It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

 

The kids love to decorate the tree and I love strolling down memory lane while I hand them the ornaments we have collected over the years.

Even Brooklyn had a fun time putting ornaments on the tree. However, she liked to pull them off frequently which led to the Sofia ornament breaking. I had to shift all the ornaments around so the breakable ones were out of her reach.

 

This year's added ornaments:

Mikayla picked the gingerbread house

Austin picked the Army snowman

Brooklyn (with Mikayla's assistance) picked out the doggies

And when I saw this ornament I had to get it in honor of Brady.

He was such a good dog!



This year I got Christmas lights on our roof! The last 2 years we have only done them on the ground. I love them on the roof but the roof on this house is a lot higher and steeper than our last house. But to my surprise Craig did it. He may have feared for his life once or twice but he had one very happy wife because of it! Let the Christmas Season begin! 

Gymnastics

For the last 4 months, Mikayla has been taking gymnastics and has loved it!

 



She is getting lots better and it has been fun to see her improvement in certain skills. She is constantly doing cartwheels...around the house, outside in the grass, even in public places where it is not really appropriate and I have to remind her that this is not a place to practice her gymnastics. She has also turned her bunk bed into a gymnastics bar and will use the bars above her head to hold on to while she does flips and other crazy gymnastics moves.

During parent's night the girls get to choose something they have been working on to perform for all the parents. At this one, Kayla choose to do a flip around the bar. 

Then they do their salute and get a medal.

With a lot of sports, teams are formed according to age but not so in gymnastics which means Mikayla and Kambria get to be in the same class together. And Mikayla LOVES having Kambria in her class! 

 The next parent night Mikayla chose to do another skill on the high bar. I heard her say after the fact that she was nervous about messing up and falling in the pit in front of all the parents.

And her salute!

Santa Clause was even there this time to hand out the trophies!



I heard Mikayla telling Austin that it wasn't the real Santa. She said that they must have asked someone to be Santa to make the little girls at gymnastics happy.

Still trying to feel around for what sport Mikayla really enjoys and is skilled at. She really does like gymnastics so we have to see what she chooses to do this upcoming year. 

Living Life and Having Fun

Just some of the other stuff that has been happening over the last couple months.

At one of Austin's soccer tournaments, we discovered this playground in between games. The kids thought it was the best playground ever! (There is actually a whole other side of this playground but these slides are where the kids spent most of their time).

Movie time!

Even Katelyn got to join in on this one.

(Brooklyn was eating Oreos hence the chocolate mouth)

One of our tricks to easily get Brooklyn to bed is by giving her books. A couple nights I found her like this. Hmmm....seems oddly familiar. I think I have a picture of Mikayla doing the exact same thing about 5 years ago.

Austin has a soccer tournament in Norman also and in between games Craig and Austin went over and took a self tour of the OU stadium.

I bought Gingerbread Man cookies and Mikayla desperately wanted to put them in the oven to see if the Gingerbread Man would run away. I reluctantly agreed to this seemingly silly request. When she left, I took the Gingerbread Man out and placed him elsewhere in the house. Mikayla came back and was ecstatic!! To my surprise she was entirely convinced that the Gingerbread Man jumped out of the oven just like the book says. 

 

We must of played this game for at least 30 minutes until the Gingerbread Man got too tired and then she ate him.

 Played at Dino Park with cousins over Thanksgiving Break

 One Sunday morning Mikayla and Austin created their own board games

 And when his cousins came over to spend the night the actually played the game!

 We went to Keepsake Candles with some friends and the kids dipped candles.

 And we had a spurt of warm weather the beginning of December so I took Brooklyn to the zoo.

 We met Bristol and they rode the train. Brooklyn was so excited about the "choo choo!"

 We actually saw several animals at the zoo but with juggling a  toddler and a baby, I am lucky to just grab a picture here and there.

Even though we spent several hours at the zoo, if Brooklyn could tell you about her day at the zoo she would probably only remember the train, the playground, and having fun climbing on the statues!!

 



Thanksgiving

I was lazy and didn't take any pictures on Thanksgiving. Luckily Andrea did so I will just use hers.

The Bastings Family held Thanksgiving at Jeff and Andrea's house this year. There was a lot of us.

Mikayla really enjoyed getting to play with Addi and Morgan.

 

Too much baby cuteness!!!

What a difference 4 months can make?

Saturday after Thanksgiving, Jessica & Travis and Nathan & Dayleigh came into town. We did a second thanksgiving at my parents house followed by snacks for the OU/OSU football game which included this cute turkey cheese ball.