Crazy Hair Days

Chelsea certainly has some very crazy hair days. Ryan snapped these pictures of her the other day. He was watching her and claimed that he can't do hair so he just let it be. Oh my will she be proud of this hairdo when she is 15!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

The kids were eager to get out and play in the first inch of snow for this winter. We ran a few errands this morning and stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Miller's house for a bowl of chili. Great day for a nice hot bowl of soup! After lunch we headed home so Chelsea could get a much needed nap. The other two kids never came in, they wanted to stay and play in the snow. After I got Chelsea to bed I went outside to play too. It was a nice day to play outside. Not horribly cold yet...but I'm sure it will come. We shoveled the cement pad, had a little snowball fight, built a snow castle, and of course ate some snow! After an hour or so of playing they began asking for hot chocolate. I think that's become the tradition. Every snowy adventure is followed by a cup of hot chocolate. So they drank hot chocolate while watching "The Grinch" Seems that is their favorite Christmas movie this year. It has be be about the 15th time they have watched it! We had lots of fun and I hope more snow is on the way...I would LOVE to have a very snowy Christmas!

Christmas Cards

Audrey is trying really hard to be convincing that she is happy but really she is on the verge of tears. She had just finished a crying episode..I think because she couldn't hold the ornament in front of her face.

Casey...Can he get any more excited? Audrey...tonsils are beautiful. Chelsea was actually doing pretty good with picture taking. Once she found out what the candy cane tasted like she didn't move!

A little two second click....Doesn't seem like it should be that difficult. Take a nice picture to send out to family and friends....cheery...everyone smiling....hands at your sides... and we are done..fast as that! Yeah right! On two occasions I gathered the kids together to try to paint a picture of our cute happy family. Approximately 50 shots later I still didn't really have a picture I was satisfied with. Children screaming in some, tonsils showing in others, worst day of my life looks just didn't seem appropriate to send out as our Christmas cards. I thought about not sending any of the pictures I took but then I reconsidered thinking that anyone who knows kids knows that life is a lot like a circus so I'm not going to try and pretend that it's not a little crazy at times and VERY difficult to take a good picture of 3 kids. Here are some of my favorite shots that didn't make the Christmas card.

Audrey's new Dollhouse

Audrey was thrilled the other day to get a nice big package in the mail. Grandma Kauffman had told her that a dollhouse was coming in the mail to her as her Christmas present a little early. The first day she got it (after I spent several hours putting it together...staying up until midnight) she played with it pretty much all day. Casey played with her a lot of the time. He was the zookeeper and all of the dolls would visit the zoo. On this particular day the dolls got to take the baby tiger home but on the way home the baby was lost. I'm not sure if the tiger made it home that day but in a different scenerio an adult tiger was spotted right outside the dollhouse. That tiger had to be darted to put it to sleep so it could then be transported back to the zoo. In the meantime the baby tiger had somehow crawled up onto the roof of the house. Police officers were needed to rescue the tiger. Oh the joys of the imagination!

McKinley Museum Christmas Open House

Not sure who the girl on the right is...guess she wanted to be in our picture!

Last night we went to McKinley Museum for their Christmas Open house. They had crafts for the kids, experiments for the kids to try out, live reindeer and of course Santa! The kids had fun getting out of the house a bit and we saw some nice lights on our way as well. Here are a couple shots of our evening.

Fall Traditions

Every fall the kids and I spend some time with mom and dad. The week after Thanksgiving is Ryan's favorite week of the year as it is gun season. Since he is usually gone for most of the week, we take a break from the normal routine and head out to Indiana. We left last Saturday and came back on Thursday. The kids really enjoyed their time out there. When I asked Casey what his favorite thing we did in Indiana he told me it was making this marble maze with Grandpa. They spent several hours making it and it really did turn out cute. Other activities Casey enjoyed were shooting his bow and arrow with Caleb and Kadin and playing jungle with Grandma. Audrey had some special time playing tea party with Steph and her babies. She absolutely loved it! Chelsea had a bit of a rough time away from her natural surroundings. Since there were so many new things she thought she should just attach herself to my leg! Not fun! I did manage to get away for an afternoon one day in which mom and dad pampered me by scheduling me a day to get a massage as well as a haircut. Oh how relaxing! Thanks again mom and dad! Thursday we headed home and I was happy to hear that the two does Ryan shot while I was gone were already in the freezer. I love having the meat but don't exactly care for the processing of them.