Saturday, December 31, 2011

Good Bye 2011 & Hello 2012

As I begin to reflect on 2011 it was an overall good year. Of course we had our share of challenges and trials but I am overwhelmed more by how blessed we are as a family. We've triumphed over challenges and continue to live a blessed life. John and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in May. I thank God every day for my amazing husband and pray God will continue to show me how to love him as He loves him. Amanda graduated from high school in June, and started College in September. LeAnne turned 4 in October, continues to thrive in Preschool and keep us on our toes. The blessings continue... John and I both have good jobs, decent health, a beautiful home, food in our bellies and lots of LOVE to share!

I've never been good at new years resolutions so I would like to list my hopes & prayers for 2012.

Praying God will guide John in his job search(as he looks to better provide for our family and find that new career path).

Praying God will bless our family with a new bundle of joy in 2012!

Praying for continued good health, for safety for our family and that we would be better stewards of the money God blesses our family with.

Praying for Amanda as she begins her Veterinary Assistant course in January!

Praying for God's guidance in regards to my job. My student has one more year at his current school then will move to another district. I pray that IF it is God's will I will go with him and IF it's not His will that he will show me the way to my new career. I love working with children with Special Needs so I pray He would find another child I can help be the best he/she can be!!

In 2012 my goals in no particular order are to:

Go on more dates with my husband. We need some adventure for us.

Spend less money, pay down debt and save more money!!!

Eat the right foods!

Make excuses less and exercise more!

Balance my time with my technology ( I luv it but sometimes it robs me of real life experiences)

Be more organized & pay more attention to detail

Spend more time reading the bible & growing as Jesus's daughter

Go to Church

Spend more time crafting & teaching our princess

Scrap book more

Keep reading (read 24 books this year thnx to my Kindle)

Make friends

Learn something new

I am excited to spend New Years Eve with my Mama and Grandma who are now home for the winter. Then if I can stay away ring in 2012 with my amazing husband!!

Happy New Year to all my family and friends!

Christmas 2011

Christmas Eve LeAnne and daddy has a blast tracking Santa with NORAD. He would first show her on his phone or laptop where Santa was and where we were then they bust out daddy's globe and show her where we lived and were Santa was. It was a precious teaching moment for sure!

Let's see where Santa is...

Then Daddy read LeAnne Twas the Nigh before Christmas and we tucked her into bed.

Santa's been here...

I woke up at 4:45am Christmas morning. Enjoy a few cups of coffee and watched a Christmas church service online and had some nice quiet time with my Savior. Happy Birthday Jesus! I am so thankful you're in my life! I had a nice instant message chat with a dear friend who retired and move to Arizona this year. Then at 7am I was about to go wake up LeAnne when she poked her head out the door of her room. I ushered her upstairs to wake up daddy then we all came down stairs and let the Christmas chaos begin. LeAnne was so happy to see Santa had left her Willa, a Fijit Friend, some new Little mermaid PJ's and princess slippers!! As she opened her presents she kept saying "this is what I always wanted"! As most kids on Christmas morning she was overwhelmed a bit. She was very excited to show daddy and I the awesome calendar she had made for us at school. Seeing her hand prints done different ways is so precious.

Christmas afternoon we headed down to the Tucannon to spend the rest of the day with family. We had a lot of fun visiting and playing with the little ones. I was thankful for the time with my sister.

LeAnne was none to happy when we took down our Christmas decorations earlier this week. We told her they'd be back next year. Oh boy was I ever happy to pack up her favorite Christmas movie, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas or Mickey Ho Ho as she calls it, I think we watched it at least 10 times this season.

Little girl is already moving into the next holiday. She says "guess what, it's almost Valentines Day". Silly girl we have January/February birthday's first. One of which is mine birthday January 10th. I really can't believe I am as old as I am. I don't feel like it.

This Christmas break has been very nice and relaxing! I am thankful for the weekend Amanda was here and that John has as much time off as he did!! I am thankful my mom and grandma made it home this week and it looks like they'll be here for the Winter.

Thank-you Lord for blessing our life!!

LeAnne & her new Cabbage patch Maddie

Stencil fun

LeAnne & baby Cinderella

LeAnne loves her Gumballs


Beautiful ornament I for from my Student

Mama & daughter Christmas morning!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Our Whole Family Under One Roof for a Week!!

It was amazing to have both of our girls under one roof for a week. To make the week even sweeter John was off work the whole time she was here. Amanda arrived Friday night via train and left EARLY this morning. My heart was full of joy as I watched our girls play together. LeAnne absolutely adores her big sister! She enjoyed waking her up every morning by jumping on her. One morning she came upstairs to tell us "Amanda won't get up, she just says mmmm (moaning) " hee hee! While Amanda was here she and LeAnne decorated a gingerbread house, help decorate cookies, and Amanda showed her how to work her new Wii draw game. We had a family game night and visited one of her cousins. Amanda definitely loves her little sister as well. I hope these girls will be close as they grow up. Amanda and I enjoyed lunch and went to see Breaking Dawn together which was a lot of fun. Both John and I had some nice talks with Amanda. Amanda is very excited to start her Veterinary Assistant program January 9th! We are very proud of our girls! :-) I love being a wife and a mama!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Christmas Cookies, Gingerbread house and more!

Yesterday I had a blast with baking with my girls! We made sugar cookies, snow top cookies, snicker doodles, and chocolate chip cookies. We had a great assembly process going this year that made things go smoothly. I would rolls and cut out the cookies then give them to the girls to decorate. LeAnne really got into decorating this year. She kept asking her big sister if the cookies looked good. The girls also dd a beautiful job of decorating a gingerbread house. Then later in the evening we played Candy Land and Apples to Apples. This was LeAnne's first real experience playing Candy Land. She caught on quickly and we had a blast. Apples to Apples is a hilariously funny game. Thank you Amanda for the wonderful Christmas gift!! It is so much fun to have our whole family together this week. LeAnne absolutely adores her big sister! IIt so nice to be able to talk with Amanda. Amanda is very excited to start her 12 week veterinary assistant course in January! Were very proud of her!!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Oh Christmas tree

Last Saturday we drove to a small tree farm about 20 minutes away from our house. The trees were naturally flocked due to our cold temperatures. LeAnne had a lot of fun running in and out of the trees. We found a beautiful tree, strapped it to the top of the car and headed home. This is the first year LeAnne has really gotten into decorating the tree. It was fun telling her about the special ornaments. She especially loved the foot print ornament from her first Christmas. Later that night she was going to helping daddy wrap presents but fell asleep early so daddy and I wrapped presents. When she saw the presents the next morning here is how the conversation went;

LeAnne; where did the presents come from
Me: Daddy and I wrapped then last night
LeAnne: Who are they for?
Me: Read the tags
LeAnne: This one is for ME!
LeAnne: Why are they wrapped?
Me: So the gifts are a surprise on Christmas day
LeAnne: Who's the big box for?
LeAnne: Can I open them now?
Me: Nope not until Christmas day.

Christmas Kickoff

In the evening the day after Thanksgiving our little family enjoyed our towns Christmas kickoff festivities! Our first stop was the live nativity. A local church put on small skit and we sang some beautiful Christmas songs! Next we walked over to Main Street to enjoy the lighted Christmas parade. The parade was beautiful! LeAnne was clapping and loving every bit of it. Of course no farming town Christmas parade would be complete without a huge lighted tractor. :=) We had a little while before the fireworks would start so we walked over to the bakery for some some coffee to warm up. The fireworks were amazing!!

Then on Saturday we did some shopping at our stores in town, visited Santa Claus and LeAnne got to play on the new playground in town. LeAnne was so excited to see Santa and once we got there she clammed up when on his lap. She was talking very quiet or not at all. It was the quietest I've EVER seen her. After we left she talked all afternoon about her visit with Santa. It was a very fun Christmas kick off!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Snow fun and more LeAnnisms

We got about 1-3 inches of snow between Friday night - Saturday morning (Nov 18-19). It was almost enough to entirely cover the grass. LeAnne was so excited to see the snow and it was hard keeping her inside until it got light and warmed up a bit. All bundled up in her new snow pants, jacket, scarf, gloves and boots as we walk outside she says to me "Do you like my style". I'd never heard her say this before and it caught me off guard. She had a lot of fun walking in the snow, throwing snow balls at ME and building a teeny tiny snowman.

Other LeAnnisms:

Today at the grocery store she says "guess what" to which I responded "what" and she said "no I am talking to her (pointing the the checker) and the checker says "what" to which she responds "its almost Thanksgiving" Then she goes on to talk about how Christmas comes next and the checker asks her what her favorite Christmas song is. She gives the deer in the head light look and I say what song have you been singing all week? Then she sang "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" 5 times. I bet that lady never asks a little kid what their fave song is again. LOL!!

Lately LeAnne has been telling me "You have to pay attention" to which I say okay, um are you hearing that a lot from Ms. Miranda. She says Yes. At LeAnne's conference this week I asked her about how she was doing at circle time and told her about her telling me to pay attention. She says yep I say that quite often but she is doing better, she's not touching kids anymore. :-) Oh boy!

This morning while I was preparing my grocery list she asked to do a dot to do book. I couldn't find the dot to dot but found a number and letter Pre-K skills book and she wanted to do those. Oh my gosh it was like the girl was ravenous for learning! She was asking me directions and then she would do the page in 2.2 seconds and be ready for the next. It was activities like color all the spaces with 4 dots to find a hidden picture, color all the A or a to find a hidden picture, circle how many are in this group, only circle groups of 3, dot to do, follow the A a to solve the puzzle and trace numbers. WOW! I love seeing her so excited to learn. She almost finished both books. For Christmas I'll be finding more books like them.

She is re-telling stories a lot these days. When I put her to bed I leave the book I read with her and listen to her re-tell the story over the baby monitor before she drifts off to sleep. She is also making up some interesting once upon a time stories. As she gets older daddy and I must keep her engaged in reading and I pray she loves it. Good readers make amazing writers too!!

She is beyond excited for Christmas this year. Talks about decorating all the time, about Santa and his reindeer. This Friday and Saturday will be our towns Christmas kick off. Their will be a lighted parade and fireworks on Friday. Then a live nativity, mule drawn sleigh rides, caroling and much more on Saturday.

In other new our Black Walnut tree is no longer standing. No more walnut messes or falling limbs! Yahoos to some beautiful Black Walnut wood we will have milled and John hopes to make our head board and foot board out of.

View from the back yard minus Walnut tree


Walnut tree is down - it's quite the mess at the moment

Do you like my style?

LeAnne & her tiny snowman

She was so proud of her big snowball

See my foot prints?

Found out the hard way that making a snow Angle without gloves is COLD!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Fall School Photos

Here are LeAnne's Fall 2011 school photos! I wasn't there to comb her hair so it was combed straight down and it really shows she has TONS of hair. I think in the Spring we will get her pictures professionally done.

I am SUPER blessed to have Wednesday - Friday off of school/work due to teacher/parent conferences and Veterans day on Friday. I am enjoying the extra time with princes Why... oh I mean LeAnne. Yes the why phases has begun. It's comical at times but down right aggravating other times. A friend of mine said try answering with a question. I tried and it seemed to work a bit once time but then the next time not at all. It comes to a point where I say "Because I said so, or that's just the way it is". Hee hee!!