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

Friday, November 30, 2007

Visit to Santa

We had so much fun seeing Santa today that we had to share the "joy" with all of you!

Holiday Season

We have officially started our Christmas season...filled with goodies, decorations and lots of fun memories. This week we made Christmas tree cakes that the girls decorated. First we baked the cakes, then we iced them and finally we "painted" them with edible icing paint! How fun! They definately didn't have stuff that cool when we were kids! Anyway...here are some pictures from our cake "event"!

The girls icing their cakes


Rylie painting her masterpiece


Madison concentrating very hard on making a mess!

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Fun

It's that time of year! Time to pick out costumes, try to get everyone dressed at the same time, shortly followed by whining and crying over not wanting to wear the costume afer all! :) All of that followed by lots and lots of sugar! What a great time of year! Not really...it was a lot of fun...overall! We did experience Halloween on a different level this year...NW cold!!!! I think it was about 50 degrees when the night started but by the time we finished it was barely over freezing! Not quite like our Texas Halloweens! The girls had so much fun though! We decided to rent a bouncy house this year and put in our front yard as an outreach to our neighbors. We also served coffee to all the adults who were accompanying the trick-or-treaters! And of course...we had to post a few pictures of all the girls in their costumes!




Our local pumpkin patch had a corn maze for adults and a hay maze for the kids. The girls paused in the middle of the maze for this picture!
Now back to the maze...



Our older girls never want to get messy when carving pumpkins but Taitlyn was just the opposite. We opened the pumpkin and she dove in! She thought it was great!

Here are the bigger girls doing the non-messy job...helping daddy carve!


Rylie was a queen this year.

After saying she wanted to be superman for months, Madison ended up picking a Dora costume instead! We could only get her to wear her wig for picture though...and that was only by bribing her with candy!

Taitlyn wore Madison's butterfly costume from last year!


We tried to get a picture of all three girls together but it didn't work real well. You can see Rylie and Madison in the background posing but Taitlyn was only interested in more candy!

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Snoqualmie Falls

Chris, Brandy, Emma and Regan came to visit us this past week (baby Isaac stayed home with Grams!) and we had SO much fun spending time with them again! One of the highlights of their visit was a trip to Snoqualmie Falls. Taitlyn and I did not get to go on the trip because she woke up that morning with a fever and was in no "mood" to travel! :) So the rest of the group went without us and brought back great pictures!

Everyone standing at the top...looking down at the waterfall


The kids posing


On the trail down to the waterfall...kids posing again!


Daddy, Rylie and Madison (pretending to be tired!)

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Not a good choice!

Madison has been having a difficult time lately making "good choices" so we have really, really been working on it! Some days are better than others but I had to share her latest "poor" choice! It wasn't funny initially but once the shock wore off I could not stop laughing! Luckily Tim had an extra keyboard handy because just last week she popped the number "8" off so he had already ordered a new one. I guess one just wasn't enough!


Another afternoon at Kayak Point

Kayak Point is a local county park that is quickly becoming one of our favorite places. Not only is it only about 10-15 minutes away but it is absolutely beautiful...anytime of year! The girls get so excited when we go because there is so much to do! Some of our good, good friends (Reid & Amber) are visiting right now and we decided to take them there to experience it all with us!



The park has a play area with a feature that I don't know how describe other than it looks like a giant spider web. It has a large pole in the middle of it and then lots of ropes going all the way down in a tee pee kind of shape. Anyway...Rylie loves to climb all the way to the top...no surprise to those that know her well! Here she is on her way up.



Here is a pic of her at the very top!


Taitlyn on the pier...trying to jump!


Madison getting a ride from daddy!


Taitlyn doing her favorite thing...examining all the wood chips, rocks and dirt! And then...eating them!

We're not sure how but Madison learned recently the meaning of a "thumbs up". She loves using it now for EVERYTHING! We're also working on "Gig'em Aggies!"

Rylie contemplating life on the driftwood. Does this remind you of Tim or what!?!?!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Howdy Ya'll!

Apparently we haven't lost all our Texas roots...


Saturday, September 22, 2007

Climb Every Mountain

We recently had some friends visit us and on one of the days they were here we drove to a nearby mountain (Mt. Eerie). You can drive close to the summit and then hike around a bit! Rylie especially loved it and the views were amazing!


I honestly don't remember what Madison was crying about (she's 2...that's enough) but I thought this was a sweet pic of "sisters to the rescue". Taitlyn was trying to comfort her by stroking her hair (or maybe it was more like pulling her hair) and Rylie tried by showing her the really cool caterpillar!




We have nicknamed Taitlyn "Joe Dirt" because she LOVES to play and eat dirt...seriously! On this particular day she actually layed stomach down in the dirt (as you can see from the pic) and made "snow angels" in the dirt with her arms. It was hilarious!




Madison picking a pine cone off the tree



Where's Waldo? Can you find Philip in this pic?!?!?



Taitlyn clueless to her surroundings! Rylie enjoying the view


Rylie showing off a caterpillar she found