Christmas Morning

I know we're a little behind, but here are some photo's from Christmas morning. The kids had a great time and so did we!

Santa always leaves the kids stocking by their beds. Andy was a little confused.

Christmas Eve Photos - Simpson Style

Here's us trying to get our 'nice' Christmas eve photo in front of our tree. Just watch the progression of things. I just see Bart and Homer Simpson all over these!

"I said look at my camera!" -- Andy

"Fine, don't look, I'm done with it then." -- Andy

"I'll get it, Andy!" -- Lilly

Almost a good one...

See Michael's face here, it's starting to get to him....

One more try.

Lilly's almost had it.

Okay, we're done. Andy's pulling hair and still throwing the camera and now Lilly's screaming and so are we! Ah the fun of Christmas Eve!

First Dance Receital

Lilly had her first receital this past weekend. It was so cute. Her teacher, Miss Stacy, made headbands for all the girls to wear and they did their tap dance for a crowd of about 80 people. It was too cute. She did a great job and really likes to dance, so I think we've found a good outlet for some of her energy!

This is Lilly with her friend Grace and below is Miss Stacy.

Let's Go See Santa

We finally made it to see Santa! We took Aunt Cara and Aunt Tammy and went to the mall in Topeka. Lilly wouldn't tell us what she wanted and then right before it was our turn, she looked at me and said, "Mommy, what did I want again?" If only I'd known it would be that easy this year. So I reminded her of the things we had talked about earlier and up we went. She hopped right up on his lap and they had quite the conversation. She was telling him that she wanted the Littlest Pet Shop Clubhouse, 2 Barbies and a Barbie playhouse (which was not one of the items I remindered her of just minutes before). I was trying to stand close enough to hear, (Santa's helper needs to know too!) and then Michael is yelling at me to get out of the picture. Go figure, it's never as easy as you think it should be!

Then came Andy's turn. Santa said, "I bet you like Elmo" and then out of no where, Andy just yells "ELMO!!!!!". So, even though Santa's Elf already had Andy's gift, they had to find something Elmo to have under the tree too. He was a big boy and thought it was pretty fun!

Grandma Snook

I know we've been MIA for a little while, but we've had good reason. Wanted to post a great picture of Lilly with Grandma Snook that was taken while we were trying to get our Christmas card photo done. By the way, we tried 3 different times before we were happy with the photo's.

Lilly's First Christmas Tree

This year we let Lilly put up a small tree in her bedroom. We purchased some plastic bulbs for her to use and also a set of M&M garland and then went through our ornaments and she picked out the ones she wanted to put on her tree. Michael put the tree together, after having to fix it, as it was Grandpa Kimberlin's old tree, and he put the lights on it for us, but then it was up to Lilly and I to add all the "flare" to it! She did most of it, which it took everything in me not to 'fix' it afterwards, since after all it is her Christmas tree.

Breakfast with Nana and Papa Jim

This is the first year that Nana (my mom) and Papa Jim have decided to join us for Thanksgiving. They brought with them powdered sugar donuts and chocolate covered donuts and of course my kids (Andy especially) thought this was great! Papa Jim got a kick out of Andy that morning. "I munny, I munny" is Andy speak for "I'm funny, I'm funny"! We enjoyed having them here as we always love having guests!

Fun in the Leaves

Don't you just love fall? Well, I know Lilly does. Michael I'm not so sure about. Here are some pictures we took the other day when he raked up all the leaves in our back yard. Too bad Andy was sleeping during all this fun! Luckily he's too young to know he missed out.

Seriously, who put on that blue hat?! It sure wasn't me.