Emily's 4th Birthday!

Emily is now a 4-year old, which is kind of hard to believe.  Where have the last 4 years gone?

Emily's birthday fell on a school day, so she took tiny cupcakes to share with her class.

Emily decided she didn't really want to invite people over for her birthday, but she did want to do something fun.  Of course that meant going to Chuck E. Cheese's.  As soon as Dad got home from work, we headed out to have some fun with Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy.  Emily had a blast!  Fortunately, she decided that she'd rather have pizza from a restaurant than eat Chuck's pizza, so we stopped at MOD Pizza (the girls' new favorite restuarant) on the way home.

No 4-year old's birthday would be complete without cake.  Emily insisted Rainbow Cake (which is a white cake with rainbow sprinkles inside).  Happy 4th birthday, Emily!

Link to pictures

Kara's First Ski Trip

Dad finally got his act together enough to get Kara up on the mountain to try out skiing.  We've been meaning to get her up there every winter since we moved back to Colorado.  We got Kara signed up for lessons a day that she was off school - Friday, February 10th.  Grandpa was interested in skiing with us, so he came along.  When we got there, it was really windy (and warm, it was in the 40's).  Several trees had fallen down on the ski runs, so they eventually canceled lessons for that day.  We rescheduled the lessons for a couple of weeks later on Saturday, February 25, and Grandpa and Dad drove Kara back up again that day.  The weather was a little miserable (it was really cold and very windy), so Dad and Grandpa decided it wasn't worth the money to get out there in that weather.  Kara, on the other hand, jumped right in and never complained about the cold or wind.

Kara had never been skiing before, so she started with the basics and scooting around on her skis and then moved over to the kid hill with the magic carpet (it's a people mover that takes the kids back up the hill).  By the end of the day, Kara was getting pretty good.  She could turn, stop, and had pretty decent control.  The ski instructor recommended she sign up for the next level when she goes back up!

Kara had a great time, though the highlight for her was all the junk food she ate for lunch.  She had pizza, chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, and fruit punch!  She was still on a sugar buzz at the end of lessons!

Watch for Kara in the pink coat and the red helmet in the videos below.

Link to pictures

Christmas 2016

Christmas was great this year.  The girls are in the prime time of enjoying Christmas.  They definitely understand what's going on, but no one is too cool for all the fun yet.  The beginning of December started off a little rough with the second round of sickness working its way through the family (even Mom and Dad got pretty sick).  Very fortunately, everyone started to feel better right before Mimi and Papa came out to visit.  They flew out here the week before Christmas and Uncle Trey also flew out a couple days later.  It's been a couple of years since Trey's been out here, so the girls had a great time showing him all their toys and just hanging out with him in general.  We also got out a bit to check out the local attractions.

One day, we headed down to Denver to check out the Denver Museum.  Trey hadn't been there since he was just a little kid, so he had a great time checking it out.  We didn't get to see much since we got out a little late, and Emily ran out of steam shortly after noon.

The city sets up an ice skating rink every year around Christmas.  Papa, Uncle Trey, Dad, and the girls headed there the morning of Christmas Eve while Mom and Mimi did some prep work for Christmas.  Kara had taken ice skating lessons a couple of years ago.  She was a little rusty at first but was skating all around by the end.  Emily tried to skate a bit at first but ended up just letting Dad pull her around in a sled.  We were the first ones there, but within 30 minutes the rink was packed with people enjoying the nice day and the skating.

Emily learned the words to several Christmas carols - Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were her favorites - and would sing them over and over again for everyone.  Kara enjoyed teaching Emily alternative versions of Christmas carols ("Jingle Bells, Batman smells...").  We bought a little bear that plays a version of Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" that Emily loved to dance to.  Unfortunately, we never could get a good video of her dancing.  Maybe next year.

Christmas day was a blast.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Amy came over early in the morning to get the day started.  The girls got some amazing gifts this year from Santa.  Emily was still a little slower with opening presents.  She always wants to play with her new toy, while Kara is definitely at the age where she just rips into all her presents.

The girls are already planning for next year!

Kid quotes:
"We need to keep up appearances... for Emily." - Kara, as we were putting out cookies and milk for Santa.  I think she's on to us...

"Drat." - Emily's favorite new phrase

Link to December pictures

Link to Christmas Day pictures

Emily's First Dance Recital

Emily started a dance class this fall at the Tara Cluck Dance Center.  She's been having a blast, and enjoyed going to class every week.  The dance studio puts on a Christmas recital every December.  Her class did a tropic themed dance to Mele Kalikimaka.  She did a great job.  She got a little starstruck at the beginning of the routine (check out the video below), but she recovered and finished strong. She had such a great time, she wants to take another dance class this spring!

November 2016

November was a bit of a rough month. Kara came down with croup the second week of November and missed the whole week of school. Fortunately, she started feeling better just in time for her birthday party. Unfortunately, Emily started feeling sick just as soon as Kara started feeling better. We were supposed to travel to Mimi and Papa's house to visit for Thanksgiving, but Emily was a miserable mess. She had croup, a stuffed nose, and just generally felt terrible. The worst part was the lack of sleep (for everyone). She would wake up crying at least 2-3 times a night, and nothing Mom and Dad could do could really help her. She consoled herself by going through about a box of tissues every couple of days (we went through a lot of tissues). It would have been miserable trying to travel with such a sick little girl, so we we decided to cancel our travel plans at the last minute and reschedule for Spring Break. We took advantage of being home the long Thanksgiving weekend and got the house all decked out for Christmas. Dad even got out and hung up lights outside!

Link to pictures