in the same session, so we went to one show and were done.

Then, two days later Mark and I had the pleasure of going to St Joe's Preschool holiday show.  It's held in the meeting room next door to the classrooms, and is so cute.  They sang six songs that correlated to the telling of the night Jesus was born.  Mark and I were in the front and had a great view of our girl.  She was a bit nervous we think b/c she came out mouthing her songs, but she did great, and boy does she love applause.  She locked eyes with Mark and I pretty much the whole show, so this was our view....

 While singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and raising her star in the air....

We stayed and had some snacks, took some pictures, and all around had a great last day of school until 2017.  Now she has THREE weeks off!  Dear god - this girl is going to be ready for school when the time comes.

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

We came home from our travels, did the birthday celebrations, but also remembered to get ourselves in the Christmas spirit.  Our Christmas decor was up within a few days of being home, and we've had Christmas movies and music going ever since.  Pictures of Santa to come in a different post, but there's a couple of festive ones, in no particular order, that I'll share.

My Christmas cards were pretty uninspired this year - I did it last minute and just didn't put enough effort into getting the right picture.  Here's a few contenders from when I was playing around....

 Our first night in new Christmas jammies...

 Each one uniquely posed very differently...with zero instruction from me!

 All different...

 Mark went away for marathon #31 in Vegas/Hoover Dam, and we spent our time doing fun stuff.  We went out for breakfast, watched movies, went to basketball games, and had a pizza picnic dinner.  We also got some cutout cookies made.  I didn't have Mark to help take pictures while I was doing the cookies, so no pics from the dough rollout/actual cutout phase of the process, but we have a few from decorating.  Everyone had their own station with sprinkles and a tray of frosted cookies.

 Haha - this picture kills me.  We had braided Isla's hair in the morning, and this was like 6p later that night when it was definitely all over the place and falling out.

 Sawyer is the methodical one of the group...both she and Isla have since had hair cuts so they're a bit cleaned up now!

 And one showing all three working away.

 A few more outtakes - some pics on our bed.

 All cuddled up together.  In these pictures they almost look like they love each other - in stark contrast to the amazing fights that they have with each other.

 And last but not least, each girl got their own advent calendar this year - their very first one - and it's been so funny to see them run downstairs in the morning to get their little piece of candy out.  We also have a magnetic advent calendar tree where you add an ornament daily to count down the days, and they have an order they go in.  It is very serious.

Another Birthday Celebration You Say?

Isla is an incredibly patient child, and this was her first "friends" birthday party.  She REALLY wanted one and we could think of no good reason to say no.  Mark took the reins and signed us up for a party at our park district with a magician.  It was awesome from a parent perspective because we didn't really do a whole lot.  We started out by playing with balloons while everyone arrived, then made our way into the gymnasium for some games with lots of running, quickly followed by pizza and drinks, and then on to the main event - the magic show.

It was really fun to see the kids faces, and when they got tricked they would yell or say WHOA, and it was just comical.  We had a pretty good sized group but it was lots of fun.

As the birthday girl, Isla even got to participate.  This is her helping with a trick, but her wand fell apart, which made her and everyone laugh.

After the magic show, we moved on to cupcakes.  Such a serious girl while her friends were singing to her.

After that, there was time for a quick picture with the hats, wands, and bunny rabbits we gave them and a bit of balloon play time before parents were back picking the kids up.  The time went incredibly fast.

We piled back in the car with a bag full of presents and headed home.  We all sat around and watched as Isla opened her presents - excited at EVERY single thing she was given.  Mark and I each retreated to different areas of the house to relax while leaving the kids to play with the new bounty of toys...and we got some great rest...but returned to this in our family room.  Looks very similar to Christmas morning, and felt like it too.

Quickly off to Buffalo

We quickly made our way to Buffalo on Friday after Thanksgiving because we had to say goodbye to one of my favorite people - my Grandpa.  Because my Dad's father passed before, or shortly after I was born, he was really the only one I knew, and suffice it to say he was really good at it.  It made for a very interesting holiday weekend because we saw our Harris family and our Wallace/Griffin family in the span of four days - A LOT of family.  We were in Buffalo less than 48 hours and crammed a lot into that space.  

We arrived in the afternoon at Aunt Alicia's and really just unpacked a few things and got ourselves cleaned up to go to the Wake.  It was a loud affair though nice to see some people I hadn't in awhile. My favorite thing about the whole affair was the pictures that had been pulled together.  There were pictures of my mom, aunts and uncles when they were little, pictures of a young Grandma and Grandpa with their siblings and friends, and also pictures of me and my siblings/cousins when were young.  This one in particular was my fave.  For one, we grew up spending a lot of time with the O'Connors and I have very good memories, and that is me in the bottom left - and I think Margot is my twin, and that is obviously Grandpa with us - we think we are singing...

We hadn't had the Wallace fam all together in probably three years or so (we think) and so not only were there some new cousins, but we were in need of an updated picture.  Think everyone loved to see each other, though they were less than excited about taking this picture.  Harlow and Margot were not having it - which is why Al and I are also in the picture.  Luckily we got a better picture later that night...but it's on Al's camera.

We also don't have a family picture...and after seeing all those old pictures it seemed appropriate we get one. Can't say it's an amazing picture - we probably should have done two rows or something, but hey - we are ALL in one picture!

 And following the funeral and reception everyone came back to Al's where we were staying for dinner.  It turns out Kate can plan a party even not at her own house and so we had a great dinner and ANOTHER cake for Isla's birthday - as this was Saturday - her real birthday.

And because her and Maeve played together all night, it's only appropriate to show them together with Maeve giving her a bit of help blowing out the candles...

We woke up the next day and let the kids play a bit while we packed.  Had some breakfast and got on the road for a very crowded drive home.  No complaints - we made it home safely and didn't have bad weather...though I have no desire to do a long car drive for awhile.  It was a draining weekend for me.

Thanksgiving in Michigan

November was pretty low key - we had a number of basketball games, and just random kid/work stuff going on.  Mark hightailed it to marathon #30 in Kansas the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Wasn't one of his favorites, but then again he didn't train as much as normal either.

When he got back, we finished up a few days of school and work and then journeyed over to Michigan for Thanksgiving this year.  We did the turkey, the stuffing, and all the good eats that you'd expect thanks to Grandma and Grandpa.  We also got to spend some time, not just with G&G, but also with Charlie, Ben and Ted which is always fun.  The girls especially love to see their cousins.  I really can't point to much of anything that they did - they played basketball outside a bit, played the piano, played a bunch of games, and ran around the house - but everyone pretty much got along great.

We also celebrated Isla's birthday - who benefits every year from being born the day after Thanksgiving.  This year her birthday fell on Saturday and though we left Friday morning, we celebrated her birthday on Thursday evening.

Mark and the girls had picked up a cake before we left Chicago, and Grandma and Grandpa picked up a ton of party extras - like crowns, buttons, balloons, plates, etc.  The house was decked out. Here's our girls in their crowns..

 And with the boys - who decided to do bunny ears...

 Isla getting sung to...

And she picked up several presents while we were there...but due to all the small pieces, we held off on opening them till our next stop.  But it's safe to say, she LOVED getting all her lego gifts.

The time went fast and we were off on Friday morning after breakfast