Pre-Christmas Fun

All of the traditions that come along with Christmas is part of the fun!

For the past two years we have really enjoyed the horse drawn carriage rides in downtown Iowa City!

Our annual trip to see The Nutcracker. Evy is enthralled by the story and Charlie did pretty well. Both girls were ready to go by the end of the ballet.

This year I really let the girls get involved with cookie making and they did great!

They loved rolling out the dough and cutting out the shapes.

There was lots of flour on the floor!

They also did a great job at decorating the cookies!

Evy wanted to add mini M & M's to our Christmas trees and they turned out great.

Scott and I enjoyed an ugly sweater party with some friends. Nice pants!

Charlie's Christmas Program

I've had such a fun time watching Charlie grow at preschool this year. She is doing fun things and making new friends and she handles it like such a big girl. Charlie got a new outfit for her program and she was so proud. It was absolutely adorable watching her walk into school and immediately drop her coat so she could show off her fancy new dress. 

So proud of this girl!

First Snow

Unfortunately, the first snow of the season made Scott and I cancel our trip to Chicago for the Bears vs. Broncos game.

Will's first time sledding!

He kind of liked it.

The girls love sledding in our backyard and they had so much fun going down the hill with all 3 kids on the sled! 

Florida Fun

We spent a week with Scott's parents in Naples. 

The girls loved the pool and we spent lots of time there every day:

This was Evy's nest for the week:

Morning walk to the park, man it was hot and humid:

As the girls get older the beach gets more enjoyable. One day it will be enjoyable with Will too! Charlie loved collecting shells:

Evy was braver this year and really liked spending more time in the water:

He's got his Florida style down:

No trip to Naples is complete without a trip to the zoo. Grammy and Papa typically spoil the kids by letting them pick out a stuffed animal in the zoo gift shop. The girls are on to them and I think that's the main reason they like to go to the zoo:

There is a great park that we love to visit each time:

And, let's not forget the children's museum! The girls loved making this masterpiece and it turns out the museum employee who helped them is originally from Iowa:

Scott and his Dad enjoyed a day of fishing:

We did manage to get a family photo:

 So thankful for a direct flight and so thankful that this is our last flight with a one year old. Will definitely kept us busy!

Vacation is exhausting: 

Halloween

Halloween happened about 3 weeks ago. Here's the fun that we had:

Ready for our annual adult party.

Costume day at dance.

The girls drew pictures of what they wanted their pumpkins to look like and then Scott did the carving.

They both think pumpkin guts are gross and smelly!

Charlie celebrated "orange day" by signing O-R-A-N-G-E for the parents.

Evy's school had a costume parade.

Trick or Treat time!

Yoda had a lot of fun hanging out with me and answering the door. He took all of the candy out of our candy bowl and put it in his bag!