Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas (little late as usual) everyone!! We had a quiet, but fun little Christmas. It was the first Christmas we have spent when we didn't go anywhere or have anyone visit...just the four of us this year. The girls were so into it though that it made it so magical! They are at the perfect ages to really enjoy it. Here are highlights leading up to Christmas and some of the day. Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!!

I got to go to each girls class and help them decorate a cookie this year...here is Fin's... And Avery had us all there to help out as it was after the school Christmas program... Here's our little shepherd and donkey...The girls practiced for weeks on the songs for their Christmas Program. They had so much fun and were so proud of themselves:) It was a cute program. I love the fact that they are at a Christian school and have the blessing of celebrating Christ's birth in so many fun ways this time of year. Yes...I threw their costumes together the night before...they told us to keep it simple, so I did...you can see my horrible sewing skills all over the donkey's ears:) One night we headed over to a Christmas Storybook land where you walked around with tons of lighted trees and viewed hundreds of storybook scenes. At the end Santa was there to meet and greet. It was a long night of standing in line, but the girls were troopers and were delighted to meet Santa. Avery was especially intrigued by the elves and asked us on the way home if we had ever seen elves like that when we were kids. And I got zero good smile pictures from them...Avery was sporting this forced one pretty much the whole night when picture time came around. Santa almost gets a real smile:) We decorated a gingerbread house...last year we got a great kit from Rachel and I baked it up and we decorated it...it was fun to have a real gingerbread experience. We all spent one morning having so much fun! Turned out just as it should!! On Christmas eve my family has a tradition of reading the littlest angel. We have carried it on in our little family as well. I absoulutely love the story...the girls were a little anxious by the end, but they liked it too. Then they got some magic sleeping potion and were off to bed...well...almost...Avery woke up a few times. Each time she would come down into our room and say...mom, dad, it's not pm anymore...it's am...it's time to wake up! About the third time around 3am Kristian went in and slept on their floor...I so remember the excitement at that age and how you could just hardly sleep:)Here's our little bedheads discovering their stockings...

And opening some gifts...

One of the best gifts Santa brought was fingernail polish for each of the girls. This was a huge hit...funny how santa spends so much money for certain gifts and the most loved ones often seem to be the simplest:)

Avery wanted a race car set so bad...she has had so much fun with it!!

There you have it...our little Christmas in a nutshell. We are looking forward to a great new year with our new little addition waiting hopefully another week or so to arrive. We feel blessed and fortunate to have all that we have and are especially greatful for family and friends whom we love and miss dearly...Happy New Year all!!

Avery turns 5 and a little Thanksgiving late...

Avery has one of those birthdays that gets overrun by a holiday...in this case Thanksgiving so we celebrated on her actual birthday with family and then had a party in December to invite her friends. She is our little budding paleontologist and so it had to be a dinosaur party. We had a great time!

I just wanted to do a volcano cake for her as I thought this would simplify things and since I am so seriously pregnant simplicity is key...but Avery really really wanted a pink dinosaur, so I threw that in at the end...it turned out proportionately odd, but cute none the less. Everything is edible on the cake and board...we had dry ice in the top so there was smoke coming from the volcano...you can't see it well though because the cup was so little...next volcano cake I do needs a bigger reservoir for the dry ice:)

Finley was so excited to be a part of her sisters birthday...she had been sick the week of, while we were preparing for it all and I was so afraid she wouldn't make it. She still had a runny nose and cough, but we thought she was okay that morning with no fever for a few days...Then during the party I noticed she was shivering and sure enough after the party she was running a fever...I felt so bad for exposing all of those kids...luckily I think it was only a cold...not the flu cause it went away pretty quickly.

When all the kids arrived we had them sit down to create a little dinosaur ornament...afterwhich they went out to the garage for a dinosaur dig. Kristian did a great job of setting up an obsticle course where the kids first dug out of a big bin full of sand, a little dino. They then walked with their dino on a spoon through the obsticals to a "watering hole" where they got to give their dinos a bath and then start all over. They each got to do it three times and just loved it.

Avery and Lincoln have some spiffy dinosaurs!

Avery makes her way through one of the obsticals

Fin walks the plank...After the dino dig, the kids came in for a hunt. They searched the house for four dinosaurs with clues that I gave them and each dino had a puzzle piece on it. When they were all done they got to see that the next place was the garage again, where the pinata was waiting for them to take a swing at. We then came in for cake and icecream and to open presents...

Avery gets really embarrased when you sing happy birthday to her...it is really cute.

Avery had lots of fun little friends there! How quickly my little girl has grown up. She simply amazes me everyday. Avery is so energetic and fun! She is a quick thinker and always has a new angle on things. She is so bright it amazes me at how much she knows and how she thinks things through well beyond her five years. She is eager to grow up...loving to no end...helpful and kind and sensitive. She loves anything althletic, crafty, and scientific. She has a great desire to do what is right and is eager to please. I so love this little girl...I couldn't have asked for more in my beautiful little first born. ************************************************************************************* My dear friend Rachel had come the week leading up to Avery's birthday. She came all the way from Santa Fe and all it seemed we did was birthday stuff while she was here...I felt so bad, so when the party was over and we had all rested a bit we went to the beach as a final horrah to her little vacation. It was beautiful to be there at sunset...

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Avery actually wanted a few girly things this year for her birthday...she got her first barbie and a barbie scooter and some other fun things...(I think she played with the barbie for one day then it was on to the dino kit and the scooter...that's our little tomboy:)

Grandma and Grandpa Mortenson came for Thanksgiving this year. It was great to see them and we enjoyed a great day at the coast with them too. Grandma Ackerman was able to come the week before to visit and then we had everyone at our house for a great thanksgiving feast...Kristian made a great turkey and we all pitched in with some other delicous fare. Grandma Ackerman also got to attend Avery's thanksgiving feast at school which was a lot of fun.

It has been a good year...we do have a lot to be thankful for especially two (soon to be 3) wonderful kids whom we love dearly!

Our fall

I am going to start this post from the end...Halloween night. After a week cooped up at home with H1N1 (Avery only so far) we were thrilled to take the girls out trick-or-treating. We had to avoid all the usual festivities of the day and night such as downtown shop trick-or-treating, and parties of friends to allow a full 48 hrs fever free, but we did head out and haunt a neighborhood for an hour or so. The girls had SO MUCH FUN!! This year they are the perfect ages...they walked right up to the doors, knocked and said trick-or-treat and were elated with every little drop in their buckets. It was delightful to watch!

Avery is a fairy princess and Finley is a clown...or JoJo if you know what that is...we didn't until people started saying...oh look it's JoJo...guess it's some kids show:)

Notice our pumpkins in the corner...we started the year out with six...one for each of the girls, mom and dad, piper the cat and the new baby...well by halloween night we were down to three...the others all rotted...so sad:(

Avery was so proud of her fairy wings:)

Halloween morning we had pumpkin pancakes...yummy!

Here is our night of carving...notice Avery in the background as sick as can be but such a trooper. She was so worried all week that she would miss out on Halloween and pumpkins so we carved them out one night when she was feeling a little better. Poor kid:(

The weekend before Halloween (a day before sickness struck) we got to spend some time with my dad who flew in from Pennsylvania. He came down and spent a night with us. The next day we went to the farmers market, took him to Mary's peak and then to a birthday/football party at a friends house. It was so great to have him here and the girls loved every minute!

Up on Mary's peak...

I forget what mountain this is...you can see several from the top...we had the most beautiful weather for viewing...

The girls and I made pumpkin cookies toward the middle of the month...they love to help mom bake...and eat!

One Sunday afternoon we took a walk with the girls and collected leaves...we gave them each a bag to put their leaves in...when Fin had filled her bag up she kept collecting until she could hardly hold her bouquet of leaves...

There is a great orchard not far from where we live and we have gone there twice in the past few weeks cause we love it so. We love that they give out free apple pie with ice cream (my favorite dessert ever). We got some fresh squash, pumpkins, rode a horse drawn buggy, and went apple picking. It is a great place!

Having both the girls in school this year meant I got to go to the pumpkin patch with each of their classes...Fin got to pick out the pumpkin for the whole class when she went in addition to her own...she was very proud:)

Avery is all about finding the biggest pumpkin possible...I had to limit her to a pumpkin that her old, preggo, mom could carry:)

I had to include the girls first day of school pics as I doubt I will ever go back and gather all the lost memories and catch up...so here they are for the future scrapbook...

Fin goes two days a week and Avery gets to go everyday...they get to do a lunch sometimes together which they love. Avery has become such an amazing big sister to Finley...so nurturing and protective...I love to see them interact and care for each other:)

Fin's first day of preschool

Avery's first day of pre-k ************************************************************************************* There you have it...our fall so far...it really is beautiful here and we are enjoying it all we can before all the rain hits:) Happy Fall everyone!