On this winter's night.

A Christmas Tradition.

Skating with our friends followed by a pizza dinner!  A beautiful afternoon and evening.  GREAT weather, twinkling lights…and reggae music?  Can't have everything!

Mason & Alexandra

These two were so cute - holding onto each other - they reminded me of little old ladies.

FAMILY

Friends

FUN!

Demonstration Speech

Alexandra had to read a book and give a demonstration speech.  She read a book about dirt biking and brought in her gear to show the class and talk about safety.  She also brought in a short video of her riding in the desert….she was pretty proud of her accomplishment!

Christmas Songs

Alexandra's 3rd grade class was asked to make ornaments and decorate the tree at a local bank.  The bank then invited them to come and sing for the tree lighting.  It was a lot of fun and the kids were all so enthusiastic.  It was a good show!

Alexandra and friends singing the blues.

Alexandra with her French teacher, Mr. Ginard.

Alexandra with her English teacher, Ms. Sulzen.

Again.

Apparently the TP'ing of the Living Room needed to be repeated from the previous year.  Oh Elfie.

Classe Francais

Elfie gathered up a few stuffed animal friends, passed our French books and held class one early December evening.

Ewok Platform

The girls school was having a gingerbread house contest and Alexandra and Avery were invited to a party to construct their masterpieces.  Avery decided to opt out but Alexandra went with Matt and they made the Ewok Platform.  I was wildly impressed and she was very proud to enter it in the contest.

Elfie

He's Baaaaack.

Elfie returned on December 1st and was welcomed to this lovely house that the girls put together complete with his own Christmas tree, a bed, table, laptop and cough and sofa.  I don't know that he'll ever want to leave.

Deck the Halls!

Christmas Christmas time is here!

Girls put their tree together on their own and strung it with new blue lights that they picked out  It actually was really pretty and the lights cast these bluish circles onto the wall.  They decorated and went through ornaments and had a good time remembering.  I love that!  They also helped me with my tree and our house was quite festive looking by the end of the day!

Beauty Shop

Our neighbor friend Isabelle slept over and the girls set up a beauty shop….yep, she's a beauty.

Thankful for SEVEN

Avery's seventh birthday was also Thanksgiving Day!  It was quite a celebration.  The day started, per our family tradition, of getting up CRAZY early and opening presents.  Avery had fun opening gifts - that is until she realized that there were no more :)  She was really happy with the gift from Alexandra and also the lego cruise ship that she has been asking for.  We followed up with another tradition - the birthday donut!  :)  The afternoon was spent celebrating further at Thanksgiving dinner with Matt's mom, Barton, Auntie Karina and Uncle Dave.  A GREAT day to be SEVEN!

Sister love!

Someone got what she wanted!

The lego building commenced immediately!

We put trick candles on the birthday donut.

She blew them out once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Again and….

again.

And had a little giggle when we showed her what was going on.

Look at this face!  She is such a amazing little person.

Happy Birthday AGAIN!

Yum!

Avery has the most expressive eyes - look at those beauties!

Presents from Grammy and Papa - the birthday sister also gets gifts too!

The end of the night was so cute!  Dave wanted to learn some French so Avery was talking up a storm to him and trying to teach him something.  They were both being so silly and going back and forth with tons of laughter and giggling.

A good day indeed.