5-4-3-2-1 -- Happy New Year!

We had a little party at our house to celebrate New Years Eve. We did our countdown with everyone on the east coast... The girls (Elena, Maddie, and Aubrie) dressed as princesses and the boys (Zachary and Mark) wore princely crowns. Elena loved the crackers filled with prizes, party horns, and poppers. Her favorite poppers shot out confetti instead of streamers. The floor was nicely covered when we were all done celebrating...
Elena found another use for the streamers that came out of the poppers. The "wig" was passed around for everyone to wear and she then took their picture. Should we be worried about being blackmailed???

Walt was able to blow three horns at once so Elena had to try too. And try again, and try again, and again...


She did it!

Best wishes to all for a great 2009!

Christmas Snow

The snow came fast and furious and when it stopped we took a trip outside. Elena could barely make her way through the accumulation. (It was fun to watch her try, though.)

Elena and Auntie searched and searched and searched for the sled to take through the snow but it couldn't be found--in a pinch the blue plastic rocking pony will do. You just need a rope and some sucker to pull you . . . .

After a while that poor sucker (thanks Auntie) makes Elena wade her way back through the snow to make a snowman and some snow angels. (Even though Rainey created a nice path to walk on through the snow Elena insisted on forging her own path--more power to her!)

After a tough slog through all that snow a nice rest in the cushiony snow is just the ticket.

Christmas Morning

Here's our stockings hung for Santa to fill.
Santa loves to leave stocking presents at our house. Even Elena's giant stocking couldn't hold all her goodies! It was full of small cereal boxes, cars from Cars, My Little Pony ponies, and activity books.
Kitty Warrick loves Christmas too. It's a special time for him to cause trouble...

Elena dressed in her Santa dress and Rudolph hair bands. How festive for present opening! She couldn't wait to open her present from Santa - Jasmine with her horse! Just what she asked for!

Elena loved playing with her presents as they were opened - especially the craft kits. She got a stained glass set, make your own poodle kit, and moon sand!

Elena thanks everyone for all her presents. She looks forward to playing with everything over the coming weeks and spending her gift cards and cash at stores like Target, Fred Meyer, and Barnes and Noble.

Merry Christmas!

Snow in Kennewick

Nana and PopPop had snow - and lots of it! They never have snow!
Wow! There's enough snow to cover a baby! Zachary looks sleepy.

Elena loves the snow! And playing in the snow with her cousins creates wonderful memories.

Everyone wanted to go down the slide with Zachy. He put up with two trips, but then called it quits! Too cold, smashed inside a snowsuit that is a little short for him, and rolled in the snow at the bottom of the slide - time to take the baby inside!

Elena explains that she can't make a snow Rudolph. It just isn't working!

Presents in Kennewick

What's Christmas without presents?
Elena gets her hippopotamus!

In a whirl of wrapping paper, Elena, Ruby, Nattie, and Tate quickly opened the presents under the tree. Can't say it was done efficiently... but in the end, everyone ended up with their own gifts!

After presents, the family enjoyed a dessert of decorate-your-own-ice-cream. Nana calls the sprinkles "jimmies," what did PopPop call them?

Cousins in Kennewick

Pre-Christmas celebrations in Kennwick at Nana and PopPop's house brought together 5 cousins! They enjoyed playing MarioKart on the Wii.
The furious five surprised Nana with matching pajamas. Happy Christmas Nana!

Before opening presents, there was a show. Tate's contribution to the show was jumping off the presents. Don't worry, he didn't squish any.

Ruby, Nattie, and Elena performed a hopping, dancing, singing, chasing, dress-up show! Encore!

Elena loved being with her cousins at Nana's house. There were even sleepovers! The three girls started off together in Nana's bed, but 3 young girls in a bed during holiday season does not promote sleep...

After playing musical sleeping arrangements, they found peaceful rest in their sleeping bags under Nana's Christmas tree. Can you see the visions of sugar plums?

Thanks for the wonderful visit Nana, PopPop, Uncle Greg, Aunt Sarah, Ruby, Nattie, Tate, Aunt Amy, Caleb, and Cat.

Snow Fun

It doesn't matter what time it is, you can always have fun in the snow. On this late afternoon Elena decided that the swing would be a fun snow toy.

The best thing is that it makes the ground closer and you can have extra fun by kicking snow a the person taking pictures! Watch out!

Aha! Snowballs are another good snow toy. But, since most everybody stayed inside Elena had to throw them at the door and pretend she was throwing them at Daddy and Aunt Amy.

But, alas, the snowball thrower becomes the snowball target and runs away through the swiftly falling flakes. Maybe next time, young runner, maybe next time.

Elena's photo ideas

Elena and her "great ideas" are apparent in the following pictures that she staged with herself and Zachary. In this picture she thought it would be cute for them to peek around the wall.

In this one Elena decided to have a nice picture of her and Zachary sitting together--how cute!

Why wait for the picture to be printed to be put in a frame? Elena's next "great idea" had her including the frame in the picture. She's sure to become a millionaire inventor--lucky parents!

Let's get another one.

Look Ma, no hands! Her cute little face and those rosy cheeks keep the frame in place.

And Zachy gets in on the action, too. With the help of some helpful hands.

SNOW!

Snow! And no school! School was delayed 2 out of 3 days this week, the last day was cancelled. Christmas vacation starts early! Elena put her snow suit on over pjs, didn't even wait to get dressed. Good thing last year's snow suit still fits! Rainey loves the snow too. She had fun rolling in it and chasing any ball (tennis or snow) that Elena would throw.

Ooh, good use of the sand toys, E!

Auntie played in the snow too. They made these cute snow people together.

The snow storm gave Jim a three hour commute home on Wednesday, and he stayed home and off the roads on Thursday. Roads are icy and the snow won't melt anytime soon because it is so cold! Hope everyone is staying warm! Elena's favorite way to warm up after being outside is a nice big cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Sitting on the heater vents work too...

A Candy Home

Ooh, who lives there? Elena created a wonderful home for two gingerbread people. She wishes they had a pony and Rudolph too. Putting on the finishing touches. She had lots of help from her daddy with piping the icing and tasting the candies...

Elena thinks she's going to be a spokes-model. Do they still have a contest for that on Star Search? Is Star Search even on anymore?

Christmas tree time!

Elena and Auntie prowl the Christmas tree farm for the best tree ever!
Elena liked this egg shaped tree.

Walt helps hold/pull the tree while Jim saws, and saws, and saws.

Elena's favorite ornament is the singing Ariel. She had to be the first ornament on the tree! Cute headband E.

Here it is all decorated! Our ribbon and garland aren't long enough to fit this whopper. We'll make a trip to Costco to get a spool of bright red ribbon to add as decoration. Look at our stockings hung too!

Making soup

Elena said she wanted to cook something all by herself, so she was given a bowl and a whisk and told to have at it.
She was very good about asking if she could put certain ingredients in and then only using a small amount. The ingredient list included ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, food coloring, cooking spray, coffee, baking soda, sugar, cornstarch, flour, etc. Her favorite was grating chocolate into the mix.

In the end, she called her concoction Pumpkin Pie Soup. She even tasted it - YUCK! Actually, yuck was what she said after she swallowed :-)