Painting Fun

Hannah and Griff wanted to paint the other morning. And as much as I wanted to say no (it's just so, so, so MESSY), I said yes. I'm trying to say yes more often.....it's so easy to say "no, it's too cold to go outside", "no, the playdough gets all over", "no, the paint is too messy".....what kind of fun mom is that? So....I'm practicing one of my NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS early - say yes more. And because I said yes, you get to see some cute pictures of the monkeys hard at work :-) (and I got to practice using my camera more, so we all won :-) Enjoy!

Shoveling the Driveway

Hannah and Griff wanted to help shovel the driveway this morning. They lost interested about as quickly as I did! At least I got the sidewalk done :-) They had fun playing in the snow for about a 1/2 hour. It was pretty cold and windy so that was all we could take. Still working on figuring out these new lenses....I don't think these are the best pictures, but this is what I got today...enjoy!

More Gingerbread

We decorated more gingerbread this weekend. Everyone had a good time eating the frosting and sprinkles....and then the cookies. They decorated - and ate - them while I was making dinner.....and then I was surprised when no one would eat the lovely chicken casserole I made.

A Moment of Silence

our pc finally died....we are now a Mac family. Wait, we are now a VERY HAPPY Mac family! Um, we should have bought this little (well, not so little actually) machine ages ago. We LOVE it. The screen is THIS BIG (Hannah calls it a tv) and it was the smallest screen we could get. Now all the little love bugs can sit around it at the same time and clearly see the screen. And WOW, is it FAST....likethis! Anyway, so easy to set up, so easy to use, and really, so cool looking! We are very happy. We moved the desk into the family room so we could set it up there for all of us to use. And look, Hannah and Abby were using it this morning before school!

Ice Skating

It's officially winter around here....we were out on the pond ice skating this afternoon. Abby loves it and was disappointed when she had to come in. Turns out the pond wasn't as frozen as we thought and started to thaw - oops. When I started to see lots of slush around the edges of the pond, I knew it was time to come in. A bit of hot chocolate and a promise to take Abby to the indoor ice rink tomorrow made her feel better about having to come in. Enjoy the pictures...they are the first of many skating pictures this season, I'm sure!

Giddy!

I got a new camera and a couple of new lenses last week, and I've been having fun trying everything out. There is definitely a bit of a learning curve with the lenses, but I'm getting there!  The pictures of H&G are from the other day.  The ones of Abby are from today.  As is tradition, she decorated her gingerbread house.  I think she ate more frosting than she used, but she had fun! Tomorrow H&G are going to attempt to decorate gingerbread ornament cookies....we'll see how they do!

Abby's Advent Program

Abby's school had their Advent Program on Thursday night.  We got everyone dressed up and headed to St. Hubert's right after dinner.  For whatever reason, Griff was in a mood and wouldn't agree to a picture before we left, nor was he in a very good mood during the program.  He was much more interested in walking on the church riser, using it like a balance beam. I'm sure the other parents were thrilled to be sitting next to us :-)

Anyway, the program was nice. Abby's class sang two songs and sounded great.