Muffins with Mom

Every year the PreK has muffins with mom. We spend just a couple if minutes eating breakfast and looking at artwork the kids make for us. It is really a sweet time and I enjoyed my time with this little guy. He is growing up way too fast!

Up on the Housetop!

Lyle always does the Christmas lights and this year he decided to try something different. We usually just put lights around the edge of the house and then around the windows, but this year he wanted to outline the whole rooftop. We were going to do the windows as well but ran out of lights and time....next year?
Anyway, here he is up on the roof patiently putting up the lights.

And here are the kids playing outside while they waited on daddy to be finished.

We think the finished product is pretty fantastic! Nice work, daddy!

St. Nick comes again!

As he does every year on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, St. Nick came to our house for our Christmas lists. The kids and I were sitting around the tree watching a Christmas cartoon when he banged on the door making us all jump about ten feet! He left us lots of yummy candy and these cute pjs. Kids were beyond excited!

So much help

Since I will be taking over this beast once these babies get here, I thought a good job for the kids one day would be to help me clean it out. They were all about it and jumped right in. Ella vacuumed out the truck while Luke wiped down all the doors and seats. They did a great job and I thought it was funny seeing them in there working so hard. I love these kids!

A very happy little girl and a new house!

Last summer, Lyle bought for the kids workbooks to work on over the summer. As motivation to finish them, he said they could get a present when they completed the whole book. Ella immediately knew she wanted an American Girl Doll for her prize. Luke rambled off a couple things but never had a real answer as to what he wanted.

Well, this past October Ella finished her book plus she got an A+ on the test Lyle wrote up for her just to make sure she actually got all the math skills. Now just to be fair, Luke worked very hard on his as well but his was a 1st grade workbook and he needed a little more guidance to finish it...which he didn't get:( He is still working on it though and is doing great.....still doesn't know what he wants though!

Since, Ella finished hers Lyle had to keep his word and get her an AGD....even though I reminded him it was very close to Christmas and her birthday was in January! His response..."Well, I didn't know she was going to finish the thing in November when I made the deal!" So, we planned a quick trip to Dallas to let Ella have a fun day at the AGD store to celebrate. It was made even sweeter because her cousin Belle got to join in on the fun! Ella picked out the doll that looked most like her and named her Clara.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of Lyle hanging out in the AGD store....doesn't he look like he is loving it!

 A doll store may not have been his thing but he is sure proud of Ella!

We let the girls get their dolls' ears pierced. Here they are waiting in line at the doll salon and then Ella is showing off the earrings.

 But the fun didn't stop there. Mims came along for the trip to and let the girls pick out new outfits for their dolls. You can imagine with all the options in that store how long it took for the girls to decide on one outfit! It was funny watching them run from one area to the next. Thanks so much Mims!!

This is my favorite picture.....we are in trouble! The girl likes to shop!

We really had two reasons for making that trip to Dallas. Mims and Pa recently moved into their new house and we couldn't wait until Christmas to see it!
The house is beautiful and we felt like we were at a resort sleeping there. So warm and cozy!
Here are a few pics:

My only real request for the trip was that we got to start the fire outside so Saturday night Pa started the fire in the fireplace and broke out the new grill for a wonderful BBQ in the back. It was a very peaceful end to a very exciting day!

The kids also got some time to play in the park that is a two minute walk from the house. They are very silly kids: