Hanukkah and Christmas....

It was a Holiday weekend at our house. Saturday marked the first night of Hanukkah, so we got to have our annual Hanukkah dinner (brisket and latkas) with Grandma & Pops.

Maggie painted this beautiful canvas for Dick & Betti. She did an awesome job.

Time to light the candels.

Gracie & Pops were tired of paying attention :)

Happy Hanukkah!

Of course, there were presents. Maggie couldn't wait to open them and Grace couldn't
wait to play with them.

Lucy and Reagan were very excieted...

Really a marshmallow cannon? Who thought that was a good idea?? POPS!

Maggie and I spent several hours on Saturday and then most of the day Sunday at church working on the Christmas program. Last night when it was time for the program Maggie wasn't feeling 100%, but she did great anyway. She was so excieted to have such a crowd, Grandma & Grandpa, Great Grandma W, Grandma & Pops, Aunt Laura, Uncle Mark & Elsie, and Uncle Deem. (and of couse Daddy and Gracie) It was so nice of everyone to come all this way in the freezing cold!

After the program Maggie got sick and it's been downhill from there. Thankfully she slept pretty good, but she woke up with a really high fever and is spending the day curled up in bed watching Disney channel. I hope it passes quickly and that no one else gets sick!

PANTIES!!!!

Guess who spent the whole day in her big girl panties????

Yah!!!!! I hope we can have a repeat tomorrow.

Basketball Season

It's basketball season around here....that means lots of Friday and Saturday nights hanging out in a HOT high school gym with lots of people we adore. Maggie cried last night when the Panthers lost :( it might be a long season for her.

Clarence...

While we were away Clarence the elf made his annual stop at our house :) As we drove down the driveway Maggie noticed the lights on her playhouse and immediately screamed the "CLARENCE was here!" I need to take a couple of good pictures in the evening of the whole thing.....Clarence put lights on the house, a new Mary and Joseph inflatable and of course last years Dora was back....he even put Christmas lights on the "Arnie for School Board" sign.  Clarence also delivered Gracie's stocking, it's HUGE. We decided Santa and Clarence must know that Gracie is a little ornery and they may need lots of room for coal someday :)

She didn't want to stand still, surprise, surprise....

Thanks to Clarence and his assistant elf! The girls love it.

Not quite home...

Saturday night at about 11pm, we were making our final decent into Omaha, our day of traveling was almost over, dad was waiting at the airport for us and then.....the pilot came over the intercom and said it was just too foggy in Omaha for us to land, so we were headed for Kansas City :( Maggie and Grace were both asleep, so when we landed we had to explain to Maggie that we weren't quite home. After discussions with the airline about our options, it seemed the best bet was going to be to get on a bus they had chartered and head down the interstate. So at 1:30am, we loaded on a bus and started the drive. Everyone around us was tired and a little irritated, EXCEPT Maggie. She was really excited, she's never been on a bus before and she thought that was going to be awesome. I'm grateful for her attitude and resilience. I think she cheered up a lot of people, she sat right in front and welcomed everyone as they boarded. She was so excited about the bus, she stayed awake for the first 2 hours of the ride, then finally fell asleep. At 5am we finally fell into bed at mom and dad's. It wasn't the trip home we planned, but it worked out fine, our kids handled it great and other then a couple of tired days, we're no worse for the ware.

The bus welcoming committee.

Finally asleep.

Our last day at the beach was wonderful. Here are a few more pictures...

yep, that's right, Arnie is teaching his 4 year old to take a shot (hers was apple juice).
At the restaurant they have a tradition that you take a shot in a glass made of ice, then throw it
at the bell on the wall and try and ring it. Maggie really wanted to try it, so at our last dinner
we let her try it.

Grace plays her own kind of golf.

Bye, bye Cabo.....we'll see you soon!

Determination!

For a couple weeks Maggie has been very determined to learn to do a headstand. She's now taken that determination to the pool :) she's getting pretty good.








Daddy's girls :)





Maggie was teaching Grace to blow bubbles! We'll see if she's willing to repeat it when we get to swim lessons next week.


The Santa hats were because I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get a picture for our Christmas card and the girls didn't want to take them off.


Grace didn't love the waves.











Ho, Ho, Ho.....Merry Christmas.


Can you find Grace? I went in their room because Maggie was waking up. I looked over at Gracie's bed and she was no where to be found. I almost stepped on her. She was sound asleep, on the hard floor. This trip has been rough on Gracie....she has several bug bites on her face (and elsewhere), 2 skinned knees, several skinned up toes, a rash that keeps showing up all over her belly and face, she's fallen out of bed twice and she's pretty much refused to eat since we got here. BUT all that aside, I think she's having fun.


Gracie really hasn't eaten much of anything since we arrived last week. Yesterday we tried a strawberry smoothy and she drank alot of it. Needless to say we've had another one today and I wish I'd thought of it sooner.





At least she looks like she's thinking about eating....



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CABALLO!!!

.....that means HORSE in Spanish. This morning Arnie, Maggie and I went for a ride on the beach. For as much as Maggie loves horses, she's never been on one (she's ridden a few ponies). She was a little nervous, but was willing to try. She did great and of course by then end we had to convince her to get off. She made sure to tell us it was WAY more fun then jet skiing :) We were both really proud of her.


Maggie's horse was very sweet, her name was Shakira.


While our guide never said it, I'm pretty sure he wondered if Maggie would ever stop talking and asking questions. He only answered her about every 5th one, I think his English was pretty good, he may have been pretending not to understand (or hear) her.





Apparently Cindy Crawford road this horse once....I tried to find the picture in their office so we could compare :) I think Arnie enjoyed the ride but the horse was definitely more trained then it's rider. They had a few standoffs. Maggie told him several times to show the horse who the boss was :)


As we walked back to the stable Maggie told the guy she was ready to do it all by herself (we'd been trying to get her to lose the guide rope the whole ride) and surprise surprise, she thought it was awesome and didn't want to get off.


We'll definitely go back sometime. Maggie had quite the scenery for her first ride.

A few other pictures...





There are lots of bugs here this time, Grace has at least 4 bites on her face :( We've gotten pretty good at remembering to use bug spray before we go out.





I would officially call Maggie a swimmer. She can get all over the pool, we don't have to be within an arms reach and she's pretty confident in her ability. (though she'd prefer to wear fins all the time)





Silly Gracie!

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