In With the New

After all the Christmas excitement we kept the New Year's Celebration pretty quiet.  Some treats, a few fireworks, fun games with the fam and that's about it.  Nothing like waking up refreshed in the New Year is my motto.

2012 was good to us. The world didn't end, we had a "Mormon Moment", it was our family's first full year of a "real job",  k-pop became known all over the US, the Olympics took place in London, we enjoyed two healthy happy kiddos. Can't wait to see what 2013 brings!!!

Frannypacking to the DC Temple

It was really neat to go up to D.C. the day after Christmas and spend some time with Gigi and Eric. It was also a great time for Francesca to receive her endowment! She and a girl heading to the Philippians both were in the same session.  It was neat to hear the matron give her special instruction and talk about how Christ centered the temple ordinances are. She really emphasized looking for Christ in the temple and it was a neat experience.

  

Christmas Card 2013

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I don't know why it is so hard to get good pictures Christmas morning!  Too much excitement maybe.  We had so much fun with the kids this year.  We also had my family, our family friends the Laws, and the missionaries for Christmas dinner, which I didn't take any pictures of cuz I was cooking like crazy! We also got to Skype with Desi which was awesome!  It was a pretty great Christmas.  This was the first year we decided to follow the four gift rule (something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read)  There were still way more presents than that, but it did help rein in the craziness. My favorite: an Erin Cordon planner, Stu's: a tie between the Bronco's paraphernalia  and his two new saws, Chiara's: A Lalaloopsy Dollhouse Asher's: his talking Semi Truck! There were so many great gifts and good times with family. 

Sugar and Spice

Nothing melts my heart like these sweeties baking up some goodies in the kitchen.  I love Christmas baking traditions!

Dashing Through the...

Ok, so there was no snow.  But the kids did have fun dashing through the trees while we went to pick out our Christmas Tree.

Decorating the tree was met with mixed results...Chiara enjoyed eating hanging candy canes.

 Asher wasn't so sure...

 But he warmed up once he gave up on grabbing the ornaments he could reach.  Amazingly after the first few tries the kids left the tree alone until they saw their Christmas presents underneath.

This was my favorite tree yet.

P.S. I know hardly anyone looks at our blog but for anyone who does, the next few posts will be me slowly catching up on the holidays it may take the rest of January!

Asher Turns One!

December 12th, 2012

Leaves are Falling

It's December. It's 70 degrees still. It does not feel like Christmas.  But there was a few days that it dropped to 59 degrees.  So we had a little something on the ground to play in:

A hot mess :)

Golden Girl

Chiara had her end of year show at her gym this week.  She is really doing so well in gymnastics and I was shocked she had so little stage fright (although she had a few shy moments). She stands about a head shorter than everyone else, but she's one of the few girls to be able to do a headstand, and she is the only one who can do a cartwheel (although it is a bit clumsy).  Her ballet is really helping as well, she looks very graceful since she is used to walking on her toes.  She loves being active and I'm glad she has a few things to keep her busy during the week, it makes my life so much easier that she gets her energy out in such good structured ways. I'm also adding a few photos of her at practice since they only did a few of the apparatus at the show.

Sportin her "pink sparkly leo" for practice.

Bars

Tumbling

going up into a headstand

Official GAC Leo right before the show

Beam routine

a rough cartwheel

What a shortie!

Miss Valerie is her coach and owner of the gym...such an awesome lady!

Awards Ceremony

So proud of her gold medal :)

Way to go little Miss. We are so proud of you!