Aly Puts on a Magic Show

Aly certainly was feeling better by the afternoon. In fact, she put on her own magic show. I just have to tell you that Aly has two rules to her magic show. The first rule is you have to close your eyes. The second rule is that when she is done counting to three you get to open your eyes. Hence, all the magic is created while our eyes are closed...LOL.



She came up with the idea to turn her blanket into a magicians cape. She added her pink hat as her magic hat.

Poor Aly has the flu

On Sunday while we were driving home from San Jose, hubby threw up on the whole drive home. We really thought this was due to the migraine headache that he had but we were soon to discover that we were wrong. At 4 a.m. in the morning Aly woke up. I heard her coughing in her room, then heard her go to the bathroom, and then she returned back to bed. Around 6 a.m. she came into our bed and by 7 a.m. she awoke throwing up. What I didn't know was that when she had gotten up earlier in the night she had actually thrown up in her bed. Poor girl.

She ended up being quite sick until around noon. For a couple of hours she was throwing up every 15 minutes and in between she was going to the bathroom and having the other end problem if you know what I mean. I felt so bad for her. She stayed on the couch the entire morning. KK luckily slept in until 9 and then was content watching a movie while I took care of Aly. I told KK Aly was sick and she seemed to understand.

Shortly before noon Aly took a 15 minute nap. Within an hour of the nap and no one getting sick she was up and about as if nothing had happened. I was amazed at her energy level, bouncing about the room. Aly and KK played the rest of the day as if Aly was never sick.

I thought for sure KK or I would come down with the flu but lucky for us we never did.



Poor Aly on the couch. I just had to add this picture of KK who at the time was watching over Aly asking if she was o.k.

Aly & Mom go to The Nutcracker

It was a weekend full of fun for Aly and me. Yes, I scored half price tickets to The Nutcracker Ballet too! Travelzoo sent me an email alerting me and I was thrilled. I have wanted to take Aly to the Nutcracker ever since she was three but wanted to wait until she was a little older. This year I was actually thinking about it but with tickets costing $75 a seat I just couldn't do it. Thanks to the half price seats we were able to go.

The funny thing is we took the girls to a movie about a week before and neither one could sit through it. It was the movie The Tales of Desperaux. So it got me really nervous that I had wasted my money on tickets to The Nutcracker. Hubby prepared me for the fact that I just might have to leave with Aly at half time. As hard as it was to realize it I was glad to be prepared for it so I wouldn't be dissapointed.

However, the opposite was true! Aly absolutely loved The Nutcracker! In fact she stayed the entire show which wasn't even over until 9:45 p.m. She sat on my lap most of the show so she could see. We actually had good seats at just 19 rows up and just slightly off center. She had two tall adults sitting in front of her so it was hard for her to see. She could only see inbetween their heads. So most of the show she could see better sitting on my lap. I was happy to cuddle with her too!

Her favorite part was with the Mouse King when he fights the Nutcracker. She really liked the dancing and the orchestra playing. In fact when I asked her if she liked the Dinosaur show or the Nutcracker better she surprised me by saying The Nutcracker!


Aly was thrilled to get her pictures taken with the Mouse King and the Nutcracker! She was also thrilled to dress up in a pretty dress.

Walking With Dinosaurs Our Family Experience

A few weeks back I was thrilled when I received an email from Travelzoo alerting me that tickets were on sale for 50% off for the Walking With Dinosaurs Live show. I immediately called hubby and asked him if he wanted to take the girls. He was thrilled and we chose to see the show on the day after Christmas. This would be a great Christmas gift for our whole family to enjoy!

KK was the most excited. She talked about it for days. We purchased tickets for the upper deck but were lucky enough to get the first row! KK thought it would be great to sit as high as the trees to see the dinosaurs. We thought it would be better for the girls to sit on the upper deck so they wouldn't be too afraid. Aly who is usually the cautious one was already a bit worried about the show. So I decided to go on YouTube and show her some videos from the show. I pointed out to her how she could tell the dinosuars were fake. I showed her how on the raptors she could see human legs in them. I showed her in the big dinosaurs how a platform was underneath them which was used to move them. This seemed to help her a lot.

On the night of the show we were taking any chances on being late. In fact we were actually down near the arena an hour early so we decided to drive around to find a bite to eat. Afterwards we headed for the show and got to our seats with 15 minutes to spare. Aly was scared of the big teeth on the stage so we showed her how they were really large balloons. This helped her.



Here is the stage the dinosaurs will come out on.



Here we are sitting in our seats. Aly sat on Daddy's lap the entire time and KK sat on Mommy's lap the entire time!



Here are some of the first dinosaurs they brought out. Both Aly and KK loved the long necks!



This was probably the best picture I was able to take with my camera. Unfortunately for me my camera was acting up and would only let me have a total of 19 pictures on my memory card! It was pretty frustrating. Plus we weren't allowed to take any flash photography so all of my pictures were taken without a flash.

I did take a video of the best part! I was able to get the T-Rex on video. Surprisingly the girls loved it. We were fully prepared to leave at this part but they both liked it a lot. Do you know that half way through the show KK was asking to move to the bottom to front row seats? By the end of the show Aly wanted to move to the botton but up high. We told them if we get to go to the show again we will try to sit in the lower seats maybe half way up.

Christmas Day

Mommy and Daddy were very lucky as both of the girls slept in until 8:00 on Christmas morning. Aly was very excited to go down stairs to see what Santa had left for her. KK on the other hand preferred to wake up slowly in bed. Aly actually had to convince KK to come down stairs to see what Santa brought!





Nevada is wondering where her Christmas present is? KK is still tired!




At last, Nevada gets her Christmas bone!



She didn't even know we exsisted until after she ate the entire bone!






The girls are opening up their presents from Santa. This year Mommy did a good job making sure to hide Santa's wrapping paper and bow. Last year I was a bad Santa and Aly questioned me as to what present Santa got her and why it didn't have paper that we don't have.





I can't believe I am actually posting this video. Hubby videoed me playing with my new Star Wars light saver. He also took video of it snowing outside. Yes, we were lucky enough to have a white Christmas!



Here the girls are enjoying some of the presents that were opened. Aly really liked the pink dog KK got her for Christmas. She drew a picture of him.




The girls are having too much fun in this video playing sword fight!

We sure had a nice, quiet Christmas and were thrilled that we got snow!

Christmas Eve Traditions

Our Christmas eve tends to be packed with many things to do. Lucky for me hubby took the girls to the pet store so I could full fill my Santa duties while the girls were away. This gave me time to organize and wrap everything I needed to. When the girls returned it was time to get to work! First we had to make cookies for Santa which the girls thoroughly enjoyed. Aly helped with every part including making the dough, rolling the dough out, and using the cookie cutters. Both Aly and KK loved the decorating part!



Here the girls are decorating the cookies with frosting. This was KK's first time ever decorating all by herself.



Check out their cookies!

The second thing we needed to do on Christmas Eve was to go up to the playroom and find some toys they no longer played with so they could fill up a box for Santa to take to all the boys and girls that didn't have very many toys. Aly felt very good about doing this and had no trouble filling a box up! I was so proud of her.



The box had been filled with all of the stuffed animals the girls no longer play with. Had we had more time I may have suggested a second box of toys but I figured this was a good start.

The last thing we needed to do was open one of the presents under the tree. This was a special present though as it was the same present every year on Christmas Eve--Christmas Jammies! I have a video of them opening up their jammies:




I hope every year the girls enjoy all three of these Christmas traditions!

This Year's Ginger Bread House

Last Wednesday I let the girls decorate a Ginger Bread House. I gave them full control and put bowls of candy around the house for them to decorate as they chose. I did frost the roof for them but only because this particular house was not built well and the roof kept caving in! The girls had fun anyway but I think they ate more candy than they used to decorate the house. In fact, they had such a big sugar high that I don't think I want to do it again next year. They got very hipper and then turned angry as they were crashing from their sugar high. So I think next year we will just make ginger bread cookies instead. Should keep the sugar high to a minimum I hope!



There they are eating the candy!



Check them out showing of their creation!

Need a good laugh???

After we brought out the Christmas decorations Aly and KK having been having a great time playing with the musical stuffed animals. A few years ago we bought a Christmas frog that croaks Jingle Bells. The girls thought it was fun to sit next to the frog and copy him.

KK's Christmas Performanc

We had quite a busy day on Thursday. In the morning we went to Aly's performance, then her class party and we didn't even end up getting home until around 3. Then we had KK's Christmas Performance the same day but at 6 p.m. at night. I did manage to take a few pictures. KK is hard to get to stay in the same place long enough to take a picture. I also took videos of each of the songs she sang. They sang 8 songs but think I will just include the majority of the instead of all of them. In the last two videos she is not into it at all anymore and just sitting there so I won't post those.

Here she is just a few minutes before singing. In the picture on the right she is just getting ready to sing. Notice what is in her hands? Yes, a cookie! They had cookies out right before the performance and of course she grabbed one. She managed to finish it just in time to start singing but ended up with a chocolate ring around her mouth.

After the performance Santa came for a visit. This was KK's 3rd visit with Santa this year, not as thrilling as the first time.

KK ends up being a little shy on Santa's lap. She asked him for a pink elephant and that crazy dinosaur that you sit on--was $250 when it first came out, now due to no one buying it you can get it for $89--no we are not getting it--sorry KK, not practical. Aly asked Santa for Littlest Pet Shops.

Take a look at the videos. They are all quite short between 15-30 seconds long.

The only song KK remains standing up for. All the rest she sits down.

Now that she is more comfortable...LOL

Marley thinks it is a good idea to join KK sitting down.

KK's starting to loose interest.

I think this is the song where Marley looses it!

This is the last video I am posting due to KK not even wanting to be here anymore.

Let's show KK some comment love! Let her know what you think!

Aly's Xmas performance

On Thursday Aly's kindergarten class along with the other two had a special Christmas performance. They had been practicing for it all month long! It was a really long show too at around 45 minutes long. Aly told me her teacher asked her if she wanted a speaking part in the play but she decided she didn't, she just wanted a quiet part with no talking.

We spent the morning getting Aly all beautiful! She chose to wear her favorite Christmas dress given to us by our friends Jackie and Kaitlyn. She then chose to have me put pig tails in her hair with special Christmas bows. Do you know what her final request was? She wanted glitter in her hair! Lucky I had a spray bottle from Halloween so of course I put glitter in her hair. I truly believe she felt like a princess. I took some pictures!

She was so proud of herself, she just loved posing in front of our tree!

The picture on the left is a picture of her class during the performance. If you look on the first row all the way to the end you can see Aly. Te second picture is Aly during her small group part. She is playing an instrument. Don't worry I have video of it!

This last picture is Aly in her classroom right after the Christmas performance. She took her hair out the second the performance was over! So now you can understand why you always see her with her hair down. She does not like it up! She likes the look of it but she says it is too itchy for her.

Aly playing an instrument during the song Up on a Housetop.

This video is of Aly's class reciting their poem.

Show Aly the love, give her some comments!

Mr. Snowman and Sledding

Here are some pictures of our first snowman of the year. Hubby and the kids made it. Perhaps next time I will teach the girls how to accessorize the snowman and make her into a snow woman!

Can you see our snowman in front of that tree! I know, it is hard so I made a close up! The girls used a carrot for the nose and buttons for the eyes!

The Snow is Here

Day two of the snow was amazing! The girls had a great time. They made snowballs to throw at Daddy, made a snowman, and even went sledding down a hill in our backyard. I think that was their favorite part--the sledding!

We managed to take some pictures. I will probably make two posts. One with pictures of the girls playing outside in the snow, and the second post will be pictures of our snowman and a video of the girls sledding.

Daddy took some pictures of our backyard. He couldn't resist taking a picture of his pond which he is so proud of and so happy to have! He said it is now two inches thick with ice!

Hurry, duck! KK is going to get you with a snowball! Nevada loves playing outside with the girl in the snow. The only problem is they want her to catch snowballs in her mouth like our other dog Sierra did. They sure miss Sierra.

Snow Angels are one of their favorite things to do in the snow. The funny thing is when we go to the beach they do it in the sand too!

We are getting more snow as I type this blog. I think this will end up being a heavy year for us with snow. Sure will make the girls happy! If you want to play in the snow come to our house for a visit!

Sunday our first snow

On Sunday we decided to travel home from San Jose so we could spend some time with Daddy before he had to go back to work the next day. We also wanted to drive home early enough to miss the big snow storm that was coming in. Luckily for us by the time we got home there was less than an inch on the ground. It did continue snowing that night but the girls weren't about to wait for a bunch of snow. They were happy with the dusting that we got. In fact they went out in the snow in the dark. Daddy put his flood light on so they could see. I managed to get a picture of the girls and I took a video.


Check out our video of the girls in the snow.

Our visit to the Jungle

On Saturday we picked up Sticker Grandma and Barbara so we could take the girls to the Jungle in San Jose. Along the way we also picked up Barbara's grand kids Johnny and Sammy to join us. This would be our first time at the new Jungle but Johnny and Sammy were old pros. They actually lived within a mile of the place so they go rather frequently.

Once we arrived there were many different payment options. For the Saturday rate you could pay $8.95 for admission only or $14.95 for admission plus one or more of their bonus activities. You could choose to pay for tokens and bumper car rides or a build a bear animal. I decided to splurge and let the girls do the build a bear animal, after all it was only $6 more and the boys were getting the activity pack with the tokens and bumper cars.

In the beginning it was quite easy to confine them to the climbing structures and the ball pit. The girls loved this area. However, Sticker Grandma and the boys were looking forward to some games so they headed over to the arcade portion. Aly did join Sticker Grandma for a bit to try and win tickets to get prizes. I will say though the tickets barely get you anything worth more than 5 cents! What a rip!

Aly chose a ladybug and KK chose a lion. Both were very happy with their choices and were ready to go shortly after getting their animals. Johnny and Sammy had a good time as well.