Christmas Day 2013

Our Christmas day in pictures:

This year the girls ran to the stockings first.  :)

Olympic Pizza/Cake Night

Tonight we had a Pizza and Cake night Olympic style.  We all enjoy watching the Olympics together so I thought a fun dinner would be perfect!  I have to say though, I am finding it a lot harder to keep up with the Winter Olympics then we did the Summer Olympics 2 years ago.  When the kids are out of school in the summer it is much easier to stay up late, and have the kids stay up late to watch it together.  With everyone's busy schedules in full swing I find myself trying to catch up the next day as best I can from the DVR, usually while I am doing 2 other things. :)  I think this time around is the most I have missed of any Olympics.  Even tonight, it was still a school night so the watching together was short lived.

Earlier that afternoon the girls had fun sorting the M & M's for the rings on our cake

Christmas Eve 2013

Here is Christmas Eve in pictures!


Our traditional Christmas Eve morning cookie decorating

Alexa's School Show

Now that we are approaching Valentine's Day I figure I really need to try and post the rest of Christmas.  :)  So here I go.  Hopefully in the next few days I can finish it up!  These are from Alexa's Christmas program at school.  I can't believe this is her last preschool Christmas show.  :(

We let Kaylee miss school to join us again this year

Kaylee's 8th Birthday!!

Happy 8th Birthday to my beautiful, smart, sweet girl!!  One week ago Kaylee turned the big 8.  I have to say I think this Birthday has been one of the hardest on me.  Now anyone who reads my blog knows that any birthday seems to be hard on me with any kid and I just want everyone to stay little, but this is the first year that I really feel like she is getting older and I see it in her from the way she dresses, talks, cares what others think, wants her privacy, takes on more responsibility....just overall seems like a big kid now.  No longer can be classified as a little kid any more.  I remember talking with Ryan about all this the night before when I was getting everything set up for the big day...still set up balloons, streamers, etc.......(you bet I will do this even when the eyes start rolling!!!)....and I remember it really hit me hard this year....got teared up and everything.  I think this was the first year I almost felt really truly sad the night before one of my kids birthdays.  Now I know she is not moving out yet but I start thinking thoughts like, she only has 10 more years until she is 18, and lots of kids want to move out at 18 and go to school...ahh!  10 more years is almost half the time that she has been alive and I started thinking all those crazy thoughts and how fast it has all gone.  I realize that I need to try and learn to embrace the change and cherish each time, and learn to celebrate each phase even though it means getting out of the little kid phases that I know and love so much....because face it, none of us or our kids are getting any younger.  So with that said, I talked myself out of the pity party and we had a great weekend celebrating Kaylee!