January Highlights

January has been a slower month, so we've been able to wind down from all the holiday excitement. We did get some real snow this month, but have also had some warmer days as well. We haven't done too much this month, so I just have a few pictures.

This is a picture that Nora drew. I asked her to tell me about it, and she said "This is Dad, and he's grumpy because it's raining too much."

Nora wanted to make lunch for Sam one day, and this was the result. Don't worry, I didn't let him eat that many beans! Nora and Evie like to be helpers.

Nora, wearing her apron from her summer cooking class, helping with dinner

When the girls come to get me up in the morning, Nora jumps on me, pulls the covers off, and tells me to get out of bed.  Evie climbs into the bed with me. Hehehe.

Nora lost her other front, top tooth this month, which was very exciting.

On the 23rd, Nora's school had "Dads and Donuts" day where they invite dads (or another special grown-up) to come and read books with their child at school, and have a donut. Mike went with Nora, and they had a good time.

My friend, Michelle, came for a visit, and she brought these cute little candy necklace kits for the girls. They loved them!

Over a year ago, I had made a little project with seed beads, and had put the extra beads in one of the drawers of the table in the entryway. I had totally forgotten about them, but one afternoon Sam was exploring, found them, and dumped them all over the floor.

Baby squat

He was a good little boy, and helped me pick them up and put them back in the container.

Sam is doing pretty well with his talking and learning some new words. He has learned "yucky", "stinky" and "ewww" (said in a high funny voice). He also says "go" and "car". When I say "let's go in the car" he runs to the door to the garage and gets so excited saying "go, car, go go!!" Mike and I had a good laugh when we were driving together as a family somewhere, and every time we would stop for a stoplight, Sam would say, "Go, go, go, go, go..." Hehe.

Yesterday, Nora and Evie went to their first dance class. It is ballet and tap. They really loved it!

Cute little dancers!

Both girls have been happy to get back into school after the holiday break. Here is a cute snowman picture that Evie made in preschool today. She really looks forward to the days that she goes to preschool, and loves to show me her papers and projects.

New Year's Eve in Disneyland

For New Year's Eve we went up to my parents' house. When we got there, we were told not to come downstairs, and not to let the kids downstairs. 

Nora and Will decided to color

While we were upstairs, the downstairs kitchen and family room were being transformed into the happiest place on Earth for a special surprise party! (By the way, most of these lovely pictures were taken by Kate, who graciously let me use them on my blog. My mom took some of them as well)

Small World on the cabinets

Ride posters on the fridge

There were little areas decorated like the different "lands". Here is the Critter Country/Frontierland section.

 

A few of Beth's Disney-loving friends lent her some of these cool decorations

 

Here was the Fantasyland section

The Adventureland section

The New Orleans Square section

There were Small World items and some more characters on the buffet

This was a surprise 30th birthday party for me, so there were special 30 napkins and 30 confetti. My birthday was back in November, but Beth thought it would be fun to celebrate when we were all there.

 

 The family room was decked out too!

The dining table was decorated with a Peter Pan theme

They made a cute little Mary Blair coloring area for the kids

 There was a great Disneyland themed menu, too! Dinner was Monte Cristo sandwiches (with a powdered sugar Mickey on top), a green salad, fruit, and fun flavored sodas. Later on in the evening we had two more treats that we love to get in Disneyland - Dole whips, and churros.

I love these - so cute!

Surprise!

 

Everyone enjoyed the yummy food!

 

 

Trying to get Sam to wear some Mickey ears

The two little mischief  babies

The kids enjoyed the coloring station

Kate took a lot of super-cute pictures of Thomas. He is such an adorable little boy!

 Here are Kate and Beth preparing for the first game. They wrote down Disney characters on post-it notes, then each person got one on their forehead, but couldn't look at it. We took turns going around the room, and  on their turn, each person could ask 3 "yes-or-no" questions to help them figure out who the character was on their post-it note.

Since some of the little kids couldn't read the names on some of the other people's post-it notes, an adult could whisper it in their ear (as long as they didn't say it out loud!)

Evie got Thumper, which was perfect for her since she had brought her toy Thumper to the party.

When the kids were able to guess who the character on their post-it was, they got a Disney Pez dispenser as a prize. The adults got party blowers to use for New Year's.

Grammy and John bringing in the Dole whip treats - which are like pineapple ice cream

The younger kids with their balloons

Little Thomas got a kick out of the balloons

Cute, static-y baby hair

The second game of the evening was Disney "Scene It". It was a trivia game about different Disney movies. Some of the questions were on cards, and some had you watch a little DVD clip of a movie and answer a question about it. For the first round, we played boys against girls and had team "Lost Boys" and team "Princesses". The second round was everybody against me and Mike. Hehehe. Mike put our kids to bed after the first round.

Here is the Lost Boys team intently watching a movie clip for their turn

Ricky and the boys played a crazy game of Twister

 What a fun party!

Since it was getting close to midnight, we went back upstairs, baked the churros, and got everything ready for toasting in the new year.

Oh man, I love churros!

The traditional glasses of sparkling cider

Mom took these pictures of the TV - they turned out pretty well. We were watching the Times Square celebration with the ball drop. Here is Lady Gaga and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I had to laugh at the contrast between their outfits.

Happy New Year everybody!

The boys noticed that there were some fireworks being set off that you could see out the window

Karin and Ricky

Me and Mike

The sisters

Being silly

After ringing in the new year, I opened the presents Beth got me. 

They were Peter Pan and Alice and Wonderland picture books with illustrations by Mary Blair, one of my very favorite artists.

And also a cute Small World book. I love them!

Will performed two puppet shows that he learned in his music class. The first one was set to "Waltz of the Flowers" from the Nutcracker.

The second one was set to a song from Carmen. Will was so cute!

To end the (very late) night, John and I played a couple of clarinet duets that we had been practicing earlier. John started playing the clarinet a few months ago, and he is doing really well with it!

Happy 2012!