Christmas Pics and Ice Sculptures

I have lots of pics over the last few days so I just made a Slideshow - Enjoy!

The day we went to the Ice Slides it was a little bit warmer than the last pic you see, only -28!

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!  Our Christmas was great! And I have pictures, but our neighbors borrowed my camera cord, so I can't download them.  The girls got just about everything they wanted.  I say 'just about' because there was a slight issue with Sierra's Santa gift.

Sierra asked Santa for a 'Grocery Store' set in October... so we looked around, and the only one we saw was HUGE and EXPENSIVE at Sam's Club.  Naturally, I found one online and ordered it.  That was the end of October. 

Fast forward to 11:30pm Christmas Eve... Dustin and I are putting together the Grocery Store with moveable conveyor belt, grocery cart, play money and cash register.  We open the box... cheap plastic pieces fall out... okay, its a little cheaper than we thought...

We proceed to put it together, every piece I snap in I get more depressed that its not as cool as it said on the website and looks on the box!!!!  And then we finish and I stand up.  The thing doesn't even come up to my knee!!!! YEP, that's right, its as tall as my SHIN!!!!

So we decide, give it to her and buy her something else for her birthday (in a few weeks) or don't give it to her and she doesn't get a 'gift' from Santa... we spent about an hour scrambling trying to figure out what to do... What if we print out a pic from online and tell her its on its way? What if we give her cash? Call Walmart, maybe they're open - I'll drive into town... nope, closed - CRAP! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!?!?!? (note to self - do not wait until Christmas eve to open and check a present bought online - no matter how big the box!)

So I flat out told Dustin I was not even going to give her the mini one. We got neighbors on Christmas eve - they had just moved in and we invited them over because they have basically nothing in their house yet.  So we spent the afternoon with them and their kiddos.  And they have a 18mo old that this grocery set was perfect for - so I walked over about midnight Christmas Eve and gave it to them for Christmas!  I mean, it was already put together and only had 30 days to return it online - minus shipping, blah blah blah - so Merry Christmas Emma!

As for Sierra - this is what she got from Santa:

 

Letter reads:

Dear Sierra,

Boy did I have a LONG night last night delivering all the toys across the world to all the boys and girls! And I knew you were patiently waiting for me to bring you your present. You even called NORAD when I was in Guatemala to check up on me and see when I would be at your house.  I was happy to hear that you were excited for my visit.

The elves are such a big help, and they had built a Grocery Store and Lemonade Stand especially for you!! But they didn't pack it in my sleigh too well, and it fell off when I was flying over Canada! OH NO!!! I was very upset so I wrote this letter to you and gave you a check to take to the store to pick one out for yourself.

I hope you are able to find one, and I will make sure those elves double check my sleigh from now on!!

Merry Christmas!!
HO HO HO!

SANTA CLAUS

 

 

So today we are headed to the BX to find a Grocery Store/Lemonade stand we saw last week! LOL!  Dustin said its a good thing that her Mommy is creative, or she would have gotten a post it note saying have Daddy buy one! LOL!

 

Oh, and her is my first "Belly Pic" courtesy of Shawnel at Phia's birthday party!

27 Weeks:

Christmas Pageant

The girls were in the Chapel Christmas Pageant last Sunday. Here are the pictures. Nothing too extraordinary - they sang songs and were packers in the play. And Ruby sucked her thumb the entire time!

Our Daisy Girl Scout

Sierra had her Investiture ceremony tonight.  She got her Girl Scout pin and the patches she has earned so far - 5 (and one still on order!)

 

Here she is saying her Girl Scout 'Petal'  She earns petals of the Daisy for her vest. 

 

Everyone saying the Girl Scout Promise.

 

Getting her Girl Scout pin and being welcomed in the Girl Scout family.

 

Group photo with the leaders.

 

Silly group photo.

 

And we were informed that the next meeting is January 12th - HOWEVER, Girl Scout Cookie sales start January 10th!!!  So let us know if you need any cookies!!!  They will all be shipped here, so that is perfectly fine if you don't want to buy them - just letting the grandmas know :wink:

He is such a dork!

So I wake up at like 8am the other morning to Dustin yelling "ALETA ALETA - BABE BABE BABE!!!!!"  I shoot up out of bed as soon as he opens the bedroom door thinking 'what's wrong with one of the girls?!?'   NOTHING!!!  LOL!  This is what he was so excited about!

 

 

***DISCLAIMER***   I WAS NOT ABOUT TO GET OUT OF MY NICE WARM BED TO TAKE PICTURES OF MOOSE!!!!  And my husband doesn't know how to use the camera - lol - you should have seen the pictures he took - through the glass (snicker snicker) that I deleted. 

 

Fortunately, the moose came back that evening, and I took these pictures.  I opened the screen door and stood on our porch to get these.  They were eating something in the snow by our driveway.

 

Hey, I guess I should be grateful that is was 8am... at like 6am our first winter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dustin woke me up one morning... get this... because it was SNOWING! LOL!  Um... I had seen snow before, I rolled back over while he went out in the front yard with the video camera! ROTFLOL!!! Gotta love that Arizona boy!

UGH! I am officially my MOTHER!

I made a Thanksgiving FEAST today... for all 5 of us! That's right, just me, Dustin, Sierra, Ruby and Karis! The others that were 'going to stop by' never did...

 

This is not the first time this has happened! Dustin invites Airmen from his work every year, and more often than not, they don't show!  What is up with people saying they'll come for dinner, and then no one shows?!?!?  I remember in Germany one year, Dustin told me that about 20 people were going to be here for dinner... so I cooked, and cooked, and cooked! And you know what... 1 whole person showed up!!!! I ended up taking tons of food to the guards at the gate!

 

So I am officially my mother, cooking for the Army (or Air Force) that never shows up.

 

Here are the AFTER pics - and we haven't even cut into the 4 pies and cookie cake I made!

 

Elf Yourself!!!

Its that time again this year!!! And Elf Yourself now can let you add up to 5 elves!! Enjoy the Disco Wills!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

And for those of you who like your Christmases more country:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Best $4 I have ever spent!!!

Well... maybe not ever - but it certainly gave me a few hours of peace and quiet! We have been learning about how things change (water to ice back to water, crayons and pencils when used cannot change back, etc) Here are the girls crayons that they documented the change in over the last few weeks:

Brand new crayons - this is not the whole pack, just a few of the main colors.

A week later, oops! Karis got ahold of the crayons and she loves to break them! I don't know if she does it on purpose or if she just presses way to hard.

So that was the experiment on 'change' that we did. However, I decided to take it one step further! The girls and I got up and drove to Joann's in -20 degree weather the other day!!! LOL! Seriously, I think my boogers froze when I had to get gas! Anyway... 40 minutes later we were in Joann's searching for candy molds.

When we got home, I had the girls round up all their broken crayons (and a few unbroken ones that we needed). They spent the next 45 minutes peeling the paper off and breaking into little pieces. This is what we ended up with.

I put the muffin tin in a 350 degree oven for about 6-7 minutes, until the crayons were melted. Then I carefully picked up the paper cups and poured them into the candy molds. I have read online that you can also use paper cups (thicker than cupcake holders) in the microwave for 4-5 minutes. I think next time I'll do that!

About 30 minutes later they were cooled! They just popped out of the molds like ice cubes. And this is what kept my girls busy for the next 2 hours!!!!! Best $4 I've spent in a long time!!!

Volcano Eruption and Santa Clause's House

The girls have been learning about rocks and volcanoes these last few weeks.  Yesterday we made a clay volcano around a plastic cup and then this morning we painted and 'erupted' it.  The girls were really excited to explode their volcano!  Um... yeah... it was more like a gradual overflow... I followed the directions but it didn't quite work.  Oh well, they still had fun.

 

 

And a few weekends back we went to the North Pole to visit Santa and Mrs. Clause. The girls were excited... Karis, not so much. She didn't want to sit on his lap, but she had no problem telling him that she wanted a Bolt Puppy!  Here are the pics.

 

Karis was like, NO NO NO!!! Sierra was trying to get her to go towards Santa, and we said, don't push her, its fine! LOL!

 

Here we got Karis to sit on the steps next to her sisters.

 

But Sierra and Ruby wanted on his lap... so we gradually put them up there...

 

And we finally got Karis to stand next to Sissy and hold her hand, as long as Mrs. Clause sat back and Karis is looking to make sure she's not going to touch or grab her! LOL!

 

And Karis still says 'I wanna go to Ho Ho's House!'  every time we pass it on the freeway. Yeah right!

Girl Parts?

We went for our ultrasound today. Left without really knowing the sex of the baby. The umbilical cord was right in between the legs, and even with me getting up, walking around, going to the bathroom, turning on my side... Baby #4 would not cooperate. The technician stated that the baby was really being difficult. To which I replied 'runs in the family!' LOL!

So here is our baby! Here is the profile pic:

I'm going to attempt to explain this to you all who don't know what you are looking at - lol. The baby is laying on her left side, facing the 'camera.' On the left you can see her legs crossed at the ankles (and her little toes are those tiny dots). If you look REALLY closely, you can see a dark stripe between the legs and into her belly - that would be the umbilical cord (its more prominent in the actual pic):

And this is what the ultrasound tech is basing her semi-prediction of 'It may be a girl - but I can't say for sure' on:

Its hard to explain... but in that circle she thinks are 'swollen lips.' However, like I said earlier, the umbilical cord is wrapped between the baby's legs. Ultrasound is kinda like an x-ray though, so when she got it to go 'through' the umbilical cord, she could have very well made it go through any parts. In another version of this pic she said she thought she saw 'boy parts' but wasn't sure if it was the umbilical cord or not.

Her final prediction was she couldn't really say for sure, 'but you might want to plan for a girl since I can't find any parts.'

So we are planning on another baby girl and told the girls they are getting another little sister! Now we just have to come up with a name - that's the hardest part for us!

Ugly Babies

So like I said, I was playing with the baby maker... my goodness, I couldn't get a cute baby to save my life!!! Take a look at these, and then pray that Baby #4 is as cute as his/her three older sisters!

This one isn't too bad... but none of our babies have had blonde hair yet, so we will see...

Again... not THAT bad, this one kinda looks like it could be related to Dustin

OH NO!!! Oh, don't even get me started on this one - what is wrong with this child!?!

Awww... this one is kinda cute, but maybe my problem is these all look like boys!

LOL! This looks like an evil baby! What's up with the eyebrow???

UM... I think if I have a baby looking like this I'm in trouble!!! LOL!

Another thing I think is wrong with these (besides the fact that they are all BOYS!) is they all have brown/black eyes! Once again, I have to have a blue eyed baby or I'm in trouble - lol! Well, at least we might find out the sex on Thursday. I have my ultrasound Thur afternoon - so pray that Dustin and the girls get that boy they've been praying for!

The internet is a cesspool!

Wow - so even the littlest things suck me in! I have a huge TO DO list today. Vote, grocery shopping, library book, not to mention homeschooling! So I get up early today (hey, 8:30 is early for me!) and feed the girls. Sit down at the computer desk to plan my menu for the next week and a half to make a grocery list. Trying to think up of dinners... so I get on my favorite recipe site All Recipes. Find a yummy recipe for chicken noodle soup. Oooh, wait, what's that???

On the sidebar, oh, its an advertisement for Volkswagon... wait, its a baby maker... CLICK!

So then I spend the next 40 minutes searching for pics of me and Dustin (no hair, straight on, no shadows, no GLASSES!) to upload and 'make our baby.' So what do you think? I changed the pictures a couple of times, and 'remade the baby' to get different babies. Believe or not, this one is the cutest they came up with!!! WHAT!! My children are WAY cuter than that! LOL!

So yeah... the internet is a cesspool! Off to start my TO DO list an hour late!!!

OH, and VOTE today!!!

Halloween and... Snow?

Okay, I know that those two things are not usually in the same sentence in most parts of the world.  But here, they definitely are!!!  There is probably a good foot and a half of snow outside so I was searching online for WARM Halloween costumes!  Sierra wanted to be a fairy princess. I told her fine, but you have to wear thermal underwear and sweat pants underneath your costume.  Wouldn't you know, she turned up her nose, so we looked for sweatsuit type costumes.

 

Here are the girls costumes this year! They are too cute and definitely will be warm! We are only planning on trick or treating a few blocks and then heading over to the chapel for their Fall Harvest Party - inside!

 

Karis wanted to be a Care Bear - so all her sisters wanted to be Care Bears too. No problem, right? WRONG! They only make Care Bear costumes up to 3T - unless you want the 'Sexy Adult Care Bear'  Think Playboy bunny with a Care Bear on it! Um, no, not for my 5 year old!!  So I just got her this cute little lady bug!

 

Ruby wanted to be a bunny. Um, yeah, what is with Halloween costume makers!!! I type in Bunny costume on ebay and a huge list of PLAYBOY bunnies pop up!!! AGGGHHHH!!!  So I added '5T' hoping to get more 'kid friendly' costumes.  There were a bunch, this one was pink, so of course she loved it!

 

 

And Sierra has really been into Monkeys lately.  She wanted Monkey sheets and pillows for her new bed, she wants Monkey shirts she sees, anything Monkey she loves.  So this is Sierra:

 

And of course they'll be wearing thermal underwear and clothes underneath!!! Don't worry, they won't be too hot!

 

Because this is what our DRIVEWAY looked like last night before Dustin shoveled it! Yep, that would be about 1.5 feet of snow!

The girls were all bundled up - and Karis was so funny. She reminded me of Ralphy's brother on A Christmas Story.  She fell down and just layed there yelling because she couldn't get back up! LOL!

 

And this is them all bundled up before they went outside. They were complaining they were hot!! LOL! I told them JUST WAIT until you get outside (it was 10 degrees).  So Karis lasted all of about 10 min outside, Ruby came in about 5 minutes after Karis and Sierra actually stayed out there until Daddy was done shoveling the driveway.