Christmas Gingerbread House

It has become a tradition for us at christmas time to make a gingerbread house. The kids look forward to it every year. It is truly one of their favorite things to do. This is the outcome of all our hard work. The kids as you can see are pretty proud of the finished product.

As a side note, I went to get my hair lightened. I decided to go to the Paul Mitchell School of hair so that I could get it done for cheaper. At this time Matt was unemployed, so I was doing my best to save us money. As you can see in the picture instead of being lightened, my hair has been darkened. I am not sure how I was so misunderstood. I ended up finding someone else to do my hair to make it light like I wanted it to begin with. So much for trying to save some money.

Pics of the kids

Random pictures of the kids.

Snow, Snow & more snow

Here we are with the snow upon us. Seth is all ready to go out for the 1st time in the snow. This picture totally reminds me of A Christmas Story with Ralphy & his younger brother Randy. They are always bundled up, but can hardly move. The kids absolutely love playing in the snow. It is almost as good as being at the beach, they use all their beach toys building snow castles, instead of sand castles. The kids enjoy going out to play while Matt does the snow blowing. Living up here in Ohio gives the kids plenty of opportunity to play in the snow!

The Nutcracker & Cookie exchange

Grandma & Grandpa Hansen invited Mckayla and I to the nutcracker. Jenny & Olivia came as well. Mckayla thought it was super fun to be with her cousin, and to spend time with grandma & grandpa. She enjoyed the nutcracker, and watching all of

the ballerinas. During intermission Grandma bought Mckayla a nutcracker ornament to put on the christmas tree. It was definitely a night to remember!

We also stayed the night at G& G's house, because the next day we were having a cookie exchange with all the cousins. It was lots of fun, and lots of goodies were made to share with each other. Mckayla thoroughly enjoyed decorating Grandma's sugar cookies with the cousins. Most of all we enjoyed tasting all of the cookies. Grandma makes the best sugar cookies ever!!!!

Pics of Abigail

Happy faces from Abigail's in her exersaucer!

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010 we had a princess Cinderella, Night Fury (from How to Train a Dragon), and Spiderman.

Here is a shot of Mckayla's school parade. If the weather is nice they parade across the street to a senior living apartment complex. This is her with her class as they were headed back.

For Halloween this year we went down to Columbus to our friends house (the Zuro's) and Trick or Treated there. The kids had a blast. It was also super convenient because they gave the kids a hayride from door to door throughout the neighborhood.

Happy 7th Birthday Mckayla

I am a year and a half behind in my journaling of the happenings of our family. I am hoping to do my best of remembering of all the things that have happened. Mckayla's 7th birthday was Oct. of 2010. This birthday was extra fun, because she had the opportunity to have the class stuff animal(a monkey named"bananas") for the week of her birthday. She was to include him in her activities, and then journal and scrapbook about what her and bananas did. Here she is with bananas after she opened her first gift.

Here they are after opening all the gifts.

Here she is jumping with Banana's on the tramp.

Mckayla wanted to have dinner with the Shene's because Leah is her most favorite friend ever!! So we met up with them at Eat n Park. These are some of the gifts they gave Mckayla. They also gave her a Rapunzel Barbie.

This year she chose to have an oreo ice cream cake. Here she is with Banana's once again, he is helping her blow her candles out.

This shot was of the kids, and Banana's is on the couch. I think Mckay enjoyed a week with the class monkey. Happy 7th to my beautiful girl!!