Life is What You Make of It

the christmas spirit

It was another busy weekend but one with lots of Christmas spirit.

Last week the kids started of December reading some Christmas books and also opening their Advent calendars, something they look forward to every year.

This past weekend, we got a tree.  If you remember from last year, we threw away our fake tree of probably 10 years and got a real tree.  It was wonderful and so now we are addicted to them!  Saturday was a cloudy and rainy day, so we hurried out in the morning and found a tree we liked.

So after dance, bowling, guitar lessons and ordering pizza...we decorated the tree with Christmas music blaring in the background.  It was very fun and we got some fun family photos during the process.  Hope your holidays are magical!

 





 

   

Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

It was strange spending Thanksgiving my ourselves this year.  Normally we are at my mom's house for a week...trapsing outdoors, eating fantastic food and shopping.  This year was very different.  We stayed home.  The girls had too much rehearsal for the Nutcracker this year and we just didn't want to be away for less than 5 days...we wanted more time there!

So the kids went to school all week and everyone was home by 4pm.  It's been a full weekend though. 

We spent Thanksgiving bowling with the kids.  Then we made a small meal (it was delish) with ham, sweet potato casserole and stuffing.  The Cowboys game was on, so we watched that too.  We've enjoyed our time with the kids this weekend. The girls have been busy.  They had dance.  Sasha had a slumber party last night and has dance most of the afternoon.  Zora played with her friend next door and went to the zoo with her this morning before baby mouse rehearsal today.  Niko has been Neb's shadow.  He has played games, helped with laundry and vaccuuming plus he is doing to help Neb with the exterior illumination today.

I've been able to put away the Thanksgiving stuff and get the stuff down for Christmas.  Neb has helped me with the laundry so I've been able to scrapbook in my studio for a little bit this weekend.  (He also helped fix my lighting down there too...it's wonderful!)

I do have a few pictures that I'll post tomorrow from bowling...that was fun!  I hope to get a few pictures today of the guys working outside and also a family photo when everyone gets home tonight.

Was I thankful for anything this year??

YES!  I was thankful for many things but none of which I shared.  My list is so long, but I am thankful that you read my little family blog because they are what I'm most thankful for in life.

Happy Sunday!

another year has gone by

I'm another year older.  I ask myself sometimes how I ever got this old.  It's pretty annoying to age...always worried about wrinkles, muscle tone and gray hairs.  I think the healthiest way to 'age gracefully' is to just do your best each day and be as natural as possible.  I don't color my hair...never have bothered with that.  I use wrinkle cream but I also try to stay out of the sun.  I don't smoke, so that isn't adding to the wrinkles but I also don't wear a lot of make-up to cover anything.

So enough about aging gracefully.  YUCK!

My birthday weekend (if I'm this old, I should really have an entire month, but a weekend is all my husband will give me).  We did our normal stuff, like driving the kids to their activities on Saturday and Sunday.  We also did some birthday things, like Neb taking me to one of my favorite restaurants on Saturday night.  I received some wonderful cards from my girls and my Niko, he just said 'Happy Birthday Mom' which is enough for me.  I received a nice big camera bag for my new camera (just needs to be jazzed up with some flowers and sparkles) and some pretty flowers.  I also got a new pair of boots (Neb picked them out when we went shopping) and a fantastic book on how to use my new camera to its full potential! 

The best thing about the weekend was that I got to spend it with the people that matter most to me.  We played games on Sunday afternoon and watched the nailbiting Cowboys game.  Then we had a delicious chocolate cake from my favorite bakery.  I owe it all to my husband who pulled together a fun and relaxing weekend for me.

Now WITH my new camera, here are the shots I got from the weekend:

 
 
 

 

her first pointe class

Her night finally arrived!  After her ballet class, it was time to try on the pointe shoes and learn how to walk and break them in.  They all learned together as a group to put them on and tie them.  Then off to the barre they went.  It was a beautiful sight seeing your daughter rise up on her toe shoes and look as graceful as a gazelle.  I took many photos but these are the few that I loved most:

 

make a pointe

Last Saturday, two days after she turned one-one, Sasha rode the train with some of her friends (and moms!) in to Philadelphia.  It's a day that she had been waiting for her 'entire life.'  Her legs were finally strong enough to get on to pointe shoes.

The store, Rosin Box, is a quaint and small store that only deals with dancers.  There were hundreds of pointe shoes all over the store, which made the entire thing more magical.  They were waiting for us when we arrived, so the girls went over to start trying shoes on.  Sasha only tried on 3 pairs of shoes before she found the ones that were hers.

 Once everyone had their shoes, we went back to the train and then lunch at Wendy's before rehearsals for Nutcracker began that afternoon.  If you notice in the group picture, Sasha is the youngest one getting on pointe...she is still in elementary school while the other kids are in middle and high school.  Proud doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about her dance accomplishments.

I took many photos of that day, but my favorite photo is this one...a position that I will see many more times in her dancing career:

one-one

Today, eleven years (aka. one-one) ago, my sweet beautiful talented dancing ballerina was born.  As much as she tries my patience on a daily basis, I couldn't imagine life without her.  She is very smart and witty with a touch of shyness all mixed together.  We love her and couldn't be more thrilled that today is her day!

I took her to lunch at Friendly's for her birthday lunch and now we are getting ready to go have dinner and give her all her birthday surprises...and boy will she be surprised!

Happy Birthday Sasha!!!!!!

some scrapping...that's what I've been doing

Yep, I've been making daily trips down to my scrapbook studio to complete pages.  It's been a fun process and I'm loving every minute of it...even between loads of laundry and taking care of other things in the house.

Neb was kind of enough to really let me have time this past weekend to let my creativity loose and it was very much appreciated.  Here are the pages that I have completed so far:

Halloween 2009

This year, we were visited by a Cheetah Girl, a Vampire Girl and a Mad Scientist.