Pool Party!

Mom and Dad got a suite out in WDM tonight and are having the kids spend the night with them---WOOT!!! :) It was a lot of fun and the kids should sleep WELL as they were in the pool for 6 hours straight! We also celebrated Ken's bday, which is tomorrow. It was a really fun night!
Dad and Sara. Ken, in his birthday throne.

Nana and Porter playing in the water Hannah, Stella and Haydn eating pizza.

The kiddos with Uncle Ken

Blowing out his candles....he doesn't look a day over 29!

Ken soaking the kids!

Nana motioning to Porter it is not a good idea to spray her with the water gun!

Mom and Dad cleaned out their cedar chest yesterday and came across this gem, a sweater that Liane knitted dad for his high school graduation. It is in perfect condition and still fits!

Luckily they had already invited Tom and Liane out to hang with us tonight so Liane was able to see Dad in his sweater.......40 years later!!! :)Chicken Fight!

Uncle Mark and Haydn.

Mark and Ken getting attacked by Porter and Stella

Ice Skating!

We headed down to Brenton Skating Plaza this morning for some ice skating! The kids were very excited as they have never been ice skating before! I was really surprised at how well they did, especially Stella! Porter did great too, wasn't scared at all! It was a balmy 37 degrees when we got there, perfect weather for outside ice skating! :)
Stella's first time on the ice...holding onto the side for support. Mike and Stella....Stella letting go of the railing a bit.

Peak-A-Boo, I see you.

Lookin' like pros!

No hands!!!

Crash....yes, there were tears! But she hopped right up and started again. :)

Slip, slidin' away......

Santa!!!!!!!!!

We've had a great last few days, preparing for Santa's arrival, celebrating the birth of Jesus and spending lots of family time together.
Friday late afternoon we headed to mass at 3, it was a great service and we sat right near the choir and instruments which Stella really enjoyed.
Here are Stella and Porter after mass, dressed in their Christmas duds, in front of our Christmas tree. Christmas Eve we stayed in and I fixed a bunch of appetizers. Everyone got to choose one favorite thing they wanted. Porter choose "green punch", he had this at his school Christmas program and has been talking about it EVERYDAY since then! I emailed his teacher and got the recipe, he was so excited!! Here they are cheers-ing with their green punch, in fancy glasses. (For those of you wondering what Stella choose for her special treat on Christmas Eve, it was Auntie Ann's pretzel sticks!!! Of course!! She's obsessed. I have a copycat recipe of them and she gobbled them right up!)

After Santa arrived on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning, Stella digging into her stocking. She was up at 3:30AM and asked if Santa had been here yet, I told her no, she went right back to sleep! :) When she came down stairs on Christmas morning (at a much more respectful time of 7AM) she yelled out "HE CAME!!!!!!". Porter immediately wanted to know if Santa had eaten his cookies (Stella left him pretzel sticks!) and if Santa had filled his stocking, so Porter headed down to the stockings first thing!

Checking things out.....

Dancing around after opening her baby doll.

Porter with his submarine.

The after-math!

Porter got foam Batman "shaving cream" and "razor" in his stocking, he was most excited to play with it in the bath!

Stella got princess Tiana body wash, shampoo and body lotion, with a special bath loofah and tiara!

Christmas Cookies

We (I) spent the better part of today making Christmas cookies. We made 3 kinds, sugar cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies and double choc chunk with mint sprinkles. The kids had a lot of fun in the kitchen and even more fun icing the cookies. I was amazed at how long the decorated the cookies, they sat and worked on them for over an hour. I thought maybe they would get bored after 10 minutes! They were very proud of their decoration skills!! :)
Stella breaks eggs all by herself now! :)

He has chocolate pudding all around his mouth if you are wondering what that is!!!

Porter got slightly carried away with the sprinkles!

Porter's Christmas Concert

Porter had his Christmas concert at preschool this morning. It was really cute! They sang 5 or 6 songs. There are ten 3 year olds in his class and they all did pretty good.
Here they are ringing their bells.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Go Tell It On The Mountain

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus