Cold Beach..

Sophia, Nancie and I went to the beach to look for shells the morning after Christmas.. I was clearly not prepared for the wind so we had to improvise...

Oysters

She must get this from her father....

Down the hatch..

Christmas Magic

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was very busy but lots of fun!

 Magic reindeer food we spread on the driveway so santa would be sure to find us..

 Santa had no trouble finding us this year..

 Christmas morning..

Update form Afghanistan

It's official... Jason will be home for 2 weeks on February 28th!!! We are so excited!! It's been a long 4 months but it feels like it's gone so fast! Funny how time does that.. It will probably feel like summer here to him when he gets home. Apparently it's only about 10* during the day. We all know how much Jason loooooooves winter.. Here are a few pics from the sand...

If you can't tell, Jason's on the left.. I had no idea Nuke was with him all this time.. (for those who know Mike Dodge, doesn't that guy look just like him??)

 Jason calls this one "the bum barrel..

 Afghan Stonehedge..

 Local sheep..

And home is at the end of the rainbow in a few short weeks...

Lights...

When we arrived home last night and our sweet neighbor Shawn had put up lights for us!  What a wonderful surprise!!!!

Christmas Crafts

Sophia and I had great (and kind of messy) time making decorations over the weekend!

Before:

And after:

Our Beautiful Christmas Tree

Sophia and I have been working on the tree all week adding things here and there. I think it's almost complete... I'm not sure if you can see it but Sophia made the angel on top of the tree. I can't find the star anywhere!!!

Sophia's Chart

Mom, look I'm almost done AGAIN!! She's such a good girl! She likes to put the pieces on backwards to be different..

Sunday Sillyness and Swing Fun!!



Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree....

Last week I decided to go get our tree. Sophia helped me choose a beauty! The kind man who worked there help me by wrapping it in this net thing and get it into the back of my explorer (through the hatchback and no I didn’t put anything down first…) so we get home and I got Sophia situated and decided to take on the tree solo. I somehow managed to get the tree out of my truck (did I mention it’s an 8’ tree?) then I realized it would need some work on the bottom branches so I ventured to the garage. I try to stay out of there as a general rule. It needs some purging if you ask me (sorry Jason). My search ended with a hand saw. I proceeded to saw (try) the bottom branches. I admit I failed miserably. It was a nubby mess when I was finished. Then I decided to drag the 8’ tree into the house being ever so careful to lift it off the floor as not to leave a scratch of course. I lined up the stand and tried my very best to get that tree in that stand while holding it straight. Needless to say the tree was then taken back outside to sit in a bucket until my neighbor Doug was able to help… It was quite an evening..

Amanda and baby Zane arrived just in time to help decorate!!

Skylar’s Birthday Party

The next adventure was our friend Skylar’s birthday party. She had a Wizard of Oz theme that was so cute!! The best part was that our friends Stephanie, Norman, Winter and Bella were also there!! Sophia was in day care with Bella off and on until she was 2. We always share birthdays but it was really nice to see them in between..

                                                                                 

So I am way behind with updates… I’ll try to catch everyone up..

We had several birthday parties at the end of November. This one was for McKenzie at a local roller skating rink. Sophia and I both strapped on our skates to give it a go. Well….we made it (barely) around the rink once. I will tell you it is not very easy to keep a 3 year old upright while wearing roller skates… When we finally made it to the safety of the rug Sophia looked up at me and said “Mom, can I pleeeeease take these things off now?” We had fun…