Queen Mandy

We had fun playing dress-up this morning. Olivia saw no reason why Mandy should be left out, just because she's a dog.

Sleeping Beauty

The girls had a blast on Christmas. Isabelle had so much fun that fell asleep on the way home and refused to wake up. She slept like this for 45 minutes, and then it took a lot of work to wake her.

Christmas day

Here are the girls opening presents at Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Bob's house on Christmas.

Rudolph noses

Santa left a Rudolph nose in mommy's stocking, but I think it was much more fun for the girls!

Presents

Opening presents on Christmas eve was great fun!

Holidazzle

Here's a shot of Mike and the girls at the Holidazzle parade. They really enjoyed it!

James

Our friends Lisa and her new baby James came over for a visit last Wednesday. The girls had a great time adoring James! (So did mommy and daddy.)

Snow play

The girls were excited for their first play in the snow this year! Olivia had a blast, but Isabelle just isn't sure what she thinks of snow yet.

Gingerbread house

Isabelle made her first gingerbread house at ECFE last week, and was very proud of it!

Birth families

We celebrated Christmas with the girls' birth families last weekend. What a blessing to have them in our lives!

Christmas program

Olivia was in the Sunday school Christmas program last Sunday. She was so proud of herself!

Decorating

The girls decorated most of our Christmas tree this year. All the ornaments are on about 4 brancehs, but we think it's beautiful!

More Thanksgiving

Here are some more shots from Thanksgiving at Auntie Stef's.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was at Auntie Stef's new house. She's decorated it so beautifully!

Dishwasher

Mike put our distwasher in! Here's a shot of the cupboard cutting phase.

Fun with glasses

The girls got glasses from a fiesta at ECFE class. They thought they were pretty cool!

Talent show

Olivia's school had a talent show last week. Her class dressed up and sang "I'm a little Turkey." It was really adorable!

Cite kids!

Isabelle has been sporting pig-tails lately. The first day I put them in, Mike came home and Isabelle told him, "Mommy do the pony." Here is one of Olivia's gymnastics. She was pretty proud of her headstand. :)

New things

Some days Isabelle decides she doesn't want to take a nap. This was one of those days, and she fell asleep on me just before bed. Lately Olivia really loves "reading" her books, especially her new bible from church. She's so fun to listen to!

Sick

Both the girls were sick last week with a stomach bug. We spent Monday and Tuesday resting and watching videos. Isabelle actually fell asleep on the couch!

Play-doh fun

Fun with play-doh!

I love my kids

The girls both have colds right now, and Isabelle fell asleep on me the other night just before I put her to bed. (This does not happen very often.) Olivia got a "big girl" Bible from Sunday school, and love reading it! She's loving preschool and Sunday school!

Good times

Olivia had a blast the other week playing with kids in our neighberhood. We had about 11 kids here most of the afternoon. And Isabelle got her first haircut last week. It was just a little trim, but still felt worthy of pictures and the whole thing. No more hair falling in her eyes! :)

Fall fun

We had a grand time yesterday and today jumping in piles of leaves! Yesterday we even had 4 extra neighbor helping us rake them into piles and jump in them. This is the first year Olivia has been willing to play in the leaves. :)

China girls

These are outfits Lisa got the girls when she was in China a couple of years ago. They wore them to church on Sunday. Unfortunately, Olivia has not been happy about having her picture taken lately.

More apple fun

Here are a couple more pictures from the apple orchard.

Apple Orchard

We all went to the apple orchard today. It was such a great day for it! It was around 84 degrees here today. These are pictures of us all on the hay ride.

Kenya girls

I'm sorry I have been so delinquent in updating our blog since I came home from Kenya. Mike did such a great job keeping it going while I was gone. I'll do my best to keep it up now that I'm getting back into a routine. Kenya was wonderful, and I plan to put pictures and stories up on the blog once I get all of my thoughts together. I've been working on organizing my thoughts and everything I've learned. These are pictures of the girls are of them wearing the outfits I bought them in Kenya. Isabelle's was a little big - I had to roll the skirt 4 times to get it to fit. But don't they look adorable? :)

Day 14

Sunday was a productive and a fun day as well. Grandpa and Grandma came over. Grandpa helped me work on the garage (new trim, paint the trim, etc) in preparation for the new garage door that will be installed on Wed. Grandma helped with the girls. Olivia, Isabelle and I took them out to dinner at The 50's Grill afterward to say, "thank you." The girls actually ate more than just ice cream this time and had fun playing checkers and listening to the jukebox!

Day 13

Saturday was cleaning day! We did a few loads of laundry, put clothes in the closet and dressers, picked up around the house and did the dishes together (well, Isabelle and Olivia played with the bubbles). It was a good, fun day all-around.

We had Lisa and Jesse "over" for dinner. Ok, well, actually Lisa did the cooking, we just ate the meal at our house. Later that day, Jesse and I went to a very awesome Tool concert at the Target Center while Lisa played with the girls and put them to bed.