Thanksgiving with the Welckers

We celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends the Welckers. We are so excited to have them living so close to us. They cooked a fabulous dinner and we had lots of fun hanging out with them. The kids looked so cute in their Turkey shirts.

The Welckers
The Smurthwaites
Andrew...isn't he a cutie?!?!

Feeling Festive

The Christmas music is playing, the holiday books are being read and the decorations are up.We love Christmas and we had lots of fun decorating. I am coming to terms with the fact that for many years to come I will not be in charge of the decorating in our home...the kids will be.

We decided not to get a big tree this year since we will be traveling this holiday season and it's one less expense. Ben's family always hangs some of their ornaments from their ceiling so we decided to carry on that tradition. I Love it...I can't even describe how happy it makes me when I walk into the living room.

Check out the lights in this picture...crazy! The girls have LOVED playing with all of the nativities.

We went to Wal-mart to get a baby Jesus ornament for the center of our ceiling and I was shocked(and a little upset) that they didn't have one ornament that had anything to do with Jesus in fact they didn't have anything with Jesus on it. What has happened to our world? Ben and I went home and read the Christmas story to our girls and we had a long talk about why we celebrate Christmas. We will be talking about the true meaning of Christmas or reading books about it everyday this Christmas season so our family doesn't forget the true reason for the season.

Just so you know...We think Santa is great he is joyful and kind however I think Jesus is the ultimate example of kindness and Joy and I wish the world would remember that he is the best part of Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

You can never have enough...

Dress-up clothes!

Ok so from my last post you may be thinking I am crazy for adding one more thing to the dress up box but I got this fabric for super super cheap and I had to make something pretty...so the girls got a new dress-up skirt. I didn't have any elastic so I used a green ribbon belt from one of their old pairs of pants. Allison informed me the green didn't match but I kind of like it! I like that you can just tie it as tight as each child needs...of course that means I have to be helping them get dressed....I think I will eventually put elastic in it and just sew a bow on.

Two Minutes...

that is how long it takes for a clean room to become messy once the dress up box is open. :) After the girls had tried everything on at least twice they did a great job putting it all back in the box.

Absolutely Adorable

I got this outfit from my friend Cortney when her daughter grew out of it and I think it is so stinkin' cute. Emma wears the boots everywhere and today she was sporting the whole ensemble. Thanks again Corntey.

I love how she is peeking at herself in the mirror. The girls love having closet doors with mirrors...I highly dislike them because I have to clean them ALL the time and they still seem to have fingerprints on them.

Thanksgiving Shirts

I got together with a couple of ladies and we made cute shirts for our kids to wear for Thanksgiving. I wish I had pictures of the shirts the other ladies made they were all so cute.

I was thinking of freezer papering/painting the word Gobble on each of the shirts but I can't decide.

Cheerleader in Training

Allison went to cheer camp last Saturday and yesterday was the football game she got to cheer at. I think she had lots of fun with her friend Haylee and with the cheerleaders. When we left she ask if we could do that everyday...I told her she could be my cheerleader at home :)

Some of the pictures turned out a little grainy but you get the idea. Allison LOVED the pom-poms I may have to find some of those for her.

Here are Alli & Haylee with their favorite cheerleader Tammy. Allison wouldn't stop hugging her which was cute at first but after a little while I had to explain people need space but that didn't seem to work since Tammy liked Alli's hugs. Tammy is one of the high school students that teach at Allison's preschool so she already knew her before the cheer clinic.

This video cracks me up Allison is off a few steps but she is so stinkin' cute!

The Cheerleader Skirt

Allison went to a cheer clinic at the high school last Saturday. They taught the girls the basics of cheer leading and this Friday Alli will get to cheer with the high school girls at a football game. They told her she needs to wear navy blue shorts...there are a few problems with that request

1.We don't have any

2. I couldn't find them anywhere.

3. Allison really wants to wear a skirt like the big girl cheerleaders.

So to solve all of the above problems I made her a navy blue cheer skirt. I am pretty sure they won't care if it is a skirt or shorts. I am trying to decided if I want to re-make this skirt so it's a tad longer. I wasn't using a pattern so it turned out a little shorter than I had planned.

Cute Hair

My friend Jenn braided Allison's hair yesterday it was so cute...I don't know how to french braid but I need to learn, Alli love it! She wouldn't let me take it out this morning before preschool luckily it still looked pretty good after being slept on. I forgot to take a picture of her cute braids but this is what Allison's hair looked like when she finally let me take the braids out tonight. After looking in the mirror she said "call me curly shirley please" funny girl!