Merry Christmas!

It has been an eventful two weeks here so I'll just dive right in!  My last day of school was December 20th which means I have 17 days off!!  Woo-hoo!  Not that I'm counting or anything.  Even better, dad's last day of work was December 21 and he is off until January 7.  Boy, has he earned it and I will reward him with some really intense daddy/daughter time!  Mom is working here and there but things aren't real busy this time of year so she is around more than usual which is OK, I guess.  She sure isn't Dat Dat though.

We finally got around to decorating our backyard.  It is kind of the thing to do here since we are packed in so tight in Highlands Ranch and everyone can see your backyard.  It's kind of a lot of pressure but it is nice and sparkly now so we are good to go.

In the midst of all the holiday craziness, we got to celebrate Dad's birthday.  Mom got him a sound bar for our new TV and it is pretty awesome.  Nana D and Mr. Walker made their appearance Saturday afternoon and we headed out to Parry's pizza for a birthday dinner.  I'm sure it was a fabulous birthday for dad!

Sunday was a lay around and relax kind of day.  Nana and Mr. took me to get my hair cut and then we tried for the park but Mr. Walker was being an old grandmama and cut it short because my hair was still wet and he thought it was to cold to be out with wet hair.  Pansy.   That night we watched Dad's other birthday present- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  This is our new holiday tradition and occasionally hits a little too close to home!

Monday was Christmas Eve and I was in full on Santa mode.  I spent a good part of the day drawing pictures of reindeer to leave out for Santa.  I also helped out with the never ending cookie baking and decorating.

In the afternoon, mom and I headed out to deliver some cookies to friends and neighbors, not because we are nice but because we have waaaaay to many cookies and needed to pawn some off on people.  Christmas cookies are the zucchini of December!

We then got all gussied up and headed out to Christmas Eve mass, where I spent most of the complaining about how boring it all is and the adults spent the time listening to an uplifting sermon about how "ill" we all are.  We all left church in a fabulous mood.  Good thing there was wine and beer waiting when we got home!

We got in a couple of classic family photos......

And then sat down to a yummy dinner of Vaquero Stew.  I honestly could not wait for that to be over because WE NEEDED TO GET TO BED!!!  I got Santa's cookie tray ready, reindeer food ready, left out his card and pictures and headed off to bed, dreaming of sugarplums (whatever those are).  Everyone else headed off to bed shortly there after for a restful night's sleep, except for mom.  She woke out of a sound sleep at 1:14 AM and realized that Santa had not been to our house yet.  So she tip-toed down the stairs, ate the cookies, drank the milk, hid the reindeer food and my pictures and headed back to bed with a tummy full of sweets.  It was a good thing she did wake up because a mere three hours and 50 minutes later, I was in mom and dad's room, quietly mentioning all the new presents under the tree.  I climbed into bed with them and actually settled down pretty good but I think dad was getting more anxious than me because he decided it was time to get up at 5:15.  Mom sent me in to wake up Nana and Mr. and we were off to the races!
I was surprisingly restrained and actually had Nana and Mr. open some presents before I dove into mine.  It was sooo worth the wait!

This is my cool Jordansaurus shirt from Uncle Adam and Aunt Erin

This is me opening my 10 tons of Skylander's stuff which also included a Skylander's carrying case from Uncle Tim and Aunt Dana.  That was mom's favorite gift because she isn't particularly crazy about having 50 Skylander figures willy-nilly around the house.  Containment is good!

Even though we only had a high of 19 degrees, we were all getting a little stir crazy so we bundled up and headed out for a hike to the sledding hill near our house.  It ended up being a beautiful day and we kind of worked up a sweat- so much so that I removed my hat, gloves AND coat at one point.
(As a side note, we did not get above freezing until Saturday when it was a high of 33 degrees)

Wednesday was back to the real world- mom had to work, Nana D and Mr. Walker headed back home but dad and I continued our vacation and headed out to Dallas to visit with Uncle Tim, Aunt Dana, Brooke and Faith.  I had a ball and was going non stop until we came home.  We hit the Natural History Museum, Dave and Buster's, the park,watched movies, played with the dog, and just generally created the havoc that only 3 girls can create- it was awesome!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, mom was holding down the fort.   She and Haile had some good bonding time, she got caught up on her chick flicks, finished off a bottle of wine, ate some Pho, ate some peanut butter chocolate cheesecake, did a lot of shopping and sleeping in late.  

In spite of the wild and crazy time she had, she was very happy to see us walk in the door on Sunday.  Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and we have actual plans- we are heading to my friend Cami's house for the evening and we are kind of excited about it!
We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and has a safe, healthy, happy New Year!

On Time!

Look at us!  Right on time this week- did you feel the shift in the universe??  We'll get right to it before the universe shifts back and we miss our weekly post.

We had our usual week with swim lessons on Tuesday and Daisy Scouts on Thursday.  I still like swim lessons but wasn't quite as enthusiastic this time around.  No worries though- I'll keep going.  

Daisy Scouts was especially fun this week because we learned all about how the Swedes celebrate Christmas.  One of our girls has relatives from Sweden so they celebrate with St. Lucia who brings cinnamon buns and hot chocolate on Christmas Eve.  There is nothing better than 12 first graders after a tasty snack of cinnamon buns and hot chocolate- woo hoo!!  I like that part the best but mom's favorite part was learning about how the eldest daughter gets up early on Christmas morning and makes breakfast in bed for the parents.  I'll bet a lot of you are wondering why this tradition never made it to our shores.  I know mom is.

My Saturday was kind of busy in a good way.  I had a birthday party in the morning and we got to make some really cool tie-dyed shirts and scarves.  We are all planning on wearing them on Monday.

In the afternoon, we picked up my friend Olivia and we headed down do the zoo for the Christmas lights.  The lines were enormous and the place was packed but it was still beautiful.  AND we got hot chocolate so that was even better.

( Mom looks a little tired in this picture but she did have a good time!)

Olivia got to spend the night and we were down and out by 10:30 which is really early by slumber party standards and then we slept until 8 which is really late by the same standards.  We got Olivia dropped off around 11 and we spent the rest of the day laying around.  I have a big. fat runny nose and sore throat now though so that may explain the sleeping in this morning.  Just in time for the holidays!  Woopee!  Mom made some home made chicken soup which I actually ate and I was in bed by 6:45 so we're crossing fingers that it doesn't get too bad.

Hope everyone has a healthy week!

Catch up

Once again, we apologize for our absence last week.  We couldn't even get through two blog posts without getting overwhelmed and skipping it all together.  Never fear though!  We'll get you all caught up- mom is even putting off Christmas cards for this!

So, dad has been out of town for the last two weeks with brief appearances for the weekend before heading out again.  He has no trips scheduled for the foreseeable future (although he's hearing rumblings about his supplier in Australia) so we get to have him home for awhile!  Yeah!

The past two weeks have been very low keyed for mom and I because mom cannot do more than one thing at once.  Getting dinner on the table was enough.  The weekends made up for the boring weeks though.  Last weekend, on Saturday, we headed down to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to hear Dr. Scott from Dinosaur Train talk.  I was the oldest one there by a few years but it was still pretty cool to meet an actual real live TV person.  Did you know he has discovered and named some dinosaurs?  One he named after Mark Knopfler because Dire Straits was playing when they found it.  Cool, huh?

On Sunday, I headed to my friend Sophia's birthday party.  She had it at Jungle Quest which is one of my favorite places ever so I had a great time.  I came home hopped up on chocolate cake and fruit punch.  It was awesome!

Last Tuesday, I started up swim lessons again.  Mom found a new place for me and we both really like it.  I'm actually in with kids my age and I learned more in one session than I did in all my other lessons at the other place. I liked it so much that I want to go twice a week but mom said we have to wait and see if I'm this excited about it three weeks from now.
Mom and I made it through the week and Dad got home again on Thursday.  On Friday we met our old neighbors for dinner  and had a great time.  The adults got one end of the table and us kids got to run the other side.  It was perfect!
On Saturday, mom spent a fun day cleaning and grocery shopping while dad and I had a great daddy/daughter day.  We went to the Wildlife Museum and then did some serious shopping.
Sunday, we woke up to our first really, super cold day.  We got about an inch of snow over night and made it up to a high of 24 degrees.  It was perfect.  Not really.  But mom did make good use of it and got her Christmas cookies started.
I had a great day at my friend Cara's house.  She hosted a Christmas Tea Party for a bunch of us girls and we made ornaments, hot cocoa, ate pizza and cupcakes.  Good fun.
Mom was still baking away when I got home but she wrapped up in time for family movie night and then it was off to bed for all of us.
So that is the quick and dirty for our past two weeks.  If your Christmas card is late, this is why.  Enjoy your week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Welcome to our new site!  Hope you found it without too much difficulty.  I'm sure it was less difficult for you to find it than it was for mom to figure out how to create it!

We have had wonderful family and fun filled week here.  Not only was it mom's favorite holiday but Grandpa Vern and Grandma Sue came all the way up from Tucson to join us.  It was so great to see them and it held back mom's holiday homesickness for a few days, so everyone was happy!

Grandpa and Grandma arrived Monday afternoon.  Dad got out of work early and picked me up from school so we could "hang out" together.  Mom had to work late (Don't laugh.  She did) and was already to make dinner when she got home but we all ambushed her and told her we were going out to Lodo's to eat.  She went kicking and screaming- not really- and we all had a nice relaxing time with no clean up!

We got home and I taught Grandpa how to play War- we both cheated, so it ended up being a pretty even match.

After that, I got both Grandpa and Grandma playing a rousing game of Squinkies.  Part of the game involves yelling "Soooo Cuuuute!" when you draw a certain type of card.  You haven't lived until you see my big, tough Grandpa yell "Soooo Cuuute!"  He said it  with a surprising amount of enthusiasm too!

 On Tuesday, I had school and mom and dad had to work so Grandma and Grandpa headed out for some sight seeing in the beautiful Colorado mountains.  They found the Blackhawk casino and walked out later with some extra money and two Thanksgiving pies.  Another good day.

Dad took Wednesday off work so we had a relaxing morning.  The Grandparents and I headed to the park for awhile so I could show off my soccer skills and then we all headed to Dave and Buster's for some game playing.

Mom came home to find Grandpa hard at work in the kitchen making her favorite pasta dish.  Grandpa used to make this for us a lot when we lived in Tucson and mom and dad would inhale it so this was a nice treat.

Thanksgiving morning was another nice, relaxing day.  Mom was on call but had no patients so instead, she forced us all to watch the The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then the dog show after.  THEN we had to watch football.  It was pretty much a Skylander free day which stunk for me.  Grandma kept me busy by painting my fingers and toes and they looked nice until I accidentally rubbed my toes on the carpet.  Ooops.

We finally sat down to dinner about 2:30 and besides having to microwave the turkey because it was undercooked (nice work Mom!), everything turned out rather nicely.  And no one got sick from raw turkey.  God love the microwave!

Grandma, mom and I decided to head out for a walk since it was such a nice day and we were pretty danged full, while the boys digested watching the Cowboys play.

Everyone headed out early Friday morning since it is a two day drive back.  It was a quiet and a little lonely around here.  We sure do miss having family and good friends around this time of year.
While rummaging around, looking for our Christmas decorations, mom found a chess set of Dad's.  We got it set up and dad started teaching me the basics.  I caught on pretty quick, now I just need the patience to sit still and plan ahead a bit.

In the afternoon, we decided it was just a little too quiet and lonely to sit around the house, so we headed out to see if there were any deals left to be had on Black Friday afternoon.  Mom scored some pretty good ones, just for her.  Dad and I kind of ran behind her trying to keep up- not finding much for us.
After mom finished indulging herself, we went to buy our Christmas tree.  It was so nice to get a big one this year after our cute but way to tiny one from last year.

We got it up and decorated and managed to find all of our other decorations as well.  It was a bit of a treasure hunt since we didn't break into any of it last year.  We found our stockings and tree skirt in an unopened box that mom was about ready to throw out because we hadn't been in it in over a year.  Thank goodness that didn't happen!

We finally have a real tree topper as well- dad brought this back from his trip to Norway this October so now we have something with a story behind it instead of some random ribbon or geegaw.

Saturday, we decided I needed to get out of the house so we loaded up the bikes and headed out for a nice, flat ride to a fun park with really pretty views of the mountains.

Sunday was low keyed- getting ready for the week ahead.  Dad is heading out for yet another business trip- this one coast to coast.  Los Angeles to Washington D.C.  Mom and I will attempt to hold down the fort until Thursday when he gets back.
We have so much to be thankful for this season and we hope you Thanksgiving day was full of blessings too!