meet sneak

sneak the elf came to visit us on december 1st. having an elf is a new thing for our family but i was sure molly and sophie would love it, and they do! especially molly. she loves magic and make believe and just eats it all up. the girl believes in fairies and loves the magic of things so i knew the elf would be a hit. on saturday morning, the girls found him hanging from the fireplace door with a note. next to him was a box containing the book that gave us all the instructions about him. we chose the name sneak because he'll be sneaking around our house. the girls spent lots of time by him on saturday reading him books, wondering if he was going to change positions, and how he was going to get the note off (which reads, "hi molly and sophie! please do not touch me! open the present i brought and lets have some fun!)

 

day 2 he was a little tricky to find. it wasn't until they were taking a bath sunday morning that they spotted him.

sophie found him on day 3 munching on some gingerbread cookies. molly was hoping he'd eat one of the cookies we'd made the night before. he made a mess of crumbs which the girls thought was hilarious.

 

day 4 was playtime as sneak decided to have tea with molly and sophie's babies.

 

today, day 5 was probably their least favorite because he covered up some ornaments when tp-ing the christmas tree. sophie was very bothered she couldn't see her monkey and both girls were anxious for the toilet paper to come off. while they still thought it was silly, they didn't like their ornaments covered.

and there he sits, still perched in the toilet paper roll at the top of the tree waiting to see where i'll place him tonight. i still don't know....perhaps he'll read some christmas books.

 

 

 

 

 

christmas time is here....

on saturday we headed out to the great outdoors in search of the drake family christmas tree. ok, we didn't do it quite christmas vacation style, but went back to the little tree farm we found up here last year. this year, we discovered that we need to be there on the friday after thanksgiving at 9 when they open to select our tree. we chose a nice tree but many of the "good ones" were already tagged and purchased. one thing we are getting better at is finding a tree that fits in our house. we've always had a habit of picking a tree that was way too big. 

when we lived in paola we had a huge picture window and in 2009 this was the tree we found. it filled our living room to the point that we could only sit on one side of the couch to see the t.v. half our living room was taken up by tree. but it was a beautiful, full christmas tree that brought us lots of compliments from those passing by our house.

here is this year's tree all decortated minus the girls' new ornaments for the year. we're still waiting on molly's to come. hopefully it will be here tomorrow. we have a wonderful tradition of getting our kids a new ornament every year to build up there collection. my parents did this with me (and still do) and i loved when i had a place of my own to have all my special ornaments. to this day they're still on the tree (many filling in the sides and back, but they're there). molly and sophie are building up quite a collection and it's so fun to see their faces light up as they rediscover their ornaments each year.

 

tonight we watched how the grinch stole christmas (the animated version). this along with charlie brown's christmas, is my favorite christmas movie. we read the book after dinner and i whipped up some green peanut butter grinch cookies. the girls were so excited to watch (and eat). they really enjoyed the movie (and the cookies).

no, sophie didn't eat the entire platter. i removed it after the picture and limited them to two cookies much to their disapproval.

following the grinch was shrek the halls which they were not at all interested in. molly was begging for a grinch craft though so i got on the internet and found this one. make a grinch head, add eyes, mouth, and santa hat and then on the mouth write what you would do to make the grinch grin.

here are the completed grinches. sophie's mouth says, "to make the grinch grin i would dress him like a princess and dance", and molly's says,"...i would tell him stories, kiss him, and make friends with him."

 

 

i think we're going to do some fun gingerbread activities next. stay tuned....

goodbye mullet!

this past tuesday we took a trip to paola to visit friends and get haircuts from our favorite stylist, emmy. i was in desperate need of  a trim and sophie, well, she had a mullet. poor girl, the sides of her hair just wouldn't grow. i left it like this for the summer and just pulled her hair up a lot but gave up on the sides catching up. i've trimmed the back once before but she was not going to allow me to do it again. so, the appointment was made and she was excited to sit in the big chair and get her hair cut (she also knew there was a sucker involved when she finished).

front before



 

back before

 

the cut

 

front after

 

back after

 

she looks so cute and a little older, too. when we got out to the van after getting it cut she looked at me and said, i didn't cry. she just went snip snip and it didn't hurt. she asks me daily if it's still short. hopefully it will grow evenly this time. if not, she'll be in a cute little bob until it does! 

happy thanksgiving!

Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is GOOD. His mercy endures forever. we have much to be thankful for this year and had a great day of giving thanks to our God who supplies all our needs (and most of our wants too!) matt was scheduled to work thanksgiving but took some vacation time so he could be home. a 5-day weekend has been so nice!

we kicked off the morning watching the parade. sophie was ready to go and didn't quite understand why we weren't there to watch. when i told her we'd have to fly on an airplane to get there she really got excited. maybe someday....i'd love to watch the thanksgiving day parade live. the girls and matt followed the parade with turkey coloring sheets and then we all played thanksgiving bingo.

i was very thankful i had started food prep the night before so i didn't have to spend as much time in the kitchen on thanksgiving morning. i popped the bird in the oven at 7:15 and then just had a few things to warm and bake when it came out. while i prepared the sweet potatoes and green bean casserole to go in the oven the girls made turkeys out of our homemade pumpkin pie scented playdough and feathers.

 

molly's turkey needed more feathers!

 

sophie changed hers up a bit too!

 

molly even made an Indian!

after playdough was cleaned up it was time for the girls to start helping with lunch preparations.

mixing the pumpkin dump cake...um, this is sinfully delicious. here's the recipe; you must try it! http://www.thepickyapple.com/blog/2008/11/22/pumpkin-crunch-cake/

 

putting marshmallows on the sweet potatoes.

 

sophie placed the rolls on the cookie sheet

while molly finished setting the table

 

big girl sophie  helped put the rolls in the oven. she was pretty proud of this accomplishment!

 

we feasted....well, matt and i did. molly and sophie were their usual picky eater selves and we pretty much forced them to eat with a threat that there would be no cake later on. as i was cleaning up and picking bones off the turkey, i found the wishbone. the girls enjoyed this too. sophie was victorious only by cheating and holding on to the top  as she pulled when molly wasn't really trying.

the girls and matt spent the afternoon outside riding their bikes while i rested on the couch. then we headed to my parents house for some family time. matt went to walmart on thanksgiving night with my brother and sister and bought the girls some new fleece pjs. that was the extent of our black friday shopping. i didn't attempt the early morning shopping in order to keep myself and this little bundle growing inside me safe. next year, shoppers, i'll be there, pushing my way through, loving the adrenaline rush of getting a good deal!



awana grand prix

today molly participated in the awana grand prix at our church. we started with a block of wood and some wheels and had to design, cut, sand, and paint a car to race. matt helped her draw lines for cutting and then cut the car out. molly helped sand and of course painted the car (her favorite part). there was a parent race also, so we purchased a kit for sophie to help with.

 

 

when we got to the church this morning we did a trial run and neither car made to the finish line....doh! other dads to the rescue as they gave us graphite to put on the axles. a little bit of that made a big difference and the cars finally crossed the finish line. they weren't fast, but they finished!

molly's care started off strong, getting second place in the first heat, but then dropped into last for the remainder of heats. she may have had a few third place finishes but overall, her car was not a winner in the race department.

 

 molly's car is in the yellow lane in this picture.

 

sophie participated in the adult race and was so excited to watch her car go down the track.

 

unfortunately, the green monster was no match for the cheese car.

molly won second place for design, bringing her medal count up to 3! at this rate, we may run out of wall space to hang them. :) she loves, loves, loves getting medals!

 

fall family vacation

we like to take our vacations in the fall for two main reasons. one, it's cooler and two, it's less crowded. we couldn't have picked a better four days to go to branson then we did a couple weeks ago. it was wonderful. never too hot (or cold in the mornings) and the crowds were very minimal. we left wednesday afternoon after molly was out of school and started our drive. four hours doesn't seem that long, and it really isn't, until you're sitting in the van for that long. i'm not really sure how i made it as a kid when we drove to california and florida (that was a non-stop drive). anyway, the girls were great on the road, both ways. they napped, sang, colored and played with their babies. we had the occasional whine, but not too bad.


after checking into our hotel we went and grabbed some dinner at this little hamburger joint. it was okay...not the best hamburgers like advertised. after dinner we went to the acrobats of china and shanghai circus. what a neat show! the shows are one of the reason we love branson so much. there is so much variety and you can always see something different. our goal is to find things our girls would enjoy this was one of them. these acrobats were amazing. so much talent! molly was so impressed and waiting for one of them to get hurt because the stunts they were doing were dangerous. fortunately, no acrobats were injured during the performance. the most obnoxious lady sitting in front of us was (we were in the second row), however. not bad, but she made a big deal about it. a yo yo thing came spinning off a string and hit her shin. she didn't make a stink about it until intermission, thankfully. after the show the girls took a picture with one of the acrobats. molly said she'd pick the best one and that is who she'd get her picture taken with. no idea what this girl did anymore, but she impressed molly during the show.

 

we went to silver dollar city thursday morning and basically had the park to ourselves. the girls got and off the rides without having to wait. poor sophie was an inch too short to ride most of the rides which was a big disappointment to her but she made it through. she was able to ride the frogs which made her happy. molly rode her first real roller coaster, thunderation, and liked it. she was a little scared but glad she did it. she's quite the daredevil. matt took her on the teacups and she kept asking to go faster. they were already the fastest teacup spinning and matt looked like a crazy person the way his head and body were moving to spin faster.

                                            

 

 

                                     

 

 

that night we went to yakov's dinner adventure. it was a play about a ballerina and a clown falling in love and coming to america. olga, the sister who loved power over love, tried to stop them. molly loved this play. there was comedy involved, audience participation - molly was picked to go on stage and stand in the middle of a giant bubble, acrobatics, dancing, fire, juggling, singing, and more. it was a great show and the story was loosely true as well. we were served dinner and dessert and then we were able to talk to the clown after the show. we bought the live performance dvd of the night if anyone wants to see molly's big branson show biz debut!

 

friday we went back to silver dollar city for about four hours and then back to our hotel to swim. we ate dinner on the branson landing and walked around a bit. the girls were playing a cute game with matt which led to the trouble we knew it would...sophie getting hurt. she opened up her cut on her knee and scratched up her chin. that girl is tough though...she quit crying almost immediately and didn't let it bother her.

 

saturday we headed to the butterfly palace to get up close and personal with the butterflies. this was a neat place to visit. there was a science discovery center where we were able see different animals and reptiles. then we went into a mirror maze. this was a lot of fun. sophie kept running into the mirrors. then we went into the butterfly room. it was amazing to be surrounded by so many butterflies. one landed on my nose! molly was a little skiddish around the butterflies and wouldn't hold still for them to land on her. sophie just wanted to catch them with the hat. she was successful but then had to put the hat down since that wasn't allowed. she did have one land on her head. the butterflies loved matt's blue shirt.

 

 

we had such a good time on our trip! matt and i were ready to head home, the girls were not. they could have stayed in for several more days. for them, the hotel was just as exciting as any other place we visited. molly loved sleeping in the big bed. sophie, i think enjoyed snuggle time with mommy and daddy. she had to sleep with us because she fell out of bed the first night. much to look forward to on next years visit!