Snow Days

We got our first big snowfall on Dec. 12th. At first it was warm out and the snow was very wet and heavy. Perfect for snowmen! Katie rolled this big snowball, but then decided to carve a seat out of it and make it a chair. She also made a dance floor near the chair. (??)


Megan and Jessica made a snowman out of their big snowballs. It was so nice and warm and calm outside, they played outside for HOURS that day. We got about 5-6" of snow.


Well, that night, the temperature plummeted and all of the wet slushy stuff froze solid. We couldn't get into the van, it was iced shut! The girls had two snow days off school - Monday AND Tuesday - not because of extra snow, but because the roads were solid ice. We enjoyed every minute of those snow days, it was such a welcome treat to have two whole days off with my girls, during the busiest part of the year. We wore our PJs for two days straight! Even when the girls went outside to play in the snow, they had PJs on underneath their snowpants!


Here they are enjoying hot cocoa after a romp in the snow:


We went through soooo much hot cocoa and tea in those two days! We also decorated the gingerbread house:

And we made tons of Christmas cookies:

We had Movie Night each night, too, complete with popcorn.

Those two days were so much fun! It was such a treat to not leave the house at all! We got our Christmas cards done, all of the decorations up, the cookies baked, the house cleaned, etc etc. The girls got to play outside every day, and we read lots of books and played lots of games.

The only downside was that three kids' worth of school Christmas celebrations had to be crammed into the last three days of that week...post coming soon!

Random December pics

Here are a few random happenings from the beginning of the month:

Jessica's ballet class had 'observation day' and we parents got to come into the classroom and watch the entire class. What fun! The ballerinas danced to "Jingle Bells" for us, and Jessi sang every word while dancing. What a cutie!


Megan's dance class is right after Jessica's, so we got to spend another hour in the dance room. Megan is learning ballet and tap, but did tap for Observation Day dance - to "Jingle Bell Rock." See her little tongue sticking out as she concentrates?


Katie's classroom was selected to be the choir for one of the school masses this month. Here's Katie the chorister:



Katie's ballet class also had observation day, but we just came in for the last few minutes to watch. (Thank goodness - my butt couldn't have handled another hour of sitting on those hard floors!) Katie danced to "Jingle Bell Rock," and Jessica sang it for us.


Here are the girls decorating the tree. It's beautiful this year! And Katie is tall enough to ensure that the ornaments are pretty evenly distributed.

Grandpa's visit

The first weekend in December was a fun one for us! Grandpa Christensen came to visit us after dropping Grandma off at the airport. He babysat the girls so Chris and I could go out to a movie (Due Date). They had a Christmas movie marathon that night! The girls LOVE snuggling on the couch with Grandpa and Beau:


Also that weekend, Chris picked up our order from the school's fruit sale, so we started in on our four cases of citrus fruit. The girls are like baby birds, their mouths open wide, as soon as grapefruit is ready to eat! They each have half a grapefruit per day!


Saturday night we walked through downtown Rochester to enjoy the sights. We meandered over to the Royal Park Hotel (fancy place where we went for brunch after Katie's First Communion) to admire their 6' tall gingerbread house. It was soooo cool up close!


We also wandered through the Kris Kringle open-air market in downtown Rochester, with lots of baked goods, food, art, and Christmas decorations for sale. The lights in downtown Rochester are amazing:

On Sunday morning, we all bundled up to go to the Rochester Christmas Parade. This parade is a big deal, it's televised, and has over 100 floats. Holy Family School had a float in the parade, which Chris and the Dads' Club helped to build. Katie & Megan were selected to ride on the float this year, and Chris walked alongside. Dad, Jessica, and I scoped out a good place downtown to watch the parade. It was cold and VERY windy, but we survived.

Here's the float! Can you see Megan & Katie? They're the first and second kids from the left.

Chris wore a Santa hat when he walked in the parade. Everyone had a fun time!

Family pic after the parade:

Jessi was all worn out. She fell asleep in Dad's arms as we walked back to the van.

After the parade, Dad had to get home, and we went to a friend's 3rd birthday party. It was a busy weekend!

Random November pics

Hope you are all having a nice Christmas vacation! We are recovering from a bad stomach virus... sickness reigned from Dec. 19-27th in our house! Ewwww! Sorry I am behind on the blog. I will start with a little catchup of a few fun pics from November.

Katie took another sewing class at JoAnn's in November, with her friend Molly. They both made matching "BFF" pillowcases:


They also made BFF scrapbooks with all of the pictures they have together:


After a sleepover, the girls participated in a 1k race on a frosty November morning. Look at their bib numbers - all of the kids are #1!!


Jessi no longer needs to nap every day...but on some days that she insists that she's NOT tired, she ends up like this:

The girls like to build all sorts of crazy things with their Tinker Toys. Here is Megan the Rock Star, showing off her microphone:

At a school mass, Katie participated in the handbell choir. A select group of 3rd graders is in this choir, they commit to giving up 15 minutes of recess each week in order to practice. She did great!

All of our other November pictures are all from Disney. We went a little picture-crazy there! But I'm glad we did...we have the pictures as our computer screen saver now, and every day I find the girls camped out in front of the computer, looking at all the pics. What a fun trip!

Disney World!!!!

We went to Disney World in November, our first family trip there. We had been planning and saving up for this trip for a long, long time. It turned out to be even more fun that we expected! On our first day, we went to the Magic Kingdom, of course!

I got the girls matching t-shirts, Minnie headbands, and autograph books ahead of time. They were so cute together! Here we are in front of the topiary Mickey and Minnie:


We went on the Buzz Lightyear ride several times, and the on Space Mountain. Then we decided we needed to see Cinderella's castle up close. Here we're getting closer:


Amy and the girls under the castle arch:


Amy's favorite - the mosaics inside Cinderella's castle:

Our first character sighting/autograph/picture - Mary Poppins!

Megan and Amy on the carousel:

Jessica, Chris, and Katie on the carousel:

We went on several rides, including Peter Pan, Mickey's PhilharMagic, and It's a Small World, of course:

We got to meet three princesses: Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)...

...and Cinderella...

(love this big hug between Cinderella and Jessica!)

...and Belle, from Beauty and the Beast!

After lunch, we happened upon a short line to meet Rapunzel. Here we are in line, with the chameleon from the movie Tangled:

Megan, Jessica, and Katie with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider:

Family pic on the Jungle Cruise:

Girl pirates after the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Jessi covered her eyes for most of the boat ride, but peeked a few times to see if there were any 'nice' pirates around.

We also saw Pirate Goofy after the Pirates ride.

Family pic outside the Swiss Family Robinson tree house:

Enjoying an ice cream treat - notice the Mickey ears on the girls' cones?

Family pic in front of Cinderella's castle:

Waiting on Main Street for the parade:

During the parade, Donald Duck came over to see Jessica's Donald stuffed animal! He gave her a kiss, but it looks more like he was trying to eat her head!

Family pic with Mickey and Minnie:

Girls with Minnie Mouse:

Cute shot of the girls' headbands from behind:

In the late afternoon, we took the train ride around the Magic Kingdom. Then we took the monorail to the Contemporary hotel for dinner. It was a fun, but exhausting first day in Disney World!