family pictures

We went to see Allie with A Walk in the Park Photography for holiday mini-sessions again this year.  I am always amazed that she ends up with good pictures, because our children consistently act like compete fools during our sessions.  :)

{caroline}

{emily}

And what most of the 30 minutes really looked like...{dancing to Frozen and being dramatic}

Merry Christmas!!

christmas jammies!

This year, I took orders for embroidered Christmas pjs through etsy and from friends....and whew!!!  I may have been a bit optimistic on how much embroidery time I would have during the super-busy fall season!  But I did get them all done, and then took about a month off from pjs before finally making some for my own kids!  

I had actually ordered 2 sets for the kids, one red/white and one red/green.  I was planning to do a white snowflake design on the red/white ones, and then something else on the red/green.  But unfortunately, one of the red/white ones got sucked into my machine when a snowflake was being embroidered, and ended up with a big hole in it!  UGH!  Thankfully it happened on one of ours, and not someone else's!  So I wrote the red and white ones off as un-fixable, and since the snowflake design was my favorite, I put that design on the red and green ones.  And THEN...once I got caught up on all my Christmas orders and had some extra time, I was able to fix the red and white ones enough to be used.  Sort of a long and pointless story...but that's how we ended up with 2 sets of jammies with pretty much the same designs.  

So we had a little photo shoot one night, right after a pretty extreme meltdown over having to wear the pjs instead of queen elsa dresses.  Yet somehow, they rallied and we got some really cute pics!  :)

thanksgiving

Clearly a little behind on blog posts again...maybe my new years resolution will be to stay on top of this a little more?  Or actually, my resolution should be to catch up on making the blog scrapbooks for the last 3 years that I'm behind on.  {oops}  So even though it's almost New Years, let's talk Thanksgiving!  

Here are a couple of pics from Thanksgiving eve at Mama D and Grandpa's house. Everyone had a blast!

And as for actual turkey day, we hosted again this year, which is always so fun.  Unfortunately, we got a little nervous that we might have to postpone this year, because Will came down with a stomach bug the Friday before Thanksgiving week.  We knew he would have time to recover, but I was afraid we would all pass it around...and no one wants to have Thanksgiving dinner at THAT house!  But thankfully, Will got over it quickly and no one else got it, whew!!  So Thanksgiving went on!  My parents cooked a turkey, plus we ordered a Greenberg smoked turkey, and everyone brought lots of sides.  It was a great meal, and it's always fun to get out the china and crystal, and use the big dining room table!

I couldn't resist the pinterest-inspired veggie tray turkey.  ;)

Master turkey-carver!

Will claimed his roll early.

We have so much to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving!

lately

A few recent and very random pics...

Here are the girls pretending to go to bible study, complete with my bible study workbook and our bibles!  :)

 Blurry pic of the kids on our way to our mini-session for Christmas card pics...we'll leave the clear pics up to the professional!

Modeling new coats during the unexpected super cold snap in November.

Playing with their favorite dollies...old bunny and dirty caca {yep. those are their names.}

Turkey shirts!

happy halloween!

What a fun Halloween!  This was the first year that the girls got into it and had fun with costumes and trick-or-treating.  And let's be honest, they are STILL having fun wearing costumes every day {and sometimes at night}.  I had sort of assumed that I had at least one more year of being able to choose the kids' costumes, and to give them a matchy matchy theme.  But nope!  All 3 had very specific ideas for what they wanted to be.  We had an American Ninja Warrior and 2 Queen Elsas! {sorry, Anna!}  The Elsa costumes were easy, because every store in America was selling a version of the Elsa dress.  The American Ninja Warrior, however, was a little trickier, because the competitors on that show just wear their own clothes.  Luckily there was one episode that was a competition between America and Japan, and the American team had matching shirts.  So after looking everywhere for a t-shirt with the ninja warrior logo on it and finding nothing, I made one for Will.  It was worth the extra effort, because he loves it and wears it all the time!

Starting the day with a "daddy arm hang"

Will had his preschool Halloween party on actual Halloween day, so he got to wear his costume all day!

Will's class had 5 Queen Elsas!

They had a cute little costume parade for the parents to watch.

We had Mimi, Duke, Nana & Aunt Ryan over for dinner and trick-or-treating.

 Will was just a LITTLE excited!

 Let it goooooo!

 Happy Halloween!!

elsa-obsessed

These girls are obsessed with Frozen.  It's so entertaining, because Will has never been obsessed with a movie or any specific characters, so seeing the girls so completely enthralled with this is all new to us.  We listen to the soundtrack over and over and over and over again, and they know most of the words to all the songs.  They do enjoy watching the whole movie occasionally, but mostly they just want to watch "Queen Elsa's song" over and over, while they perfect each move of the dance and song.  I need to post some videos, but for now, here are some pictures of our life in Frozen-world.

We have both Elsa AND Anna costumes, but Elsa is the clear winner most of the time.

They request Elsa braids.  {clearly, I can only do so much here.}

With very few exceptions, they wear Elsa dresses every day, and many nights.  These dresses are technically nightgowns, so they are super comfy, and the girls LOVE them.  

They color pictures in them...

They ride bikes and cars in them...

They dress like crazy people in them...

They love on their babies while wearing them...

And, of course, they throw epic tantrums in them.

And we read the Frozen books at least 10 times a day, including in the carpool line.  :)

And sweet Em didn't have a book, but I didn't want to leave her cute picture out.

So I made them some Elsa-inspired shirts, which they love!

And at the risk of ruining the surprise of the next post....can you guess what they dressed up as for Halloween?  Not a big shocker.  :)

Brainwashing job well done, Disney.  ;)