Christmas cookies

Every year since I can remember we have made dozens of cookies the days before Christmas. Russian teacakes, spritz cookies, gingerbread men, etc...
It is truly one of my favorite days of the year.
A newer part of this tradition is the creating of silly gingerbread men or creatures.
This year we made a gingerbread duck, a gingerbread Drew (the dog) and a gingerbread terrorist (designed by Chris)
There is a nice picture of the little terrorist with his belt of explosives and the trigger in his hand. Leave it to Chris....
We found that Collin likes sprinkles on his cookies... a LOT of sprinkles...
So here we are in Nana's kitchen making our cookies and enjoying eachother's fun and bizarre company. :)

News

First off, I am so ecstatic because Kayla got to see her favorite singer, Sarah Brightman perform on Sunday night. We could only afford two tickets, and Kayla wanted Tim to escort her, as it is their "thing" to sing opera to eachother.
When we told Kayla that she needed to pick out a pretty dress because she was on her way to see Sarah she cried.
Sarah puts on quite a performance with several dramatic outfits, dancers, musicians and lighting. Tim and Kayla were SO VERY fortunate that she decided to include Phantom of the Opera as one of her songs that night.
They had an amazing time. You can check out "Sarah Brightman Symphony Tour" clips on
youtube.com to get an idea of what the concert was like.
We are forever grateful to Tim's parents, as this was part of their Christmas gifts to us. Talk about making a little girl's dream come true.
Kayla's piano teacher is including voice and ear training in her lessons and Kayla is flourishing in to quite a singer. I don't know how to say this delicately, but you wouldn't have thunk it a few months ago. :)
Our second bit of news is one that I am cautiously optimistic about:
We have made an offer on a house. We won't hear anything for several weeks, as this is a short sale and it takes at least 30 days for bank approval.
We really low-balled with our offer as the house needs some work and because of the current market conditions. There is a fair chance that the bank will reject our offer.
We are lucky to have a lot of help from my parents navigating through this crazy market. They have been on the lookout for deals and have been looking at houses with us. It's been so fun and helpful to have them involved.
If it works out (and again I'm trying to reign in my excitement) we will be the proud owners of a great home on very large lot within walking distance to EduPrize.
This would mean that Kayla will once again be switching schools, but she will be part of a 1/2 day program which I believe will be a much better fit for our family.
Collin is already enrolled for kindergarten there so the lucky guy would get to go to the same school all the way through 8th grade.
We shall see how it works out. We know the market is loaded with short sales and foreclosures so we try to remind ourselves that this is not the only home out there.
But we sure do like it! :)

cuddle

Today was great. We stayed home all day and baked cookies, cleaned house and watched movies. We were all in cozy clothes and did lots of cuddling with eachother, the dogs and the couch. This evening we watched How the Grinch stole Christmas, and it was so fun.
We bought Lucy to be my little cuddly lap dog, but I must say she spent the first several months interested mostly in Abby and the kids.
But over the past couple of months, we've really noticed a change and she is truly turning in to the ultimate cuddly lap dog. She likes to be held, cuddled, carried around and cries to be picked up. Too cute. :)

more pix from the O Grace shoot

The Nutcracker with Collin

I got to enjoy my second performance of the Nutcracker this morning.
This time my date was a blonde little man with big brown eyes.
He was the perfect gentleman, and it was the perfect performance.
This was a field trip with Collin's preschool and it was a version of the Nutcracker geared towards little kids. Perfect!
The actors were hilarious and the stage set and costumes were beautiful.
Plus, this was a dinner theater so Collin and I got to enjoy lunch and a dessert buffet. Collin's best friend, Ashlynn was there so I was able to get a picture of the two of them together.
What a great start to our holiday break!

December pictures

Instead of creating several new posts, I thought I'd just include an update of what we've been up to these past couple of weeks.
We got our Christmas tree last Saturday! Yay!!! This is a day that the kids look forward to every year. Kayla picked the tree last year and she announced that Collin should be able to choose the tree this year. Boy was he excited!!




We took advantage of the beautiful December weather and Susan and I took our kids to the park and fed the ducks. It was a lovely sight with the kids sitting on the dock looking out at the water.




Julie (aka Fancy Face) and I met at the cabin in Flagstaff. We had to leave much earlier than expected due to an incoming blizzard, but we had a blast in the 24 hours we did have together.

Spiderman birthday party!

Collin's birthday invitation is so DARN cute that I had to post it, since no one but his little buddies will see it.
(Invitation made by my friend, Liz)

Santa, baby...

Winter race

I haven't posted in a while now because Thanksgiving kicks off the busiest time of the year for us.
We move from my birthday to Joann's to Christmas and then straight in to Collin's birthday and then Kayla's. Collin's birthday planning is always a bit of a challenge. We either have to plan and get invitations out before Christmas, or have his party a week late so that his friends have time to get invitations and rsvp, etc.
This year we're going to get our invites out early!
Collin is switching over to a new place for swimming. He will start after Christmas and I believe that is where he'll have his 4th birthday party.
He wants a spiderman theme and Spiderman, himself might show up.
Kayla continues with piano and she is doing great!
Both kids start their acting classes beginning in January.
I have a long break from shooting weddings, but I continue to stay very busy editing for O Grace and working with my own families as well.
That is my little update... more later I hope.

hanging out with the Whartons

Our week with Jim, Colleen and Hannah has been so wonderful. It was very hard to see them go this morning. We had such a great time visiting, going out and taking the kids to see "Bolt" which I would HIGHLY recommend.
Thanksgiving was the perfect meal and ending to our visit.
We look forward to having Great Grandma here for another week though!
Here are some pictures from the week.

Fun at Girly Girlz

Kayla and Hannah enjoyed a "Diva Spa Hour" at Girly Girlz.
Included in their experience was a themed hairstyle (they chose the rock star theme)
makeup, nail painting and accesories for pictures.
They had such a great time and felt so grown up!
Afterwords they put on a quick pretend rock performance outside the store.