Happy New Year!

During the day on New Year's Eve I took Jalen to Hidden Valley to go snow tubing! It was part of his Christmas present. My mom came along too and I even convinced her to join us. We had so much fun!!! I highly recommend going if you have the chance.

That evening we went to our friends, the Flemings house to ring in the new year. I brought some minute to win it games for the kids. It was actually quite hilarious. We had a nice appetizer dinner and played games and had a lot of fun. The kids popped a balloon filled with confetti every 30 minutes and Karin had noise makers and kiddie cocktails for our celebration. We ended up celebrating at 10 pm and soon after that we headed home. We put Stella to bed and Jalen and Nora stayed up with us until midnight. Jalen and I went outside and made noise while Peter and Nora stayed in. Nora was scared of all the fireworks going off.

"Face the cookie"

marshmallow toss

"move the snowball"

"move the snowball"

Celebrating New Years!

We had a pretty great 2013. So many good things, way more than not good. Cannot wait to see what 2014 has in store. Hope all you reading had a great holiday season and we are wishing you a very happy and healthy 2014!!!

Christmas Day

Holy Moly are we so blessed. My sisters and mom all came over for Christmas later on in the day. We haven't had everyone here in a while. We had a great day and a great spread of food! The tree was full of gifts! It is just amazing to me. It took a while to open all the gifts and the kiddos were pretty patient. Daphne danced on the gifts, Stella tried to open many that were not hers and Nora and Jalen waited! We then had dinner and played rob your neighbor and our favorite LRC!  So much fun!!!

Christmas Morning

Crazy as it sounds, the girls did not wake up until 9:50 on Christmas morning. We had them up late on Christmas Eve and that is the way it went. But when they got up they were very excited to see that Santa had come! We headed downstairs to open gifts and they sure did get a lot. Nora's favorite was her tablet and Stella's favorite was her baby stuff that she got. I just love watching their faces light up!!! It was a great morning.

Christmas Eve

Since we were in St. Louis this year we got to celebrate with the Bromeier side of the family on Christmas Eve. Before we headed to my cousin, Kurt's house we did a little celebration with my dad and did some gift exchanging. Nora sooooo wanted a rudolph and clarice stuffed animal from the movie and luckily we found some for Pappy to give her. She was so excited!!! Stella got a Sofia sleeping bag and Peter and I got some new camping chairs. Peter was very excited about these chairs. We then headed to my cousin's house and had fun hanging out and visiting. It was a smaller crew this year, but we still had a great time.

Christmas-take one

Grandma and Grandpa came in from Chicago this past weekend to celebrate Christmas with us since it was our turn to be in St. Louis this year. We had our celebration on Saturday and the girls, as well as us had a great time opening gifts. Stella and Grandma went to the Magic House with me while Nora was at dance camp on Saturday. We bought a pass for the next year and so we took advantage of it. They had a lot of fun playing. We are so lucky that they can come in and do the trip. And we are so fortunate that they are so good to us! So blessed!!!
The girls got an awesome Doc McStuffins work table along with some great clothes and other toys. Poor Nora got the stomach bug that night, but luckily it didn't stay long. Grandpa got it when he got home on Sunday night. I am hoping that no one else gets it while we are on break!

Cookie Making

I am so far behind on blogging, but I am going to attempt to catch up. We made cut out cookies a few Sunday's ago and had fun doing so. We decided to icing some of them and that was different. I should have made homemade icing, but now we know!

Santa Visit 2013

I am very happy to say there were NO tears this year seeing Santa!!! I thought for sure that Stella would cry on the big guys lap. But she did not cry at all. I think it helped that he talked to them both first and then we sat on his lap. I am so excited for Christmas this year I can hardly stand it!!! Nora is at such a great age and totally believes. I hope she believes for a long time! Our elf, Merida, has been very sneaky in her places, but she was caught by an army of little green men last night and is being held hostage on Peter's work bench. Silly elf! Here is our pick with Santa. Don't know what happened to Santa's other better looking elf that helps him out.