Hey Mickey!

Kadence had her Holiday Dance Recital at the NDSU fine arts auditorium and it was a great show.   Her class was costumed as cheerleaders and did a little ballet routine to "Hey, Mickey."  She did so well and was very excited to perform!

 We had to put pigtails in her hair for the show so of course Kenzie had to have pigtails, too.  Dance is just such a great think for Kadence.  It is a time where she truly shines.  She can be kind of shy and not always know how to handle her emotions but when she gets on stage she is the happiest most confident that I ever see her.  I really hope it is something that she continues to do!

Kadence was excited to have Aunty Holly and Mike come watch her!  She even colored a picture for Aunty Holly while she was waiting backstage!

I am so excited to for what the end of the year recital will bring!  So proud of our little dancing princess.

Miss Kenzie.

I have just been loving this little girl to pieces.  She is so fun and has so much personality I can hardly stand it.  Although it is no secret that sometimes Kenzie gets a little demanding, she truly is such a little ray of sunshine.  We have been doing Christmas projects and Kenzie just absolutely loves it. The only problem is that she is never happy with doing just one project!  I think I need to get some more craft supplies!

All in a mornings work!

A lot of times when we are riding in the car, she whines about the sun and asks for my glasses.  She looks better in them anyway.

My baby and her baby.  She loves playing with her babies so much.  She was "nuggling" her baby and patting her back on the couch for the longest time.  It was just precious.  I tired so hard to get Kadence to like to play with babies and she just never loved it.  Kenzie developed a love for babies all on her own.  So sweet.

What a good little helper!  Kenzie loved helping (and eating) cookies with me!  I made several different kinds with her help.  So fun!!  And seriously, could she get any cuter?

Singing in Church.

The kids had their first holiday concert in church today.   Last year we had the stomach flu during so the kids weren't able to make it.  Our church has a very large Sunday School group so there were a ton of kids and it was just the 9am Kindergarten/1st Graders.   Both Landon and Kadence were in the very back row and very hard to see.  Ryan grabbed a quick shot on his phone and Landon is quite visible in the back row right under the mountain.  There was a boy blocking our view of Kadence the entire time which was kind of disappointing.  She is 5 kids down to the left from Landon.  There's just something precious about the voices of little people singing Christmas songs.  Good job, kiddos!

Snow Fun.

 We have had a good amount of snow this year already so and the kids love to play outside in it.  I took Kenzie out in the morning before the frigid air arrived later in the afternoon.  We were outside for almost 2 hours making snow angels, riding in the sled and just enjoying the fresh air and time together outside.  I was surprised she lasted outside as long as she did but she was having an absolute blast!

Then we came inside and warmed up with some hot cocoa.  Yet another reason why I just love this time of the year!

'Tis the Season.

 It is officially the holiday season and time to decorate the house!  With Thanksgiving so late this year I feel like we are a little behind!  I generally like to get our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving but Ryan was away so that didn't work this year.  We stopped by the local boy scout troop selling trees at a church near our home and picked out a gorgeous douglas fir.  It turned out to be a lot bigger than we thought but it sure was gorgeous (even though it took up half of our living room.)  The kids always like to decorate the tree with us.  I am not all about having a perfectly decorated tree so I let them decorate it themselves.  Landon probably enjoys the decorating the most but all 3 helped this year.

 Who doesn't love a picture of the kids in front of the tree?

This is a fun picture.  Kadence with her reindeer antlers and fake smile and Emma falling asleep.  Love it.

I am cherishing every year that the kids actually still like to decorate with me.  It will only be a matter of time until they are "too cool" for such a thing.  It was fun to have nice evening with the family before the hustle and bustle really sinks in.

Thanksgiving 2013.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!  Thanksgiving is a fun time to spend with family and reflect on things in your life that you are thankful for.  From year to year my thankful list stays about the same and they are always things that I am thankful for every day: my family, friends, Emma, coffee, health, working out.  

 It was our Thanksgiving with my family and they were all nice enough to come to our home to spend with us.  It is nice not having to travel on a holiday since we do travel so much.  Ryan had Thanksgiving off but had to work Friday and then went to Fosston, MN for a weekend of locum work.  It was very nice for us to have people here so we weren't alone all weekend.

I go through phases where I don't take a single picture and that was unfortunately this weekend.  I did snap this cute one of Grandpa, Sofie and Landon playing their tablets.  We had a great Thanksgiving meal on Thursday.  The kids and guys all went to the movie Frozen to get out of the house which was nice.  Friday, some of us did some black Friday shopping and unfortunately I didn't find any great deals.  I guess that's what happens when you go at 10am as opposed to 5pm Thursday.  Saturday we took the kids to a huge indoor play structure and went out for a nice supper.  The Skowlund's left Saturday night and the kids and I just had a relaxing Sunday with Grandpa and Grandma until Ryan got home later that night.  

Another great Thanksgiving in the books, and thankfully no one was sick!!

Holiday Parade 2013.

We all bundled up and headed downtown for the annual Holiday Lights Parade.  It was a frigid 10 degrees out but we thought we'd at least go for a little while.  I absolutely love parades and have so many childhood memories of parades when I was younger.  Ryan comes along because he's a good husband and even pretends to enjoy them a little bit.  It is fun to watch the kids and how excited they are.  We happened to sit right next to a classmate of Kadence's so the two of them had fun playing around before the parade started.  The parade was fun to watch and Kenzie was taking everything in and waving at everyone.  I have never seen so much candy being thrown at a parade in my life.  It was the weirdest thing, there was candy all over the street in front of us that the kids couldn't even keep up with and people were throwing more.  We actually stayed for the entire parade and then headed home for some hot chocolate.  It was a fun night but it was nice to be home in the warmth!  The best part was that Ryan took all the candy to work the next day!