It's Tradition!

December 18, 2010 - What has become one of the girls favorite traditions over the past few years at Christmas time is a "craft night" with Grammie. My girls LOVE it and look forward to it every year. My mom and I pick a weekend night in December for her to watch the kiddos while Mark and I go out to Christmas shop. While she's here she does some fun crafty creativeness with the girls (which usually results in a Christmas gift for Mark & I from the girls...which is one of my FAVORITE gifts to get every year!) This year Mckinley became super sick about an hour before we were supposed to leave soooo...we didn't. Hence the reason I have pictures. Usually this is top secret stuff but by the time I was "allowed" to take photographs the super secret gift making craft was finished and they moved onto gingerbread men. At this point in the activity it looks like Megan and Morgan were much more interested in licking the frosting rather than decorating (a common theme with these two through most of the activity!)

Macy working very intently to get her "guys'" chocolate chip eyes on...
Morgan chose M&M "eyes" instead...
Sprinkles are a must have!
There were lots of smiles during this "craft"...
As you can see :)
Morgan's masterpiece...
Macy's...
Marin's...
Megan's...
They all couldn't wait till lunch the next day when they got to relish in the crafty edibleness of this most fun tradition! Thanks Grammie for providing us with one of our most fun Christmas traditions! We think Grandmas are the most wonderful people on Earth!

Quote Of The Day

I couldn't help but post this because it was so sweet ( & Mark actually found it quite amusing...) while we were finishing the end of dinner tonight our conversation had turned to a topic that our oldest daughter brought up and of course Morgan & Megan both chimed in with their opinions (as younger sisters often do). Marin was telling us about a young man at their school & showing us the video recap of how cute he is that she took with her cell phone (thank goodness for cell phone videos what ever did we do before those?!) I use the word "young man" because he is a junior so I would say young man is appropriate.

Anyway, this 11 grader, who they say is a Taylor Lautner look-a-like and from the video he actually does look A-LOT like him (everyone at this point has to know that Taylor Lautner plays Jacob in the Twilight series) well of course all the 6th grader girls (aka Marin & her friends) think he is just the cutest thing since...well...Taylor himself. So she was telling us about him and how they all like to swoon over him (completely innocently, it is so fun to listen to my daughter with her first "crush") and of course telling us how amazing he must be, etc. Then the conversation got more interesting...it went something like this:

Mom - "Marin did you ever take into consideration that maybe he isn't that nice of a boy?"

Marin - "No way mom. He's really nice. I know because he was in the talent show with me last year"

Megan - With COMPLETE AND TOTAL sarcasm in her voice "Of course you know him...because your act followed his in the show" then as she laughed at her own sense of "good humor" she added a smirk for good measure.

Mark - Again with fun loving COMPLETE sarcasm (I'm noticing a trend of sarcasm here...maybe we should work on that) "Of course he must be nice because he's soooo good looking, all good looking people are nice."

Next was the best part....

Morgan - Without hesitation she said "That's right dad, look at you! Your nice AND good looking! Your funny too!"

Soooo sweet. She meant every word of that last line. Mark thought it was absolutely amusing (OK...that's my take on it...he just corrected me as he reads over my shoulder and says that he thought it was absolutely hilarious!) He got quite a chuckle out of it. As we all did. Man I love my kiddos, each and every one of them.

Is It Too Early To Call Them Bach & Beethoven?!

December 11, 2010 - Marin and Morgan's very first piano recital. They have worked all year (Marin started in Jan. & Morgan followed in Feb.) and they have two times a year to "showcase" their talents. In March they go to a festival (which neither one was ready for this past year) so the next event is the Christmas recital. They were so excited (a little nervous) but they worked hard the last few weeks leading up to the recital and they did AWESOME!

Marin & Morgan getting in a quick practice (to get a feel for a different piano) before their recital started.
Meg was by their side the whole time...she can't wait till it's her turn to start playing!
Not sure why we didn't take any pictures while they were actually performing but neither one of us thought to pick up the camera (Boo hiss...bad parents...) we must have been so completely mesmerized by how AMAZING they did on their pieces! Here's a shot of our little pianist after they were done.
A cute shot of our little ones in pink...they were both so happy they didn't have to sit still anymore :)
All our girls!
Morgan & Marin with their INCREDIBLE piano teacher, Ms. Sung!

What's In Your Mouth?

Macy found one of the big girls ugly...er...I mean fun vampire teeth and decided she was a vampire!

Trying to make them fit...

Still working on that...

Success!
Macy - "Mommy I want to suck your blood"
Mommy - "Halloween is over there will be no sucking of blood till next year..."
Who knew that vampire teeth could create hours of fun for a toddler all year long?!?

Let's Swing!

December 2, 2010 - One of Macy's FAVORITE things to do in the whole world is swing! She probably asks me everyday at least a half a dozen times...we have a great swing in our backyard that Mark attached to one of our trees. The only problem is that because the trees branch only had one space where the swing would be level (anyone that knows my man knows that all things done must be done well...so there's no hanging a second swing from a unleveled branch) so even though we have a "baby swing" and a "big kid swing" we have to detach one and put up the other when swinging kiddos. Which for all those that know me...this process is waaaayyy to much of a pain in the backside. So on this day we put the baby swing up and let Mckinley get the first turn (since she's usually the one who goes without a turn since I HATE changing out the swings...) and boy did she absolutely LOVE it!

She LOVES that Mark will pushes her so high! It is crazy to me that she leans so far forward but she loves every minute of it :)
I think daddy does too!
Nothing like feeling the breeze in your hair...
Then it was Macy's turn...and daddy always pushes her really high! Usually the conversation goes like this:

Macy - "Daddy you have to push me higher"

Daddy - "How's this?"

Macy - "Not high enough daddy...higher please"

Daddy - "How's that?"

Macy - *insert deep heavy sigh* "Daddy...I would like to touch the tops of the trees PLEASE!!!"

Daddy - "O.K. hang on"

Macy - Laughs, giggles and squeals of shear happiness.
This is her "YES...Now that was how high I wanted" grin.

I hope that her love of high "flying" doesn't turn into anything other than her bum sitting on a swing. No jumping out of planes or off the sides of mountains in this family!

Nothing but smiles :)
Especially on daddy!

A Little Bit of A Backtrack...

So I suppose when I wait months to catch-up on my blog I can get a little ahead of myself. So in my haste I left out our Disney trip and that trip was such a fun family day that I had to back track and make sure it was part of our 2010 family history. So bear with me. I'm almost finished with 2010!

Guess Where we're Going?!?!

October 2, 2010 - It was the Saturday morning before Macy's birthday. Mark & I got the kiddos up bright and early while it was still plenty dark outside (the sun hadn't even begun to break it's first light) and loaded them into the car still in their jammies. With their pillows and blankets they groggily started asking us where we were going?

Mark & I played it off as no big deal, stopping to get some breakfast, jamming to the music and just having a good 'ol time on the road together!
Then about 2 hours later (after many whisperings of where we were heading) they saw the sign! Walt Disney World!!!!!

Lots of squeals and screams of delight!
Shouts of happiness and joy!
Even some disbelief that it was actually true!
After we took some time to park, change into our clothes, get sunscreen (an absolute MUST on our fair skin) into the park we headed! After getting our tickets (Thank-you "Give-a-day Get-a-day volunteer program!) and riding the ferry over to the Magic Kingdom, going through security and taking a few pictures in front of the train station...we were in! First stop...pictures with Pluto! We have a photo of Marin (from her very 1st Disney trip at age 2) with Pluto. So to see him right off the bat and compare how she's grown was really cool! Before we even got into Main street we had seen Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Bell, Goofy, Donald Duck and Pluto. It completely reminded me of when I was little and my dad would take us to Disney...all the characters would be right in the town square so you could see them when you first came into the park. It was AWESOME!!!
Of course, you can't go to the magic Kingdom and not take a pictures in front of the castle!

Where Dreams Really Do Come true!

Next it was onto Tomorrow Land for Buzz Lightyear ride (soooo fun!) and Space Mountain (thought it was fun as a kid but even better to do with my own kiddos!) from there it was off to see Mickey & Minnie's houses. The girls posing in front of Minnie's fireplace.

Not only did we get to see, hug & take pictures with Mickey but MINNIE was there too! I was SOOOOO excited! I have never gotten to see them both together let alone for pictures! I think (ummmm...no I KNOW...) I was more happy about this opportunity than my kiddos :)The Dumbo ride is a classic...Daddy & Macy rode together, Marin & Morgan and Meg and I. So much fun and worth the wait (it was one of the longest lines all day...25 minutes...not too bad)
A great day full of characters...Woody & Jesse and my whole clan!
Macy is OBSESSED with Toy Story so she was pretty much glued to Woody the whole time. She gave him a huge hug and then set up camp in his lap.
Mckinley and I after getting wet on the bridge to Splash Mountain...
The girls enjoying the constant "splashes" from Splash Mountain...
One of our favorite spots that day!
Thunder Mountain Railroad was a blast! We stayed like this pretty much the whole ride (I had one hand in the air, laughing & screaming & one hand on Morgan because I was positive if I didn't hold onto her her skinny little body would fly right out the side of the cart!) Oh and don't mind those "duds" in front of us...not sure where they thought they were but H-E-L-L-O it's Disney and your on a SUPER F-U-N roller coaster...

This was one of my most favorite photos (of course trying to get it was a bit of a challenge as always with 5 kiddos). We were right across from Tom Sawyer's Island and it was towards the end of the afternoon and Mckinley was being a stinker. We always tell the girls stay looking at the camera and let the "photographer" get Mckinley to smile...they're all looking at me but she wouldn't so each time I would take the camera away from my eye so she can she my face. She looks at me and smiles but the minute I put the camera up to take the picture she would turn her head (little punk) it took...aaaahhh...let's just say quite a few "trys" but this is the one I was able to (finally) get with her looking at the camera and (thankfully) smiling!
This is the one that came immediately after because at that point I was snapping away and I also caught her turning her head...like I said...little punk-a-lishious.
At the end of the night the electric light parade and fire works show helped us closes out what was an extraordinary day spent together. Just our family making memories that will last a lifetime!