Living the Dream!

We had quite a bit going on during the holidays. Here is a glimpse of all the fun!

Natalie and Ethan had a piano recital in early December. It was a fun, little get-together, and we were happy that the two of them had practiced and sounded great. Plus, it was Ethan's first piano recital, and we loved how he handled all of that "pressure"!

I love how we have time to watch movies together and relax!

Our beautiful neice, Keri, and her sweet little baby, Braegen, visited us in November. LOVE them!

Ethan went to Battle Bots camp during Thanksgiving Break. It was a 3 day camp through the YMCA.

See that smile? He loved it. He couldn't stop talking to pose for a pic, so this was the best we could get. His tape head band says "Clarissa is the best robotics teacher EVER!"

They tested their robots. I have no idea what the T's and W's meant, but Clarissa said Big Ethan was the start student all week. (I hope he didn't drive her crazy with all of his ideas!)

One of my favorite Christmas morning traditions~ Brett makes breakfast. We had a yummy German pancake!

Ethan got the Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0 for Christmas. He must have been a really good boy this year, because this robot kit was hard to find, and very detailed. We ended up getting him a book to help him with the programming. He has not been able to sleep at night until he get some paper and pencil to draw out his plans for the next day of robot building.

Christmas morn, Jess updating contacts on her new phone. :) And, modeling her sock monkey slippers!

Natalie with the cutest jammies ever, and her Kindle touch. She must have been good this year, too!

More of sweet Braegan!

She loved Ethan!

A little of our Christmas tree decor: we had some new ones this year!

That sweet little glitter ornament is cute little Brett!

And, cute little Jessica in 2001. She was 6 years old.

New ornaments!!!!

Gingerbread houses! Each child decorated one, and it was a great afternoon of activity at our house where mom got to just oooh! and aaaah! at all of the creativity.




I love the sidewalk made of candy on this one.

Jessica is ready to show off her fine workmanship!

Ethan and Natalie busily working away

NEW TRADITION: I saw this on another blog, Our Best Bites, and I loved it. I was getting a little overwhelmed thinking about when I was going to take down the tree, and then I saw this idea. A New Year's Eve Tree! We took the Christmas ornaments down, and decorated the tree with 2012 paper glasses, noise makers, bright tulle, and balloons (filled with money!). We had family coming in for New Year's, and I thought it would be a fun little thing for the kids to pop balloons! We took the party favors off for our celebration!