more party pictures

here are some more pix from the Christmas party we went to at Wonderlad Development Center

My grown up Christmas list

seriously, what more could I ask for this Christmas . .





they are fun, and loud, and sassy, and dramatic, and hilarious, and beautiful, and kind, and gentle, and they are MINE! we are blessed this Christmas, and always :)

Ella is 6!

We had Ella's 6 year well check yesterday and she's just "perfect" :) It's fun to watch her interact with our doctor. She's very honest about what she eats, why she doesn't eat a lot of veggies, how much she loves school, and our dr. was very impressed as well :) She's 4 feet 2 inches and 54 pounds - no wonder I can no longer carry my baby! She is reading more and more everyday and knows many of her sight words and is getting great at sounding out new words! I cannot say enough how fun it has been watching her grow, especially since she started school! She LOVES math (she gets this from daddy) and reading (she gets that from mommy) and I'm so glad she decided to stay with choir because she loves to sing!

wearing the birthday crown she got to wear in school all day!

Miss Maren

Miss Maren is all over the place now! She gets into everything - cabinets, the toilet, the trash, etc . . she ahs learned to stand on her own, can walk with her push toy, and took her first few steps 2 days ago(which i never get on video)!!! she "talks" all the time - you have to be loud to get a word in around this house :) she eats anything but baby food now and loves to drink milk out of a cup. i cannot believe that our last brindisi babe will be 1 in just about 6 weeks!!



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around the house

Children's Christmas Church Choir

Ella's choir opened our church service today


All the children's choirs sang together for the Offeratory. Sorry, but she's hidden by the harp in this one :( Although, I was getting a kick out of her attitude the entire time!

Ella's 6th Birthday Party!

Ella had 5 friends over for a "tea party" themed birthday. we had out all my good china and ella wore her best party dress :) she even had a pinata! it was crazy cold outside but the kiddos loved it!






this was a cake i had to throw together in less than an hour - literally! the cake i had originally baked (9 of them to be exact) did not turn out the way i hoped so i took all my leftovers and did this. fortunately, to 6 year olds, cake is cake! and it tasted just fine, so the only one who was bummed, was me :)

Family Christmas Party

Our church had a family Christmas party last week. the girls got to make some ornaments and see a Christmas play.
don't you just love how annoyed they already look with me!


the infamous family photo :)

Wonderland Christmas Party

Wonderland Development Center, where Norah had her therapy, had their Christmas party last week. The girls thought it was "awesome" (their words)! There was a bouncy house, boat, face painting, and a Christmas Penguin and Elf :)




that's Miss Rachel doing the face painting. She was Norah's speech and OT. We LOVE her :)

Christmas Tree

We made our annual trek to a local tree farm so Danny could cut down our tree.

Thanksgiving 2011

not many pictures this year. norah became sick with croup tuesday and i spent wednesday night in the ER with her so they could give her some breathing treatments and some meds. she's already doing much better tonight but we had to cancel our plans to have dinner with friends and i found myself trying to plan a meal at 11pm the night before thanksgiving . . i did my best :)

ohhh, the cutest!!


there's always room for cool whip :)


never, ever, EVER buy this turkey - even if they offer it to your for free! really!

thankfully, our friends who we were supposed to have dinner with, brought us over a beautiful homecooked meal consisting of all the leftovers we missed!