Fourth Grade Rendezvous

Nick always seems to be the one available to go on field trips and I am jealous he got to go to the 4th grade rendezvous at Fort Buenaventura this year.  It sounded like so much fun!  Nick was in charge of loading kids into the canoes where they could row across a pond.  They also did a tug-of-war, watched a mountain man load a black-powder rifle, participated in a hatchet throw, shot taffy out of a cannon, and ate fry bread.  How cool is that?  This was a perfect field trip for a dad to go on though.  I can't wait until Brielle gets to go and hopefully Nick can go again.

Raising Butterflies

Every year for the last couple years, my mom has given my girls caterpillars to grow and turn into butterflies.  We keep them in a net basket on our bar and watch them go through all the stages from caterpillar to butterfly.  After they have hatched out of their chrysalis, we feed them oranges and let them get their wings stronger for about a week.  On a non-windy day, my girls take them to a big open space and let them go.  They took a few friends with them this year to release the butterflies and the butterflies started landing on their hands and shirts!  They love this amazing tradition!

Easter Excitement

I will never understand why my girls like Peeps for Easter, but they sure popped them right in their mouth!  We tried a new technique of coloring eggs this year.  For Brielle's eggs, we covered them in shaving cream and dropped food coloring on them.  After they had time to dry, we wiped the eggs off and it looked like a pastel swirl of colors.  Emma wrapped her eggs in a wet paper towel before dropping food coloring on them and hers turned out with darker, swirled colors.  It was fun to try a new way and actually less messy.  They participated in the annual grandchildren egg hunt, but the pictures were blurry because they were running so fast!  And the girls looked lovely in their dresses today as well!

Double Digit

I don't know why, but both of my girls wanted to wear their pajamas when we had family over for their birthdays.  I guess it is because they are so comfortable?  We celebrated Emma's birthday this month.  Emma is getting to the point where she doesn't want toys, but isn't quite into clothes, so she is hard to shop for.  She loves to read, watch movies, play the piano, and play games, so that is what most of her birthday presents were.  I am still amazed she has been in our family for 10 years.  It goes way too fast...

Special Seven

Brielle turned 7 this month!  It is tricky to have a birthday soon after Christmas, but she always makes things unique which is good.  She chose peanut butter fingers as her birthday dessert!  We had family over on her birthday and she received more Lego's.  You can see she is especially excited about the Lego Dolphin Cruiser!  This year was also her year for a friend party.  She had donuts for dessert during that party.  It was sort of a "Frozen" party without all of the commercial stuff.  They played pin the carrot on Olaf, make snowflakes and icicle pictures and screamed a little!  They had a great time.  Shortly after her birthday, Brielle also lost her two bottom teeth!  She is starting to grow up!

Christmas 2013

Excitement was in the air this year as you can see from their faces.  The girls were spoiled as usual!  We didn't do a lot after Christmas because I was not feeling well, but I don't think the girls cared because that meant they could just stay home and play with their toys.  Brielle had Lego projects and Emma was making a lot of bracelets.  We were able to spend a lot of time with family which is always fun, too!  It is always sad when it is over and we have to go back to regular life, but at least we get more sleep!

Christmas Traditions

Some of my family's favorite Christmas traditions is sitting on Santa's lap at the Wilson family Christmas party.  Even though there are 30 or more children at the party, he still takes his time to listen to each one's request.  We have also started to have a Christmas party with Nick's siblings so the cousins can exchange presents without trying to add it to Christmas day.  That Christmas party includes a nativity performed by the children and a talent show.  Brielle played a Christmas song this year and Emma showed off her dance moves!  The girls have had Ginger the Elf watching over our family this year, and even though Ginger created some trouble the girls really loved her.  Luckily on Christmas Eve, they are allowed to touch her before she goes back to the North Pole until next year.