Happy St. Nick's Day

We went to the Freedom Christmas Parade for the first time this year.  It was the night before St. Nicholas Day and the kids enjoyed it!  Here are photos of the kids waiting for the parade to start!

We don't really do stockings for St. Nicks, we have the kids put out their shoes.  The girls decided to put out both pairs of their shoes so that perhaps they'd get twice as many gifts from St. Nick!  I think this was actually Lydia's idea.  Lydia also said, "Maybe St. Nick will see my old shoes and bring me some new ones!"  And no, my child does not need new shoes...she has very nice ones that fit well.

Here are the St. Nick's gifts!

Makayla decided to move everything into the living room to make gift opening easier.  She also put out the St. Nick figure that she made in school!

Logan was all about the treats!  He went right for the chocolate!

Playing Catch-up, once again!

Once again I'm playing catch up with the blog!  At least it was only 3 months this time instead of 6!!  The month of October got busy with Chad traveling, my family visiting, and a trip to WI Dells.  I spent some of November doing on-line Christmas shopping and we traveled to MN for Thanksgiving. This week I'm trying to get the blog updated and Christmas cards mailed!  Next week will be spent wrapping up Christmas shopping and "hopefully" wrapping some Christmas gifts!  I'm hoping to not be rushing at the last minute with all my Christmas preparations, so we'll see how I do!

The kids have been doing great!  The girls are adjusted well to school.  This was an amazingly easy transition back to school compared to previous years.  Makayla moved past her separation anxiety and didn't cry every morning when I dropped her off.  The girls are both in school all day, which has been super nice for me!  I no longer have to rush home from running errands to wait for an 11am bus.  The girls seem to enjoy school and are both doing well.  Both girls are doing dance.  Makayla did soccer as well for the first 7 or 8 weeks of school, but then we took a break.  It was just too much running (Monday Makayla has dance, Tuesday Lydia has dance, and Wednesday Makayla had soccer)!  And I think more than one activity per week per kid on a school night is pushing it for everyone's sanity!  Along with dance, which is a year-long commitment, the girls now have basketball on Friday nights and/or Saturday mornings...which is much easier that rushing around on a school night.  Chad is helping coach basketball on Friday nights.  The girls have had a few weekend playdates with friends and Lydia was invited to her first "friends" birthday party, which made her so proud and excited!

Logan seems to enjoy his time with me during the week and I am really enjoying the 1:1 time with him!  I worked until Lydia was past 2 years old, so this is the first time I've been home all day with a toddler!  And Logan is pretty laid back, so the days with him are fun!  He has his moments of mischief, but all-in-all, he's not too bad!  I had him in a swim class for the first 7 or 8 weeks of school and now he's in a playgroup class called Tiny Tots.  He's enjoyed both of them and it's given me a chance to get out and socialize too!  I think he likes having his own "classes" since I'm always dragging him around as I take the girls to school and various classes!  We enjoy days at home too and he's my "helper" with laundry and cleaning!  He still takes a 1.5-2.5 hour nap during the afternoon, so I love the little break.  I usually spend it tackling my to-do list or trying to work-out, but once in a while I will sit down with a cup of coffee and a book and just relax a little before the after-school chaos starts!

Logan is saying a ton of words and stringing 5-6 words together.  He can almost always get his point across.  Some of his favorite words are:

"me too"

"own" (as in, "give me my own" of whatever the girls have)

Here are a few examples of his phrases:

"Me stay Mom, Daddy work"

"Daddy rock me Tuesday" (this was the night I was going out and Chad put him to bed)

"no diaper change, wipes cold"

"mom hands cold, warm up" (at diaper change time)

"Lydia locked out me" (when Lydia locks him out of her room)

"Me no like hair wash"

Well, that's our life right now!  Until next time, enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Minnesota with all the Sandoval's.  Steven cooked a turducken from scratch.  It was very tasty!  Here he is with the finished roast!

The kids enjoyed their plastic wine glasses with sparkling juice!

Having fun with cousins and Aunts and Uncles and Grandma and Grandpa!

Steven made cute little turkeys for the kids for dessert!  They all enjoyed them!

Logan helped himself to some mint chocolate Hershey's Kisses, which he surprisingly enjoyed!  I bought a package after Thanksgiving and when I gave him one, he said, "Steve" cause he remembered Uncle Steve had them at his house!

We spent Friday making tamales from scratch.  Jeff and Pat did most of the work to get the meat and masa dough ready...we all had fun assembling...and eating!!

Here's a family photo that Steve took!

Here are the kids playing with some of their Christmas gifts when we got home.  The cousins exchanged gifts over Thanksgiving since we won't all be together at Christmas time.

November Miscellaneous

Once again, here are my photos that don't really fit into their own post.

We were asked to take a photo of our family praying to be used on a church publication.  Here's the best one we could get!

Here are the kids reading with Papa one night when Nana and Papa stopped by!

Apparently Logan can climb chairs while wearing high heals that are way too big for him!  ;)

Here are the girls laughing at their wavy hair after taking out the braids that got from our hairdresser!

Logan and Lydia saying "hi" to our Mickey decoration.  When he's not blown up during the day, Logan says he's "blown down"!  Just like he zips his jacket up and zips his jacket down!  ;)

Here's a few art boards that I needed to catch up on!

November Warm Weather

We had some unseasonably warm weather in November!  Since Logan loves playing outside, we got out as much as possible!  Here are some photos of Logan riding in his truck and on his bike!

I took Logan to the Zoo one day.  He wasn't quite as excited as I thought he'd be, but we still had fun!  Maybe by next Spring he'll be a little more into seeing all the animals.  Here are a few pix of the animals!

Chad made use of the nice weather to hang our outdoor Christmas lights.  Logan wanted to get on the roof with Chad so bad!  At one point he had scaled the ladder and had his hands on the gutter as he tried to climb onto the roof.  I didn't get a photo of that since I was running across the yard in a panic!