Michelle's 3rd Year Pictures

Michelle's Picture Session

The link above will take you to Michelle's 3 Year Old Picture Session.  Not many of the pictures are very good, but some of them are funny.  She always makes the perfect picture face right before or after we take a picture . . . ALWAYS!  I can't really blame the photographer, though I liked the guy that took Lena's a lot better than this woman that took Micki's!  Anyway, we only ordered one pose, but the rest are there for you to peruse if you choose!

It's the Hap-Happiest Season of All!

I LOVE DECEMBER!  I love the holidays!  I love lights and Christmas trees and carols, stockings and hot cocoa and snowmen, beautiful decorations, grinning and laughing children (of all ages).  I love having Michelle's birthday and our wedding anniversary too!  I love seeing family!  And visiting Santa and holiday parties and Christmas stories and opening presents and visiting with neighbors and days off work!  There is so much to love this time of year, and this year we are enjoying it unlike any other!  As always, I have a few pics to share to demonstrate all the good times our family is having together!

Michelle very specifically asked for a chocolate cake with pink frosting and coconut.  She had a ballet theme, so that all fit nicely.  This is her cake, with 4 ballerinas too!

She got lots of wonderful goodies for her 3rd birthday!  Here she is opening a backpack and  preschool activities from Grandma Jackson.  This gift keeps on giving, as Grandma sends more activities every month!

Michelle loves blowing out candles . . . The problem is she can't actually blow!  I have been trying to teach her to stick out her lips and blow, and that is what she was attempting here.  It worked a little better, and was SO ADORABLE!

Lena cheeses it up for the camera with her gingerbread house!

Grandma and Grandpa Thompson came for Michelle's birthday, and Grandma brought everything to put together a graham cracker house with the girls.  It was a blast!

Lena was so darn cute in her snow gear, it was the first picture we had to get when we set out to cut down our Christmas tree in Island Park.  It was the first time any of us had done that, and it was a fun experience . . . we will definitely do it again.

Here I am after we cut down the tree.  The girls were starting to get cold, and Micki was crying to go back to the truck, but up until that point it was a lot of fun!

My muscle man is hauling the tree back to the truck . . . to be fair it wasn't really very heavy, but he IS still my muscle man!

Here it is, right before we load it in the truck.  It fits beautifully in our living room, by the way!  It really is gorgeous!

Back at the cabin that night the girls were playing with Lena's sled indoors, pulling it around on the carpet.  Here, Lena is tackling Micki in the sled.  She does that a lot lately . . .tackles her sister.  I wonder where she learned that?

The next day we went out to play in the snow.  Lena ate it up, being pulled around in her sled.  She even laughed when Daddy went fast and dumped her out of it!

Jim decided he wanted to sled down the hill too.

Micki was also cute in Lena's winter gear . . . that is her coat, at least.  We left her coat in the other car, so we separated Lena's (which was Micki's first, to be fair) and gave each girl half.  It worked out okay, even if it was a little tight.

Micki also loved being towed around in Lena's sled.

The snow was quite deep and soft, so Lena couldn't really move around in it, but she didn't mind sitting, waiting for someone to come pick her up.

The snow was much to soft to build a snowman.  Fortunately, someone left one standing practically in our backyard.  The snow around it was packed and hard, so the girls could walk and pretend to build a snowman.

Lena is trying not to fall down!

Mommy is helping add eyes and nose and hat to Frosty Snowman, as Michelle calls him.

Anyway, we had a fun weekend in Island Park.  As you can see they have quite a bit of snow, but the weather was clear the whole time we were there.  Every time we go to the cabin without my mom and dad Michelle gets a little upset, she looks for them all over before settling that they aren't there too.  She talks about them the entire time.  It is cute, and a little sad.  We miss them!

Thanksgiving

This year we made the trek to WA for Thanksgiving.  It is the first year we have done that . . . the most intimate Thanksgiving dinner I have ever enjoyed . . . there were 6 of us, including Michelle and Lena.  Everything was yummy and beautiful and we had a great time.  My camera battery died and we didn't get a lot of pictures from the trip, but a few.  Saturday we took the girls to the Seattle Aquarium and watched Santa dive with the fish!  Again, not a lot of great pictures, but we got a few.

The week before was "L is for Leaves" week with "mommy school" and we had a lot of fun with that!

And the weekend before that, as mentioned before, we visited St. George, where we went hiking at Snow Canyon and playing at the park.

I already posted the picture of the girls on the slide.  That was taken by my mom.  You can see her here, snapping pictures, as she often is!

Slide

We went to visit St. George last weekend.  I took many pictures, but haven't downloaded them from the camera yet.  My mom also took many pictures and sent me this adorable one of the girls when we all went to the park.  I wanted to share.  Blogger kept automatically flipping it the WRONG way no matter what I did to upload it, so, here it is . . . sideways.

My mom also shared with me an awesome blog that I am now using for my daily activities with the girls.  This woman used to be a 1st grade teacher but now stays home with her little boy.  She has compiled some AMAZING weekly unit kits to preschool your own kids.  She calls it Mommy School (you have to click on the link for Mommy School at the top of her blog).  I started with L is for Leaves this week with the girls and so far it is going great!  I may have to get a color printer just for this!  They love it! Take a look!

http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/

A Cowgirl, A Lion, and A Witch

We had a Happy Halloween this year!  It was a busy one too!  On Thursday, Jim went deer hunting with my stepdad.  This is his first year hunting and he was close to the end of the month, deerless.  But he got one Thursday morning, almost first thing out!  It is the strangest looking deer anyone ever saw, but I don't have a picture because Jim didn't take one!  Anyway, I know he loves me because he took it right to a processor so I never even had to look at the poor, dead Bambi!  It's not that I can't stomach it, just that I'd rather not!

Friday was our ward's Halloween carnival.  I spent most of the day making monster cupcakes that were a big hit!  I am still getting compliments on them a week later!  Michelle helped and it was fun.  Then Micki and Lena were SO ADORABLE in their costumes!  Michelle was Jessie (from Toy Story) and Lena was a tiger.  She is so cute when she growls!  I have to thank my mother for helping me put Michelle's costume together!  I never thought I would sew, but I have been lately, and she is helping me learn.

Saturday we went to Boo at the Zoo.  There were A LOT of people!  Lena enjoyed watching everyone and Micki enjoyed seeing the animals and getting more candy.  This time the no pictures is my fault too . . . we left the camera and phone in the car, and it would have been crazy to try and go back for it through the throngs!

Sunday we planned to carve pumpkins, but we completely forgot about them sitting out on the front porch, so this year's pumpkins remained unadulterated!

Monday we went trick-or-treating to a couple of people we know then came home to receive the most trick-or-treaters we have ever seen!

Family Pictures

We got family pictures a couple of weeks ago.  The girls really wanted to run around the baseball field so we had a hard time getting great shots, but our photographer is patient, accommodating and very good at her job so we ended up with some good photos after all.  Here is a sampling.