#3 for Kerri

She said she just popped it right out with her tongue - no blood, no drama, no tears. She's also very confident that the tooth fairy will know where to find her - even if she's not at home!

Christmas 2011

We've had a wonderful weekend celebrating Jesus' birthday, participating in some amazing worship at our church, spending quality family time together, eating way too much candy, and receiving some fun Christmas surprises! The great part about living in a state away from your families is that you get a week long Christmas! We'll be hitting the road bright and early tomorrow to continue celebrating for a week! Merry Christmas!

Best Reaction: 

 

Sweetest Moment:

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

I way under-ordered our Christmas cards this year, so here's an online version for all those who didn't get one (Georgia people - you get to see us every week, so our friends and family in 10 (!!) other states got priority). I guess I have a better idea of how many I need for next year! Merry Christmas to all!

12-11-11 (better late than never!)

I totally forgot all about my post this month! We've been just a tad busy!

Recap: In January, after looking through pictures of the past year, I noticed that I didn't have that many of the girls together. I decided I would make sure that I took at least one picture of them together every month and post it. Here's December's, and a look at a year of the girls together.

I love that it helped change my mindset, and I ended up with even more pictures than these that help reflect their actual life - being together pretty much all the time! It also wasn't much pressure because most of them were just snapped as we went about our daily life. I love looking back on the pictures and relieving the memories from that moment. I think that I'll do another monthly challenge next year! Maybe one where I actually end up in the picture since I think I can count on one hand the pictures I made it into this year!

Silent Night

All is calm

 even though it's bright!

 Sleep in heavenly peace!

Disney on Ice

Our little princesses enjoyed the show, and thanks to a friend's generosity, we had amazing seats! I forgot my zoom lens but still managed to get quite a few good shots because of how close we were.

Characters from Aladdin, Toy Story, Nemo, Pinocchio, all kinds of princesses/princes, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, the Incredibles, Mulan, and so many more!  

I recorded the last little bit of the Toy Story army men song for my two not-so-little-anymore-brothers who loved Toy Story and who are now in the Army themselves. (I have no idea what I did to make it so blurry though...)

It doesn't get any more magical than Disney!

Catch Up

I'm pretty behind on blogging, so here's a little glimpse at what we've been up to lately.

Relaxing the week of Thanksgiving at my parent's house - pretty easy when this is in the back yard!

Visiting the Carolina Christmas at the Lowes Motor Speedway and Andy getting to drive on the track . . . in an minivan ;)

Kerri's highlight of the night was feeding the deer!

Roasting marshmallows three different nights in one week!

Building some Christmas ornaments

This one's dangerous with a hammer!

Santa looks like he needs a break!

Our 5th annual Christmas tree farm hunt for the perfect tree. (Still trying to convince the girls that bigger is better - they'd love to have a tiny tree!)

Who thought it was a good idea to give this crazy guy a saw?

Making Mommy nervous! She didn't have this for long!

Trimming the tree

Kerri took it very seriously this year! She had to find the "just right" spot for each ornament!

Tree up, stockings made and hung, mantel decorated! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here (too bad I've had to have the air condition on at some point most days this week!)

We also went to Disney on Ice this past weekend, but that will have to be its own post - too many pictures!

School Recap: November

Wow! It's hard to believe that November is already over! Here's some of what we were up to this past month! 

Emma Lee has learned all about how to identify and label adverbs (actually started last month but I forgot to write it) and adjectives! She knows all the questions to ask to find these along with the subject noun and verbs, and she can sit down with a list of sentences and do them all by herself. Even though it's technically Emma Lee's work, Kerri has been doing it along with us and has learned a lot of it too!

 

Sometimes we like to mix things up a bit and do our sentences on the floor instead of paper. 

Our "extra" stuff this month was centered around fall and Thanksgiving. We read a lot of Thanksgiving books, and one of their favorites was The Littlest Pilgrim. 

 

The girls drew the "littlest pilgrim" and then used adjectives to describe her at different points in the story. They also wrote a little summary of the book. 

Instead of doing journal writing for part of the month, we did "thankful books." The girls actually did this part on their own every day, so I didn't even look to see what they wrote until the end and got quite a few laughs from Emma Lee's. 

We learned about about pilgrims and the Mayflower. We had some friends of ours come over and go through a "virtual tour" of the Mayflower with us, and they all picked what they would take with them in their suitcases if they had to leave and go to another country (they didn't get too detailed with these because they were all ready to move on to snack time where they made pilgrim hat cookies!). 

 

 

We also learned about Indians and how they helped the pilgrims. We had another fun snack (I wasn't very on the ball with fun snacks last month, but I think I made up for it this month!) relating to Indians. We also learned that these Indians didn't really live in teepees, but the girls didn't mind eating them anyway! 

 It also just so happened that our Tennessee Flat Stanley brought back the girls these cute hairbows made by Indians living there! The girls thought they were great!

We did some leaf projects, fall painting, and had another fun "acorn" snack, and had a great Thanksgiving break spent in NC. 

We've had 6 of our Flat Stanleys return, and the girls have enjoyed learning about California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, and New York. Thanks so much if you have sent one back (and for the rest of you, it's not too late!) ;) 

All the other subjects are going great, and Kerri has really turned a corner with her reading! She did great reading with me if I sat down and listened to her, but she didn't really think she was a good reader, and she never instigated reading on her own or even tried to read things like signs in stores or on the road. One day she realized that she was reading a "chapter book" (like Emma Lee does), and she was so excited. It was like she had just then discovered that she really could read. She's reading a lot more now on her own and loves to surprise me by reading signs while we're in the car. 

I think that about sums it up! I still can't believe the end of this year will be here before we know it!