New Year!

Here are a couple pictures of us at First Night, which is a family-friendly event to celebrate the new year.  Tory sang a few songs from the Toys! show she had done earlier that month, and any outing is made an instant success if there is face painting involved! 

Lazy Winter Days....

Yay for days where you have nothing planned, and you can spend days together!

Trying out a new Mexican restaurant. The girls enjoyed the Spanish Christmas music in the background.

Edwin flexed his artistic skills with the girls during this time. He bought canvases, paint, brushes, the works! The girls painted about 4 or 5 paintings each, and Edwin made each a painting as well.

Two of Tory's paintings on the left, and two that Edwin has made for her on the right. Her name he painted when she was a baby, but the owl is new.

Here are two paintings Natalia did: a forest, and a leopard.

Another project was making piñatas! 

Above is the messy, gooey beginning; below is the final project that survived: an owl.

Another popular activity was playing on the new Wii - their most exciting gift of all, I must admit.

Christmas!!

The cries of "Christmas!! Wake up! It's Christmas!" always come so early in the morning. My pictures always start out so dark, it looks like night. :) Here are two very excited girls, ready to open some much-awaited gifts!

My mom and I had been telling the girls for a couple weeks that Grandpa and Grandma's present for them this year was SOOOOO big, it couldn't be wrapped! What fun it was to hear all of their guesses as to what gift could not be wrapped! The best one was: a trip to Disney. HA!! Maybe.....someday..... but not this year! Here they are in front of their "unwrappable" presents - their bedroom doors.

And.... TA-DA!! Canopies! My mom sewed the canopies and my dad made the frames, painted them, and secured them to the walls. What little girl has not wanted a princess canopy over their bed? 

Outfits from Uncle Todd, Aunt Lisa, Reagan and Kennedi!

Playing with Legos from Nana and Papa!!

A bow and arrow from Daddy and Mommy

Christmas just isn't the same without cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa for breakfast!! :)

A Christmas Celebration from Home

Our lovely music teacher, Ms. Linnea, invited us to join a Christmas party with a Hispanic church in our area. They sang and danced traditional Mexican songs and dances, offered a delicious, authentic Mexican meal, and sang Las Posadas.  It is a neat tradition Edwin grew up with, where children and adults will dress up. They usually pick children to represent Mary and Joseph, but sometimes, as in this case, the adults played their parts. "Mary" and "Joseph" then walk down a street (normally; here, it was the room) and knock on different doors, asking for "a place to stay" in the form of a song. The people at the door, then answer in song, "No, we have no room at this inn!" until finally they are welcomed into a home, where all the participants proceed to sing songs about the birth of Jesus, and of course, eat and enjoy each other's company.  So, we watched them do this act, and then we danced! Tory was getting personal dancing lessons from Edwin and Natalia had fun twirling around for my camera. :)  They also had a piñata at the end for all the kids! 

Doggies and Horse Rides

Before we took off on our exciting horse-drawn wagon ride, we stopped at my parent's house and snapped a couple pictures with Enoch and Chloe. 

He is just a puppy! Can you believe it? 8 months old!

We then took off for the farm.... the other farm....in Benton City where they were offering wagon rides. The horses were HUGE! We were so excited to get into the wagon! It was fun to sing Christmas Carols as we rode along vineyards, with the sun going down. There was also a Santa. I have never had them sit on a Santa's knee. Tory is past it, and it has never really bothered her.  Natalia is a little bit Santa-envious.  I can tell that she secretly wishes she could believe he's real, and at the same time, she was a bit uncertain about sitting on a stranger's lap. We also enjoyed some smores, and hot cocoa, which I was especially thankful for, since it was FREEZING!!

Presenting..... Bumblebee!! :)

The highlight of Tory's fall this year was going to practice twice a week for the production of Toys! with a company called V.I.B.E.  When auditioning, she noticed that Bumblebee was one of the characters and she was SOOOO excited when she got the part! :)

Decorating the tree!!