Christmas and Courtship

We enjoyed Ava's preschool Christmas program on December 14th - the kids did a really great job with their 5 songs and then we all stayed for treats and fellowship in the church hall afterwards. Ava was Angel #5. The day before, Ava told us that she proposed to Logan at school. He said yes. We got to meet him at the program and then shared the big news with his mom. She looked at Ava and asked, "Are you Ava W.?" Logan's mom then explained that Logan talks about Ava W. at home all.the.time. Here is the happy couple. This December has gone on record as Minnesota's biggest snowfall to date with somewhere around 33 inches. A substantial portion of this accumulation fell on Saturday, December 11th. Scot had been in Yuma, AZ on a Guard trip since the previous Sunday and was supposed to return on Friday - the day before the snow fell. However, a mechanical problem with their plane delayed them one day which then caused them to be "stuck" in Arizona another day because they couldn't fly into MSP due to the weather. Sigh. After a week of playing single mom (and the previous 2 weeks were mostly single too), I was not thrilled. We were supposed to have breakfast with Santa that Saturday morning and 2 birthday parties but everything was cancelled. And I snow-blowed and snow-blowed and snow-blowed. Thank goodness for the snowblower, but it was still a chore. This was the special picture I texted Scot to show just how happy I was...
Bundling up 2 kids in winter gear each time and trying to make sure they were also safe and OK while I cleared the driveway took another toll. The last time I went out (to tackle the literally 3 foot by 3 foot wall at the end of the driveway), I gave up and left them inside, turned on cartoons and told Ava to watch Reese. Yes, a 5 year old watching a 2 year old. By some miracle, they were still OK when I came in 45 minutes later. Anyway, Scot made it home safely on Sunday around 4 pm., well after all of the snow was done falling of course...

Anyway...all of this snow has made Ava a very happy girl! She loves to be outside and the snowpile that has accumulated in the middle of the culdesac is really icing on the cake. This is what it looked like last weekend and we've had another 5 or so inches since then...Reese isn't nearly as much of a winter fan like Ava is. She often stands in the garage while the rest of us play or work.



We've been busy with other Christmas preparations too...last Sunday we went to downtown Minneapolis to see the Macy's display and pay a visit to Santa. We all really enjoyed the display and the girls sort of enjoyed seeing Santa. Reese didn't want anything to do with sitting on his lap and Ava was really hesitant at first too, but she eventually warmed up and told him she wanted a dolphin pillow pet.

We also got on the ice rink for the first time and made dozens of spritz cookies. Fun and yum!




We've had our tree up for 3 weeks and it still looks great, despite getting knocked over once by Ava. And the other decorations have been up, the stockings have been hung, the list was made...we were definitely ready for Santa's visit.

Merry Christmas! A look back...

I started tinkering around with digital scrapbooking while I was pregnant with Ava - I haven't done much with it, but I have made Christmas cards and birthday invitations for our family and for friends over the past several years. Here's a look at our family's cards since 2005. How things have changed...

This is the first year I haven't made the card myself, mostly due to general fatigue from being a single mom for most of 3 weeks in late November and into December. So I got some help from Snapfish.












Without scanning it in, I'm not sure how to copy and post our 2010 card here...but here is the family picture that I used from our trip to Florida. Merry Christmas! More posts to come from the busy days of December...

Florida • Friends • Family • FUN

This post is LONG overdue...so here we go.

We hit Clearwater Beach, FL the last week of October with our great friends Jess & Jared and their two daughters Keira (3) and Anna (6 mo).

We rented a house with its own pool that was also just a few blocks away from the beach. We had our own 3 season porch, pool, backyard, kitchen, etc...so we made a lot of meals at home and spent A LOT of time in the pool. It was a great setup for our needs (well, and for our wants too!) We didn't try to pack too much in and really did a lot of relaxing. Well, as much relaxing as you can do with 4 kids age 4and under ;-)

Jess and I took Keira and Ava to Magic Kingdom one of the days - and while it was hot (like 90 degrees and not a cloud in the sky), it was fantastic! We all had a great time and it was surprisingly not busy at all. We were able to get on most of the rides in under a 5 minute wait. And we made seeing the princesses (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Belle) our first order of business - another short wait and 2 VERY happy little girls!

On another day we all went to the Tampa Zoo - and had a similar experience to Disney. Hot weather, but very few people. Jared and Scot took the big girls on a dolphin boat ride too one afternoon. We all ventured out to dinner one night and then we swapped babysitting a couple of other nights so we could each have a date night dinner - it was great.

The backyard pool was probably everyone's favorite attraction. Ava and Keira were both able to swim independently with the help of floatation devices. And the last couple of days, Ava bravely tried swimming without her water wings and did a great job! Reese LOVED the water. The first time that Jess and I had the girls out by the pool, Reese literally walked right in. Thank God I was within a few feet of her! She jumped into the pool over and over and over again and got the hang of floating around pretty quickly. The adults liked the pool just as well, especially during naptime :-) Jess and I did a lot of sunning and reading...while Jared and Scot tried to prove their manhood with various stunts into the pool. If anything, they were good for a lot of laughs.

Awesome time all around...though we agreed that in a few more years it would be a lot more relaxing!

Just a sampling of the 500+ pictures from the week...