Bike Riding

Victoria received a new bike from her Nana and Poppa. She loves it so much that she has been riding it in the house. She watched a movie sitting on it and even parked it in our closet. The fact that she has been able to maneuver around the table and the island in the kitchen is pretty impressive. It will only be a matter of time before those ol' training wheels come off and she will be riding on her own. It is now parked in the garage where it should be. We had to convince her that it is a little bit of a tight fit in the closet.

Merry Christmas!

There is so much to be thankful for this Christmas. I can't imagine not having Jesus in front of us leading the way. How blessed we are.

Gingerbread Houses

Every year we save the Halloween candy to decorate a gingerbread house. Once me missed making one at Christmas so we made one for Valentines Day. It was really cute. Anyway...we had this huge supply so we decided to make three. One for us of course, and two for our neighbors. They were a big hit. Kirk was really clever in using left over styrofoam as a base. Pretty cool idea!

These boys! They kept eating our supply. I wasn't sure if I was more worried about how much sugar they were eating or that we might run out of candy. It is amazeing to see how much food these two boys consume. Especially the big one. Either way, we had a great time decorating them. Great family time. Even when the roofs kept sliding down from the weight of the candy and the walls were caveing in on itself. A few stressful moments that always turned into laughter. The great part is that we finally got rid of all of that stored candy. Yay!

Winter Wonderland Festival Continued

For some reason I couldn't get these pictures to upload correctly. I guess when you live in the desert they have to ship in the snow. They had this tall trailer full of snow with a snow bank. They kids were in heaven. The boys had plenty of snowball fights. They were the last ones hanging out on the slush left over from hours of fun.

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Winter Wonderland Festival

Our friends' church, Mountain Valley, was having a Winter festival. Kirk painted backdrops for their rooms. They had several rooms with games, crafts, cookie decorating. That kind of stuff. They even had a room with computers in them so you could email Santa and actually get a reply. Jared was skeptical and wanted to challenge Santa so he asked for a million bucks in small unmarked bills and that he didn't mind getting coal. Teenagers! Our friend told him to watch out for the Santa police. Our friend AJ is always wearing shorts and a t-shirt no matter what the weather. So this particular night I was impressed, he was actually wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. But looking a little closer he was soaked to the bone from the snow. So I guess it didn't really matter.

Hannah and Victoria's first time riding a pony. They were so excited it was funny watching two giggly little girls. Though it looks like these particular ponies had seen better days. One of them had his feet pointing outward. He was the opposite of pigeon-toed. Really wierd.

This is one of eight backdrops that Kirk just whipped out lickety split in our very own garage. He makes it look so easy. They really dressed up the rooms and made them fun to be in. Cookie decorating. Victoria and Hannah had drawn pictures for Santa and were very pleased to see that Santa had visited the cookie decorating room. Victoria couldn't wait to give him hers. A special hug from Santa. A special hug for Hannah too! The girls could have hung out all night in the petting zoo. It kind of looks like Victoria had strangled this chicken. I guarantee you it is still alive. They were so tame. I have never seen so many tame chickens. This bunny was really cute. Oh the little grey and white bunny was cute too. And this bunny was cute too. The red haired one that is. The hanging snowflakes turned out great! This room looked like it was ransacked. I think the kids tore through this game and left it in shambles. This was pin the nose on the reindeer game and some other ones. Cute huh. Santa's workshop was busy, busy. It came with extra elves!

Only in Scottsdale do you need painted snowdrifts.

I Made Myself a Snowball.

Victoria memorized this really cute poem by Shel Silverstein called "Snowball". And can recite it at any moment for you. In case you aren't familiar with it here it is.

I made myself a snowball
As perfect as can be.
I thought I'd keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for it's head.
And last night it ran away
But first it wet the bed.

Tye Dyeing

Daphne and I were up to our eye balls with dye. The colors are beautiful. You never quite know how something will turn out. We have as many successes as we have disasters.

We have a tendancy to gather garments over the months to dye. By the time we started this huge project we had a five gallon bucket stuffed full of "things" to dye.

we thought these looked like trees with a vibrant sky.