Breakfast with Santa!

A couple of weeks ago while eating dinner at Chick Fil A, the kids noticed a sign announcing that Santa was coming on two selected days to have breakfast at the restaurant!  Since my kids have never been big fans of seeing Santa (just having him visit our house!), I didn't think much of them pointing it out to me.  They continued to talk about it, so I figured there was no loss in making a reservation as we all like a good breakfast out of the house!  And as the picture above shows, it went even better than expected!!  This is our first ever picture with Santa where all in the picture are happy!!

 

Olivia is telling Santa that she would like puppy surprise for Christmas!  I love how the older two are listening intently!

 

Shane asked for Star Wars Legos, and Faith asked for an American Girl doll!  I was actually surprised what a successful morning it was, not only the kids doing so well with Santa, but Chick Fil A was very organized and made it a fun event!

 

Faith loved the cow dressed as an Elf.  Olivia on the other hand continues to be petrified of the cow!  She said she doesn't like not seeing his eyes!

Better Together Christmas Party

On our last day of Better Together before Christmas, we had a crazy Christmas dress up day!  Shane and Olivia chose to wear their Santa pajamas, while Faith preferred to wear her normal clothes!  It was fun to see so many of the students and adults wearing festive clothes, hats, and decorations!

 

Olivia had to have a picture of just her to show off her disco dancing boots (as she likes to call them!) and her backpack!

 

In chapel the kids helped to tell the Christmas story, complete with costumes!  Faith and Olivia were angels!

 

Here are all those who participated in the Christmas story presentation!  It was a fun, chaotic, memorable rendition of the Christmas story!  I think even a few songs were sung while in costume!

 

Later that evening Steve and I went to a church Christmas party at Pastor and Cindy's house!

First Family Party!

This past weekend we had our first family Christmas party! 

 

The huge present was for Olivia!  She was surprisingly patient as she waited quite a while to open it! 

Faith was so excited to receive a Barbie head for doing hair and makeup!  She wondered how Uncle Russell knew she wanted one!

 

Finally the time came for the box to be lifted!  Olivia was thrilled to find the Barbie Jeep she was dreaming of for the past month!  Thanks to Craigslist and having a birthday close to Christmas, Uncle Russell came through with the big deal of the day! 

 

She wasted no time driving around, sending fear into all the bunnies and old ladies of Leisure World! 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

December has arrived, and so have all the fun, festivities, and traditions!  Our elf on the shelf, Freddy, is back, and with him arrived these adorable Santa pajamas!

 

Once the Nutcracker was over, we were all home and able to decorate the Christmas tree!  The kids are old enough that they could do all the work!  They loved seeing all the ornaments and taking about where they were from or who gave them to us!

 

They did a nice job!  And I did make that bow straighter when it was all said and done!

 

Also early on in the month, the kids sang "O Come O Come Emmanuel" at our church's midweek Advent service!

 

 

Even Cotillion has a Christmas party, and since Steve was out of town for a class, all three crazy kids went to Cotillion this time!  Shane enjoyed joining in on the Mexican Hat Dance, and Olivia and Shane both were able to go out to dance the Hokey Pokey!  Until they last 10 minutes or so, they did really well! 

 

As always the room was beautifully decorated for the Cotillion party!  It looks extra festive in this picture as the kids were dancing and trying to keep a balloon in the air!

More from the Nutcracker!

After a week off for Thanksgiving, Faith and all the other ballerinas were back in the studio to prepare for the final Nutcracker weekend!  They did four more shows over the course of three days.

Here are Faith and a few friends waiting backstage!  It was really nice for them at the Ventura shows as there were tvs backstage so they could watch what was happening onstage while they were waiting for their turn to dance!

 

In the tv room watching the show!

 

Here is an onstage photo taken from the wings by one of the directors! Faith is the mouse on the far right, closest to the sleeping Clara! 

 

One more of the adorable midnight mice!  Faith loved every moment of performing, and she is already dreaming of next year the possibility of a new role!

 

Happy Birthday Olivia!

While we were at the lake, Olivia celebrated her third birthday!  We had so much fun celebrating this sweet, funny, wild, delightful little lady!

 

For weeks and weeks Olivia has been talking about how all she wanted for her birthday was a rainbow cake!  Since we were out of town, I was hoping the local grocery store would be able to come through for us with a fitting cake!  Thankfully, Friday morning they had the above pictured cake (minus the rainbow!), and when I asked if a rainbow could be added it was no problem!  Olivia was thrilled!

 

After opening gifts and enjoying the rainbow cake, the kids played some games together out on the lawn!  First up was a sack race!  The kids loved it!

 

Next was a limbo contest!  The rules were a bit lax, and the kids were able to go low!  After the kids had their fun, the adults took a turn!  I will spare all those who participated and not post the pictures and videos that I have of the limbo contest!

 

Daddy and his three year old!  It's hard to believe that she is that old!  We love you to pieces Olivia Constance!

Havasu Thanksgiving!

Happy (late!) Thanksgiving from our family to yours!  Once again, we have so much for which to be thankful!  Health, family, a church we love, great friends, our home, and so so so much more!  We were grateful to once again escape for a few days to Lake Havasu and spend Thanksgiving with some family!

 

The weather was quite a bit cooler than last year, but it couldn't keep the kids and the dads out of the heated pool.  On the side sat all the moms and grandmas bundled up as if it were about to snow!

 

Thanksgiving lunch was at one of our favorite restaurants, The Springs, and it was delicious!  No one left disappointed or hungry!  And the best part was someone else did all the preparing and cleaning!  Faith enjoyed having Grandma Poelstra and her friend Anna with us!  I don't have any pictures of it,  but for dinner that evening we all brought an appetizer to share.  Shane discovered a love for smokie links, and we all fell in love with Brittany's buffalo chicken dip!  All the appetizers were tasty and enjoyed by all!  It was a fun way to end the day!

 

After the noon meal on Thanksgiving, we went over to the Parker Dam to check it out!  Everyone is looking at the water from the lake traveling into the dam.

 

I don't know what he's telling her, but it's probably something he learned on Wild Kratz, a show on PBS!  Both Shane and Haley have a love for that show!

 

In addition to all going out for Thanksgiving, we also all went out for dinner Friday night to the Golden Horseshoe!  They had the perfect table for our group of 16!!

 

The birthday girl enjoyed her dinner out with all the family!

 

It was a wonderful weekend filled with food, family, and fun!  We were thankful so many wanted to join us at the lake for a bit of a non-traditional Thanksgiving weekend!

Nutcraker Weekend

This past weekend Faith danced in her second Nutcracker ballet! Once again it was a crazy, magical, wild, fun, exhausting, beautiful weekend!  This was a picture of Faith before we left for the first show on Saturday afternoon!  There were three shows this weekend!

Faith is one of the midnight mice in this year's production!  It's an adorable role!!

 

Here she is with most of her mice friends! (Faith is on the far right!)  All the dancers did a wonderful job, and if you missed the show, there are four more the first weekend of December in Ventura!  Even as I was driving home a very tired dancer Sunday evening, she was already looking forward to the December shows!

Halloween and more!

Even though I didn't take many pictures on Halloween, I had to post a few shots that I do have!  The above picture was from Trunk-or-Treat and was taken by my friend Cindy!  Shane just loved bobbing for apples! 

 

One more from Friday night!  Faith is playing our witch toss game! This is also concrete proof that I was not a cowgirl again this year.  The kids helped me venture out into the superhero world! 

 

Because Halloween was on a Saturday, our day started out with ballet and soccer!  Shane's season is almost over. It's fun to see how much he has improved over the season!  He really hustles and seems to understand the game more each game!

 

This is the lone picture I have of all three from Halloween!  Faith was disappointed that she was going to miss out on the first part of the party we were going to because of Nutcracker rehearsal!  As it turns out, the mice were let out early and she and Steve arrived at the party just as we were starting dinner!

 

The highlight of the night for these two was passing out candy!  They were so cute and so excited!

 

Monday morning arrived, and the weather had finally changed after the summer that would not end!  It was finally cool, cloudy, and comfortable!  I was inspired to tackle a challenge, so I offered to buy Olivia a toy on our trip to Target if she threw away all of her pacis!  We usually take them away at age three, but since we will be out of town, I was wanting to do it either before or after our trip.  She actually took me up on my offer, threw them away, and picked out the toy she's playing with in the above picture!  It's a Doc McStuffins Pet Vet kit.  She loves it!  And I'm shocked once again how easily one of our kids has given up the beloved pacifier!  They all seemed so attached that it was going to be a terrible even for all involved, but each of them did fine after a few tears on the first day.  Yeah for Olivia and yeah for us not having to keep track of that thing anymore!

 

Later Monday afternoon it actually rained for about 20 minutes!  These two seized the moment and went to play while it lasted! 

Trunk or Treat!

Tonight was the annual Trunk or Treat at our church!  Of course the kids were excited to wear their costumes, receive some candy, and also play games!  This year the kids are going as a cat, Ultron, and Minnie Mouse (again!). 

 

Since the kids were looking forward to the event all day, it was nice that we had a good excuse to get ready and head over early since we had two trunks to get ready!  Faith found another cat friend right away!  Jaylee, one of her friends from Better Together!

 

The festivities started at 5pm.  The van hosted the game "Witch Toss" where the kids had to toss rings on witch hats!  It was a huge hit!  Probably because we were very generous with the candy!

 

Steve's truck had a bowling game!  It was a huge hit, and he even won best trunk!  It looked really neat when it was dark and the bowling pins glowed!

 

Shane had fun bobbing for apples!  He ended up winning three of them!  I was happy to let him eat as much of the apples as he wanted!  In addition to the trunk or treating, there was also a chili cook-off!  Steve's special chili won first prize!!!!   That made the kids extra excited!

 

One final picture of our cat, Faith!  The sweet girl is learning one of those hard lessons of life tomorrow night!  Her rehearsal for the Nutcracker ballet is from 5-6:30pm!  While she is sad to be late to the Halloween party we will attend and subsequently miss out on some trick-or-treating, it's a good lesson in life in keeping to commitments and doing what is required as opposed to what you might want to do!  Happy Halloween!