My tiny little baby Becca turned 8 yesterday...
Here's Tess helping me make her cake:
The finished product:
Becca chose to take one friend from school to the water park with her, and they had alot of fun. Here they are on the triple slide:
Here's Livvy trying to decide if she likes the water or not:
By the end she was walking (yes, walking, because when she crawled her face went in the water) up the stairs, going down the slide and then walking back around to climb the stairs to the slide again!

The double tube slide:
Tess in the kiddy zone:
Becca playing mommy with Tess:

Becca, Kayla, Tia:Blowing out her "flaming tower of cake" (That's what she called it):
Gift from Grandma Barbara. You should have seen her face when she realized that Grandma found the discontinued Chocolate Lab she had been wanting!!:
Not exactly thrilled with the Pogo Stick:
Fashion show this morning:
That's all. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. We will be in Spokane/Kalispell, MT for Christmas, so no post next week.

Triple Dog Dare!

She stuck her tongue to a pole on Sunday and she thought I would be mad so she just ripped her own tongue off the pole instead of asking Becca to come get me to help her.

Here is what she wrote for her journal entry today (Monday) at school:

The girls got these hand made aprons from their Lola Rio right before Thanksgiving. They were so excited to wear them that we had to make a cake on Wed. night. Then they helped most the day Thursday:


Well, Liv didn't really help much, but she loves to put anything that gets left on the floor into the dog's water bowl. That counts as helping right...
Here's the finished product. WAAAAY too much food for just us:
Here's what they did when they weren't "helping": (Becca and Tia tried to play Twister while Liv and Tess sat on the mat and blocked half of it 'til the big girls got frustrated and put it away)
Oh, and the day before the girls got out for Thanksgiving break I got a phone call from the Principal of the elementary to tell me that Tia had been mercilessly teasing a little boy at school about his baby boots. When she got home I asked her what kind of boots they were, and she said they were Pooh Bear boots. So here is the punishment Matt and I thought of for her:
I went out on the Friday after Thanksgiving and bought a couple of them she has had to wear all week.

HO HO HO!

Well, we have a white Thanksgiving...


Becca, Tia and Tess were already bundled and waiting for me to get up at 7am Monday morning so they could get permission to play outside. Here they are enjoying the first snow of the season:



This is how Liv and Tess play, and how Matt babysits:

Cute winter hat:
Gymnastics "tummy table":

Here's Tess trying her cousin Haven's favorite lunch (Ramen Noodles):
Despite the smile, she was not a fan, and refused to eat anymore after this pic was taken.

Here's what I do in a desperate attempt to not have to go out in the snow:


Have a restful, thankful Turkey Day everyone! We will:

Finally!

wheels on the bus

Here we are the day I left:

The rest of these pictures were on my camera when I got home. Your guess is as good as mine on the captions for each one:








So, they all survived their week without me. Looks like they had fun, and bonus, Grandma left with a full head of hair!! She didn't pull any out while she had my four monsters!!

Thanks again Grandma Barbara!!

Ladies on Leave

I spent the last week on a Caribbean cruise. It was beautiful there, we even thought it was a bit too hot at times. I came home on Sunday to temperatures in the thirties and snow! I went with just the ladies in my family. No spouses or children were allowed. Here I am the first day in Princess Cays, Bahamas:
These fish are well fed, and they know where the food comes from, so when I went swimming they swam right into my mask and in my skirt and all around me looking for food:My cousin Sarah and I with the cruise ship in the background:
View from our room onboard:
One of the bars onboard the ship had a selection of 52 martinis so of course we thought we would make it a goal to try every one between the seven of us. I think we made it to 12 at the very most!!:
This is how we spent Sunday. There was a big screen with football all day:
This is one of our shore excursions. I think this one was St. Thomas. That's my Aunt Nette, my Aunt Jeannie, my cousin Sarah, and myself:
This iguana lives on one of the islands that we visited. Scared the bejeebers out of us when we first saw him:
This was the bar we found to hang out at in St. Maarten:
My mom and I on one of the excursions:

Stingray Safari in Grand Turk:
Me, staying away from the stingrays in Grand Turk:
Look how they just swim up to people looking for food:
Here we are making our own fun after our excursion ended in Grand Turk. This is at the Margaritaville:
Margaritas for the road:
My cousin Stephanie and me:
Dressed up for dinner on the ship:
On the last sea day we decided to pay 20 dollars to rent lounge chairs and pool access in the adult only section of the ship. Here it is:
I tried my first escargot while on the ship. (Not a fan!):
Last night onboard with our waiters:
We went to karaoke almost every night while we were there and here is what I thought of the finale where we listened to the same people one last time:
I had fun, but I missed my family like crazy. I have a few pics of them and what they did this week with Grandma Barbara that I will put up later.