Merry Christmas!

Christmas Mix

We made our annual Christmas Mix from a recipe that our friend Teresa gave us a few years back. The girls dumped all the dry goods into the giant bag that we were mixing it all in. When Paul announced that it was time to add the popcorn oil, Grace yelled "NO! Our house will pop and explode!" We all looked at her quite confused about what she was saying when she explained "Popcorn pops and explodes in the microwave. My house can't explode too!"

Paul and I are still laughing about this. The poor girl thought that the house was going to explode from using popcorn oil in the Christmas mix!!

Music Men

Grace was talking while Emilia was trying to watch cartoons this morning.

All of a sudden Emilia got up and stood in front of Grace and said "You can talk; you can talk; you can bicker; you can talk."

To which Grace laughed and said "But he doesn't know the territory"

And then they simultaneously added "Yes sir.... YESSSSS SIRRRRR"

It was hilarious.

For those of you that don't know, these are the opening lines from The Music Man, their current favorite show.

The Music (Wo)Man

Grace's favorite song right now is "Gary, Indiana" from The Music Man.

Sorry for the blurry picture at times. Looks like I need to change my camera settings.

Santa Claus is coming to TOWN

Grace has got some blues in her!

Happy Holidays!

The story of Jesus

Grace is "reading" Landon a book about the birth of Jesus. I couldn't help but chuckle when she told him "And Jesus brought lots of jelly beans with him when he was born, and three guys really liked jelly beans so they came to visit him and asked him to share. Jesus is nice so he said yes, but really he wanted to keep all the black jelly beans for himself."

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!
Gracie dressed up as Tinkerbell. Emilia was a cowgirl complete with her own horse and Landon was a skeleton.
We visited four houses while trick-or-treating (the kids had been sick and it was chilly and windy). The kids were the most excited about stopping by Nana's neighbors - Ellifritz's - as they're famous for always giving out chocolate milk on Halloween.

Picking pumpkins

We planted pumpkins on the farm this year and the girls had a blast picking them.

Emilia the Cow Girl

Emilia is a cow girl at heart these days.

Paul found this adorable horse/cow girl get-up at our favorite used clothing store in Ames. We bought it of course and Emilia has been "riding her horsie" every day since. For Halloween we'll just put on her cowgirl boots and a hat and she's ready to go.

She's saying "Yee-Haw!"

Landon's first haircut

I'm very late in updating the blog. My apologies.

Two weeks ago Landon received his very first haircut. His hair is growing so fast that he already needs another one!

Cowboy up!

Superstar!

I have no idea what song she is singing...pretty sure she made it up....either way, she's into it!

Gracie Montana

Grace has become a huge fan of Hannah Montana and loves to sing Hannah songs. She's belting out (what she can remember) of the theme song to the Hannah tv show.

Jumping Bean

Landon LOVES the jumper. He will jump for about an hour at a time before he tires out and needs a nap. He was watching this morning's episode of Sesame Street (he loves Elmo) and got distracted part way through his jumping. Oh well....he's working on a good nap now!

Story City Carousel

We took the girls to the Story City Carousel last night. Our grandparents always took us to ride on it and we wanted the girls to experience it too. Their first ride was a little iffy. They sat in one of the sleds and we weren't sure if they'd want to ride again. But after they figured it out they rode every single horse, rooster, pig, and puppy on the carousel. Four hours later, a supper break in between and we were all beat!

Grace's first day of 4-year-old preschool

When did my babies get so big? I realized yesterday that this is the last time for quite awhile that I will only have ONE in school!

New playset

Our good friends, the Jenkins family, gave us their playset! Katie and John Paul are in college now and obviously not using it, so they gave it to us. They even helped take it apart, drive it down and assemble it!

The playset includes three swings, monkeybars, a slide, rock climbing stairs and a tent top! There's room on the bottom for a sand box, but we have to figure out logistically how to keep it covered when not in use as we have cats.

The girls love the "park" so much that they played on it for four hours yesterday and another two hours today. In fact, the only time they came in yesterday was to eat supper and go to bed. Emilia was up at 5 a.m. wanting to go play on it again!

Meet Jessie

We now have a mini paint horse - Bullseye - and a reddish colored pony - Jessie. All named after characters from the movie Toy Story.

We have such fantastic friends. The Tierney family gave us Bullseye and friend Kim gave us Jessie. And of course our friend Bridget helped us to get Jessie home with her truck and trailer and she also taught us how to take care of them.

Jessie is a 14-year-old pony and he even likes to eat apples and carrots. He even has a beard!

Busy summer!

What a busy summer it has been! Here are just a few photos to show you what we've been up to and how big the kids are getting!

"I'm A Cowgirl!"

Phineas the miniature pony

We got a pony!! Well actually a miniature horse. Grace named him "Phineas" after her favorite cartoon Phineas and Ferb. Our friends, the Tierneys, gifted us with him. The girls are so excited! Grace woke up at 6 am today begging to go and see her horse and it was so hard for her to wait all day until he arrived. They have had so much fun getting to know him and learning how to interact with animals other than our dogs and cats.