CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve yummies for Santa!  I know for a fact that he enjoyed them...

 And the girls also sprinkled reindeer dust in the front yard for the reindeer to see and come to our house FIRST!  Here's our Christmas tree after our visit, I love how the ornaments made there way to the top half of the tree.  (Thanks Kylie) Kadyn was a little too hands on.

Us at the top of the stairs waiting for Daddy to give us the go-ahead, that all cameras were ready.  We seriously were waiting for 10 minutes, which is eternity kid's time on Christmas morning.

Not too thrilled that I'm in the picture, but Kacey's face is priceless as she's heading to the tree and seeing it for the first time.

Opening the presents! 

The cleaning crew... love it!

Matthew and all his Wii glory!

I love the girls in the back of this picture, doing teamwork clean-up.  Good girls!

Games, games, and more games...

Thanks Uncle Aaron, it now sits beside her bed.

Kadyn was walking around with this big Christmas bag like a purse, it was cute!

I can hardly believe Christmas. Where did the time go?!?  My heart breaks that I have to send Kylie back to school tomorrow and we're back into our same old, same old routine.  Although we're starting ballet up again with a bunch of friends... so that's lots of fun!

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Here's to a New Year and new things... as in a baby in August!

Kacey's Preschool Christmas Program

Kacey's Preschool class put on an adorable program about the symbols of Christmas.  Year after year, I'm continually impressed with the effort Mrs. Tate goes through for the learning and progression of her preschool kids.  The love and dedication she has to them is amazing, and it shows.  Tate goes above and beyond, and she's more than just a teacher to my girls.  I'm so grateful for all she has done for my girls who have gone to her year after year-- let's see how many more years I can talk her into doing it so I can send Kadyn too--- (more to come on  Kylie... later)... Now, it's Kacey's time to shine...

My sweet little thing :)

Kacey's symbol was the wreath, here she is putting it on the tree.

And she recited, with Mrs. Tate's help: "Eternal love, no beginning, no end.  Love never ends."

Kacey's Gingerbread House that she made during her Christmas party at school.  Within moments of this photo, Kylie and Kacey had both devoured it.... licked it to shreds until it was unrecognizeable. 

The Sunday Before Christmas

I can not believe Christmas is already here, not sure where exactly the time went!  Unfortunately, we wore our adorable matching Christmas dresses last week and didn't get a picture because Matthew was at the Redskins game in Oakland (dresses from Aunt Chiarina, thank you!)  So, we'll have to get a picture of them up soon... but here we are anyways this past Sunday...

Kylie is becoming such a little ham for the camera!  Her new favorite saying is, "I'm stylish," and she does some sort of cute pose like this. :)

Ward Christmas Party

This year's Ward Christmas Breakfast was fabulous!  So much yummy hot food, great set-up, and a fabulously energetic Santa! 

The girls loved him... Kadyn not so much.

Kylie's Parent/Teacher Conference

So not to go into too much detail :)  We had our first Parent/Teacher Conference last week.  We met with Kylie's teacher, not knowing what to expect.... never done this before.  Obviously, my child is perfect and anyone who'd like to challenge me on that is going to suffer consequences... sorry, that sounds bad... but I'm an Italian mother.  That's the way it is.  I'm my kid's biggest cheerleader and no one's going to protect them and build their confidence like me.  I've had too many bad teachers to choose their side over my kid's side.  That being said, good luck to any teacher my kids have... right?!?!  Funny thing is my mom and both Matthew's parents are teachers, my aunt's a retired principal, you'd think we'd have some sympathy. 

Anyhow, we were truly excited to learn that Kylie's teacher felt the same way about her that we did.  Kylie's excelling in her class- she'd met the Kindergarten requirements for the end of the year, by the end of September.  (Thank you Tate!)  She's very kind and compassionate to the other children... and the teacher is going to keep Kylie thriving by giving her mid-to end of the year first grade material... because academically, that's where she's at.  Her teacher also strongly suggested Kylie going to a Magnet School.  Kylie's teacher had nothing but wonderful things to say, I think she said fabulous about 37 times in 25 minutes.  Needless to say, we're very proud of our little school girl!

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Happy Birthday!  Nicole is THE best mother and wife in the entire world.  She is so caring, loving, and nurturing!  She continues to impress me day after day with how talented she is and she has amazing skills that make our marraige and family that much better. 

Please join me in wishing this amazing woman a very happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Babe!  We love you! 

Thankful Thursday

I love that I have such a bossy, in control, it's my way only-type of 5 year old.  Because come time to do Kacey's homework, Kylie's hovering over her -pretending she's the teacher- saying, "Now do a straight line, hold the pencil like this, good... color it red, no no not like that... do it this way.  Now that's the letter J.  Go here, write your name..."  I'm thinking this is great.  In years to come, I can help Kyile with her homework, she can help Kacey and we'll do the trickle down effect.  TEAMWORK!  It's fabulous!  :)

Catching Up!

Sunday Afternoon Picture

Three little munchkins!

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Saturday night was St. Nicholas Day, where we put out our shoes and we're given a little surprise to let us know how we've been doing all year.  Traditionally, it's supposed to be fruit and nuts.

But we settle for chocolate and dvds!

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Then Saturday morning was the pancake breakfast at school.  Santa was there :)

I missed all this because I was volunteering.  But I was very proud of Matthew... I had to get there early to set up and he got all 3 girls ready to come later on.  He got everyone dressed (same outfits), did their hair, all had matching bows (matching eachother and matching their outfits), and he used hairspray!  How awesome is that?!?!

The best part was when Kylie said that they didn't brush their teeth.  He felt the pressure to make sure they were cute and matching, with good "hair-sprayed" hair... but he forgot the teeth!  It's rough to be Mom :)  But I was still very proud of his efforts, Kacey's curls can be difficult and he did all the steps.

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Me-Tate-Jodi-Rochelle volunteering, it was a fun morning!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yeah, so a little late.  I've been super busy lately, Disneyland photos still to come!****************

But, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We had Matthew's parents come in and my parents, Uncle Aaron was here... with his new girlfriend, who's a delight, and who happens to be from Vegas.  Good times!  We had so much food, everything was fabulous if I do say so myself! :)

This is the dessert table, everything from pies to brownies and lemon squares.  The girls were very fond of my hand dipped chocolate pretzels.  They stole as many as they could!

In fact, after the girls were done eating, we let them go play in the toy room... we were still at the table.  But then Kylie walked out of the toy room and shut the light.  Kacey didn't scream that she was left in the dark?  We began a search for Kacey, we had no clue where she was.

Little sneak, she'd took a chocolate covered pretzel and hid.  She didn't even respond when we were calling her... she was too busy munching away on her yumminess!  This is her caught, brown handed.  It was the cutest thing. 

One of my sweet baby :)

More...

We have decorated for Christmas... I feel so behind this year!  We had Disneyland and then company with Thanksgiving, so we're late on decorating.  Only 2 trees are up, the train's up, my beautiful handmade stockings from my sweet sister in law Rose, and the Willow Tree Nativity is up... please tell me why that's the one the girls want to play with!!!!  As of Sunday night, not 12 hours of decorations being up, the girls had already broke 3 bulbs! :)  We're nearly half done with tree #3, at least all the stuff is sitting on the ground in the study just waiting.  I don't think we'll make it to 6 this year... but there's always next year!  I keep telling myself that I just need to survive this week with the PTA Pancake Breakfast and organizing all the tickets and money (why did I become treasurer again?), then next week it's the not Enrichment anymore, Christmas Enrichment.  Then maybe I can think about Christmas cards... never a dull moment!  And I wouldn't have it any other way!!!

And this is Uncle Aaron's new girlfriend, Valerie.  She's a doll, super sweet.  She's coming back for Christmas break to color my hair (she's in hair school) and gave me an awesome cut this weekend.  The girls adore her and say that "Uncle Aaron loves her and she's going to be their Aunt."  Get on this Aaron! :)

Sunday Afternoon Pictures

We're finally back into the swing of things.  I've got 262 pictures from Disneyland to sort through, then I'll do a post. :)  We had a really great time!

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Saturday Afternoon Pictures

(we painted a wall, can you tell?)

And yes, I've seen New Moon 3 times.  You were all wondering, so I thought I'd mention it. :)