Fairy Princesses

For Christmas, my sister-in-law sent Auralee and Taryn these great tutus she found.

The girls looked so cute, I had to take a picture of them! Someday (maybe for Halloween), I'll do their hair and glitter them up and get some really great pictures of them.

Thanks Candace!

My little artist

Auralee loves to draw and every once in a while she draws something that is really good and I just have to take a picture.

For Christmas I got the girls this great easel from Ikea (I got it on sale for $10, thank you very much!) I also got them the Tinkerbell movie so Auralee was really into fairies. She drew a great Tinkerbell in chalk and copied the name from the video. Someday I'll post some other pictures she's drawn.

Merry Christmas 2008

We got up around 6:30 or 7 and got the girls up to open presents. They were both kind of excited, but for different reasons. Auralee knew that presents were coming, so she was ready to go, but Taryn was ready for breakfast. The only way we could get her to turn around and go into the living room was to give her a doughnut to munch on. It worked and we got right to it. I don't know who was more excited, me or the girls.

Some friends of ours gave us their old tree, and I loved decorating it with the ornamants Ive been gathering over the past few years. I hope to refine it in the future. Every year we get a new family ornament for our tree that has some meaning for our family. I love it and have lots of fun picking it out with the kids.

After they did the presents Santa left for them and opened their stockings, we opened presents.

Everyone got some really nice presents and enjoyed everything they got. Luc knew I needed some storage for my scrap booking stuff so he got me a great drawer for a lot of it. He had been wanting a football, so I looked around and found a really good one. The girls got some nice toys and a couple great outfits. My sister made me some really great decorative plates and got me a beautiful rack to hang them on.

After a nice breakfast, we went to grandma Engstrom's house where we got to open more presents. It was all a lot of fun and we all had a great day.

A visit from grandma and grandpa

My grandma and grandpa Snyder are two of my MOST favorite people in the world. A while back they were in town to pick up my cousins from the airport and they stayed at my sister Alisha's house. Of course, I had to go see them!



It was nice to visit with them even if it was for just a little while. I cant wait for the summer when I'll get a whole week! I love them soooooooo much.

What a Show!

Auralee's school put on a couple plays where all the kids sang. It would have been really good, but the sound system went out right before the show and they couldn't get it to work. Every speaking part had to be said through the bull horn and no one told the kids (or the teacher) that in order for the audience to hear what they were saying they had to point it TOWARDS us :) Even though we couldn't hear a thing, all the kids sang their songs really well. I enjoyed the music, so that was worth it. The only other draw back was that they didn't have risers for the kids to stand on and they put the kindergartners in the back rows so we couldn't see them.




Because of that, I decided to take a picture of Auralee in her classroom after the performance. Some of her classmates wanted in on the picture as well.

Isn't she pretty in her dress? And still that smile ;)

Fudge

I've made it a tradition for myself that every year I'm going to make fudge. The first year I just made the plane kind and then I figured out how to branch out. I experimented with different flavors and I found quite a few that I really like. For the past two years I've had the help of my friend and distant cousin, Natalie. Her payoff is that she gets to go home with a nice mix of fudge and she doesn't have to mess up her kitchen. Now who do you think is the smarter of the two :)

This year we made eight batches. There were two batches of plain, two of nuts, one raspberry, one cherry, one mint and one peppermint with little chunks of peppermint candy in it. It all turned out great and we all loved eating it. I like to give it away for the holidays and there was just enough for everyone I wanted it for.



After Christmas Wal-mart has all their Christmas merchandise on sale and this year I bought up ALL of their cookie tins in preparation for next year. I love having everything ready and having Natalie to help makes it tons more fun! Until next year...

Ward Christmas Party

OK, so I'm slowly but surely going to get caught up with all my blogging. I have to go way back to before Christmas, but Ive gotta start somewhere. Here goes :)



We had a really nice ward Christmas party. The stage was set up great and all the kids looked wonderful. We had to do a makeshift white dress for Auralee, because she doesn't have one. I wrapped my white skirt around her and cinched it up with my white belt and she wore her own white shirt. My little devil looked like an angel ;) by the end of the performance, her halo was off her head and crumpled, but she did great non-the-less.

Taryn "sang" a song with the nursery kids and stayed up there without crying. Afterwards while the other kids were performing, she slowly made her way to the stage and eventually ended up on the little rocking horse. It was very funny and she wasnt hurting anything, so I let her stay up there for a while. She just wanted to be a part of the action!



After the play, everyone go to eat doughnuts and have hot chocolate, which Auralee LOVED, and then all the kids got in line and got to sit on Santa's lap. Auralee did just fine, of course, but Taryn wanted OFF. She wasn't having any of it. I thought she would do good since she was a little older, but I was wrong.

Auralee loved sitting on Santa's lap and telling him all the things she wanted for Christmas. She looked great in the pretty dress her grandma Engstrom got her and some day she'll show everyone what a pretty smile she has.