"Sledding"

Sunday was a beautiful day out, and Mom & Dad have a TON of snow!  They have more than we do, and I thought we had a lot.  Dad made two great sledding hills on either side of the driveway - and they were a perfect size for Jocelyn!  She loved going down them, and they weren't too steep so she could climb right back up.  Dad, Brian and Kailee went to the big hill while she was napping though.

She couldn't even walk where it wasn't shoveled - I could hardly walk!

 The hill

Christmas Round 4

Sunday morning we headed over to the Cities to spend Sunday and Monday with Mom, Dad and Brian.  The girls were very excited to wear their pj's over.  And as I'm posting all these pictures, I'm noticing that we spent most of the weekend in our pj's!  Santa came to Burnsville too, and the girls got to open a few more presents they didn't get at Thanksgiving.  We had a great trip - very lazy and relaxing - just how we like it. 

Elmo undies!  She hasn't wanted to try them on yet, so I'm not pushing it.  But, she does love Elmo, and she does love M&M's (which she gets after she goes potty).  So I'm hoping between the two she'll be potty trained soon!

 Kailee with her dot to dot books.  These books are awesome!  Mom got them for her a few years ago and they've come out with more since then.  They're really fun - I even have done a few!  One of the puzzles is over 1,000 dots and covers two pages.  I think she's already halfway thru the first book!

 Kailee painting Jocelyn's fingernails with the nail polish from Jim & Lynne

 The cookies we made two weeks ago never got frosted, so I brought them with in hopes that someone would get the urge to decorate cookies.  No one did, but Mom thought it'd be fun to have Jocelyn do them.  She loved it, but I think it'll just be our family eating them - she wasn't too good about keeping her fingers out of her mouth....

Christmas Round 3

We started our official Christmas on Christmas Eve by going to 5:15 church.  Calvin was still not feeling well, so he stayed home.  We got to church, and found out that Pat & Anita's (gas) oven wasn't working so Cal's brother was on his way over to our house to put in the turkey.  Then halfway thru church Pat got up and left!  Yikes.  Turns out there was a gas leak, the carbon monoxide detectors were going off, and our sister in law Nicole (who's 7 months pregnant) was home alone with 4 dogs!  Everyone is fine, but she went to the ER to get checked out and the turkey wasn't done until 9:00.  So, it was a Christmas Eve to remember!  The dinner was still wonderful, as was the brunch the next morning.  Pat just hooked up the oven in the camper and we used that!  We had a precious time all together and we got to talk to Cory also - he called on Saturday.  It was great to hear from him, and he sounded good. 

We all spent the night at Pat & Anita's, and Kailee came over on Christmas Day morning.  Santa came to their house, and the girls were excited to see what he brought. 

 Helping Angie and Adam open their baby's present - she's 5 months pregnant!  We're going to have a very busy 2011 as aunties and uncles!

 This is my favorite pose - she loves to color like this and I think it's so darn cute!

I'm also glad that besides learning about Santa and opening presents, Jocelyn did learn about Baby Jesus' birthday.  She thinks he was 6 on his birthday.  She started out saying he was 2, and then 10, but decided that since she and Kailee were those ages that he couldn't be those. 

More Christmas Carols

Santa Claus is Coming to Town is offically Jocelyn's favorite Christmas song.  She's learned a few more lines over the past month, and has even taken to practicing her future career as a performer.

Christmas Round 2

The Wednesday before Christmas we opened the presents from just the four of us.  It was kinda nice to do it a bit before hand and not have to rush thru it during Christmas Eve or Day.  We scaled back on presents this year, and I think that's going to be how I do it from now on!  Neither of the girls really needed or wanted anything, and it was so much less stressful not having to do as much shopping.  And hopefully it makes them appreciate the things they do get more when there's just a few presents to open. 

Jocelyn was very good about not touching the presents under the tree - she knew she had to wait until Mama told her it was Christmas time!

 Kailee was very excited to see this big present was for her - she was sure it was for Jocelyn.  I think I'm going to wrap a pair of earrings next year in that same box.

 Kailee with her red and green bands - very festive!

Christmas Program

A few weeks ago Jocelyn and Kailee both had their school Christmas programs - on the same night.  At least they were at the same high school so we were able to see both of them - but didn't get to see all of Kailee's.  Jocelyn did much better than I expected; she went right to her teacher and didn't cry at all.  She didn't really know what was going on, but hey, she's two.

She scowled a lot, but I think just because the lights were bright.

 There she is over on the right.  She was supposed to be standing up on her little square like the rest of the kids, but apparently she wanted to sit on hers instead.

 Finally at the end she got into it and did the motions to Jingle Bells.  It was pretty funny to see all those tiny kids up on stage!  Those teachers sure make my job look very, very easy.

 The girls with Cory after their programs.  He left for Madison the next day where he spent a few days with friends, and then he was off to Germany!

Cookies

Well, Christmas is now over, and I'm just getting to my two weeks before Christmas pictures!  I guess that happens during this busy time of year.  So, the remainder of the blizzard weekend (which we ended up getting 22" of snow that day!) we made some cookies.  It was a great day to stay inside to do that.

Jocelyn really wanted to use the hand mixer

Her job was to roll the cookies in the sugar.  It was much more fun to rub the sugar all over her face.

Yummy cookies!

 I tried to tell her to smile, but she wasn't impressed.  I tried to remind her pictures are forever....

 Isn't this cool?  I think people use spray to get this effect on their windows - not in WI!

 We didn't think it was ever going to stop snowing!