Isn't she cute?

Macey finally got to build the

 snowman that she's been dying to make!

Preschool Christmas Program

Elizabeth and I run a small preschool program twice a week at our houses for our kids and we thought it would be a lot of fun to put on a Christmas program.  It consisted of songs, skits, ballet dance, and slideshow.  We had 20 adults show up for their performance and they did great!  Being the age they are,  we weren't sure what we'd get the day of performance.  Mace had some stage freight and didn't participate much at all, but all the other kids put on quite the show.  We all enjoyed some food afterwards and some cake and ice cream for baby Jesus.  It was a fun night!

side note:  After the majority of the people left, Mace finally wanted to do her ballet dance for us :)  And when they woke up today, Kels found her Christmas dress and put it on all by herself and wanted to do her performance all over again so I took some videos of them doing a mini performance.  I will try to get a few of those videos up soon. 

Here are some pictures my dad took from the night:

Nutcracker dance

Thinking she liked practice a lot better than the real thing.

Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus

"but He is stong!"

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas!

Even though it doesn't look like Christmas yet in Colon, it sure is feeling like Christmas!  Mace was almost in tears the other morning when she woke up and noticed we didn't get snow after I told her we might the night before.  She said we can't have Christmas without snow.  It's gotta make it down here sometime soon!  I love snow especially since my days consist of usually staying at home with the girls or just walking somewhere in town so I don't mind if the roads are bad and Jason only has to drive 1 mile to work. 

Today Santa came to town and boy were my girls excited.  Mace knew exactly what she was going to tell him she wanted and couldn't wait.  She wanted to wear red to match Santa's suit even.  Kels kept saying, "Me...ho ho....lap!"  So off we went.....and this is how it turned out :)

As soon as we entered the gym where Santa was both girls were clenched to Jason and I.   They both were crying as we neared him so Jason and I got in on the pictures as well.  Mace did tell Santa that she wants a princess castle and Kelsey told him that she wants a dress.  He gave them a candy cane and they both said thank you and we were out of there :) 

Kelsey's words from the day, "Ho ho me candy...lap cried"

Macey is concerned she forgot to tell Santa that she wanted slippers as well....we'll see if she gets some!

I took the girls' pictures a few times this week to make our Christmas card from and here are some I am not using so you get to see them :) 

With Jason working a lot longer hours due to basketball season, we need more fillers in the day to keep us busy so we baked sugar cookies the other night.  Mace is a baking pro.  She must get it from her Aunt Brenda because I am not really a baker.  I didn't even have to help her, she knew how to put the flour down, roll it, cut them out and definitely eat them!  Kels didn't have near as much interest but she tried for awhile and did pretty well. 

I can see how Christmas will get more fun every year with the girls getting older.  Macey is so excited about it all, Christmas music, movies, books, asking about baby Jesus and quite worried that he was born in a barn, baking, lights, shopping, Santa, and wrapping presents.  Kels will point out everything around the house that has to do with Christmas and say "Miss miss"  and is determined to get a dress so she can "dance!" 

I just love Christmas time!

Wyatt is 2 years old!!!

This is little Wyatt and he just turned two so he needed some pictures taken. 

Couldn't he be a model?  Look at that face!

Happy Birthday Wyatt, you did a great job!

Trip to the dentist

Yesterday, Macey had her first trip to the dentist.  They let her sit on my lap which helped since she was a bit nervous at first.  She has all her baby teeth and they looked great.  They can tell she sucks her thumb (front teeth are pushed forward), but they are not concerned and just want to her stop before kindergarten.  I was very proud of how well she did.  She picked a Snow White toothbrush, bubble gum toothpaste, rocket sticker, and Care Bear pencil when she was all done.   Not bad :) 

Merek's party

Saturday we went to Merek's 1st Birthday Party!!

He was excited can you tell?

I know I'm cute in my monkey shirt.

Cousins.

Hey, this is fun to play with!

Kelsey can't keep her hands and lips off of Merek.

Someone had to finish his cake :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEREK!!!!!

We had fun at your party!

Halloween Pictures

Last Wednesday, the girls and I headed to Holland at 7:30am to make it to my dentist appointment. Mace went with me to get an idea of what the dentist is all about because she has an appointment in a month. When we left I asked her if she wanted to get her teeth cleaned, and she answered, "Maybe when I turn 4...well maybe when I turn 5 would be better."
We picked up Bren and Kels and were off to the girls' doctor, where Kelsey got a vaccine and flu shot. Then went to Froggy's for lunch. Brenda always has her coupons handy so we were ALL fed for $6.19 and we had food leftover! We then did a little shopping and back to Bren's for the girls' naps.
When the girls woke up we visited my friend Kelly and her daughter Julia. She's just over 4 months old and she's a doll! I haven't met her yet and was excited to finally meet her.
Went to dad's to quick make and eat dinner, got the girls' costumes on and made our rounds to a few places to do a little early trick or treating. The girls had a lot of fun!

Around here, kids go trick or treating from 4-6pm, which is quite nice. It's still light out and it's not as rushed around dinner time/ bedtime. Boy was it cold though! The girls were buddled up as much as possible. There's 2 main streets to trick or treat here and we're on one of those streets so it's quite busy! People sit outside their house to pass out candy which makes the process much faster so we made through all the houses and then came back here to pass out candy. Now Halloween is done, onto Thanksgiving and Christmas, my favorites! Get out that Christmas music!

Jack-o-lanterns!

Tonight we decided it was time to carve our pumpkins. I let the girls pick out their stencil from the computer screen and I was surprised with what they picked out. They had witches, ghosts, cats, dogs, faces, and many other choices to pick from, but they were very set with what they wanted. Of course we had to bake the seeds which turned out so yummy, and then had to light the pumpkins with candles once it got dark out. (which ended up being inside since it was raining)

my battery died before I could get a good one in the dark :(

Look who's 91!

Last Saturday, we went to Crazy Horse for my grandpa's 91st birthday. You'd never guess he's 91 would you? The food was great and so was the company. With being as Dutch as we are and having two little ones, we NEVER go out to eat unless you call going to Wendy's "eating out". It sure was a treat!