Saturday, December 15, 2007

I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas!

Rylie had her dance recital tonight and we were so proud of her! It was amazing to see our little "shy" girl blossom on stage! She absolutely loved it! They performed to the song, "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas." After her dance, we watched the rest of the performances and she leaned over at one point and said, "Mommy, I want to dance forever!"

Her dance class getting ready to go on


Stretching! They had to do a cartwheel and the splits in their routine so stretching was essential! :)


Playing "Simon Says" to help the time pass by


Our little princess...looking more like a beautiful lady!

Santa Picture Update

Several of you have told us recently that we should send our Santa picture in to the Ellen Show. So...we did! It hasn't been on yet but just wanted any of you Ellen-watchers to make sure you keep an eye out for it just in case we make it on!

Gingerbread Mania

Rylie's school always has the Kindergarten students make gingerbread houses together every year! They take all of the kids out in the hall on cafeteria tables and let them go to town. It was a lot of fun...and a lot of mess! Here are a few pictures from the occasion!

A view of her classes table and their "spread"


Rylie concentrating hard on her house


A picture of the completed project

Christmas with the Coles

We celebrated Christmas this week with Jason, Becky & Sam! It was so much fun! We all opened gifts from each other and then had dinner. That evening Madison had another "episode". Tim had gotten a big bag of starbucks coffee (ground not whole beans) as his gift. Madison snuck upstairs with it and poured the entire bag out on her carpet in her room!!! I'm trying to figure out how many times this child is going to have get spanked over stuff like this before she learns her lesson!?!?! All of it eventually came up although there is a faint smell of coffee still in the room! I didn't think this episode was nearly as funny as the chocolate cake mix so I didn't take any pictures! Here are some though of our first Christmas together!

Madison & Sam trying to get their gifts open


Sam showing off the transformer he got


Jason trying to "transform" the transformer Sam got!


Taitlyn eating her toy!

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Chocolate Sand

This morning we finished breakfast and I went upstairs to talk to Tim about plans for the day, etc. After we talked for a few minutes I told him I needed to go check on the girls downstairs because they have had a tendency lately to sneak up on the kitchen counter and steal candy. In fact, the other day I caught Madison in the act and she had already unwrapped about 10 hershey kisses and eaten them all by the time I got to her. Anyway...I had a sneaky suspicion that they might be doing the same thing again. Once I got downstairs I quickly realized that getting into some candy would have been minor compared to what was actually taking place! Madison & Taitlyn had taken a box of chocolate cake mix out of the pantry, cut it open and then dumped it all over the kitchen floor. They then proceeded to play in it like it was sand! They were having a blast and very proud of their accomplishment. As mad as I wanted to be I couldn't help but laugh!


Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I know I am very late in blogging about this but better late than never! We had our first snow here last weekend (right before the major floods most of you heard about!). The girls were so excited when they woke up and there was snow on the ground. Later in the day it snowed even more! So much fun!


Madison & Taitlyn trying it all out.


Taitlyn decided pretty quickly that she wasn't real crazy about it!


Rylie & her massive snow ball


Madison eating her snowball


Later in the day when it really started snowing.


Rylie going down the slide full of snow

Madison went down after Rylie had cleaned it off for her