Kadee & Ari
Angelo & Cole
Ari, Angelo, Kadee & Cole
Ari, Angelo, Kadee & Cole
Angelo & Kadee
A sampling of Mom's cookies that I took to Albuquerque with us!
Divinity, Fudge, Carmels and Chocolate Carmels
Peanut Butter Blossoms, Rumballs, and Pumpkin Cookies
Drop Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Apple filled Cookies
More Rumballs, Spritz and Rosettes
My mom made the kids quilts this year. Kadee got Tinkerbell and Cole got Cars. Cole loves blankets. He has a tattered blue one that he sleeps with every night and loves the heck out of. I was lucky to get a good shot of him snuggling with his new quilt. She made one for each of the little kids and in addition to the ones my kiddos got they included Winnie the Pooh, Jungle Animals, Soccer and all turned out great. Nice work mom!
Dad got a new truck this year so me and my sister pitched in and got him a GPS. Vegas is a bit bigger than Albuquerque so he is always calling me and my sister for mapquest printouts and directions so hopefully this will help him out a bit.
My mom has really picked up her sewing, so we went ahead and got her a really nice sewing table that folds out to a monstrous workspace so she can sprawl her projects all over the place.
So this week has been relatively cold and on Monday the foothills surrounding Vegas got snow. It has been beautiful to see the mountains surrounding us with a dusting of snow covering them. So at work on Monday, I started joking around with everyone saying that maybe we would get a snow day, since there were flurries and all. Everyone laughed hysterically at me. I told them, you wait until these roads are snow packed and we can't drive home. The laughs got louder and louder. Well this morning it looked a little threatening but this is Vegas and the chances of snow in two days just isn't in the cards. Well low and behold at lunch we started seeing a flake here and a flake there. I immediately warned my coworkers to just wait and see because the roads would be snow packed and we wouldn't be able to get home. Again I was laughed at...hysterically. 
Well around 2:00 pm we started seeing these snowflakes again. The calls started to our family and friends to see what the weather was like near their part of town. When I called my mom she informed me there was at least two inches on the ground by them. Then another co-worker who happened to be off e-mailed a photo of himself at his house and there was quite a bit of snow on the ground! At 3:00 pm we left the office. It took us two hours to get home. Us Vegas drivers just aren't used to this white stuff! When we got to our house, it was stunning and had a beautiful white blanket covering it. We immediately bundled the kids up and headed to the front yard to build a snowman. 
Our neighborhood was very spirited and almost all of the houses had a friendly snowman in their front yards! As of right now it is still snowing, schools are canceled tomorrow and who knows maybe mommy and daddy will have a "Snow Day" because after all, the roads look like they will be snow packed :
Kadence's Cheer Squad
Waiting patiently for their trophies!
This Saturday, her gym put on a winter extravaganza that Kadee participated in. It is amazing to see how much she has progressed in the last year! Her cartwheels are getting better and better every week and she is really excelling on the beam. That little girl just glides across that thing like it is nothing! 
I am pretty sure her favorite thing to do at the gym however is hanging from the bar over the foam pit and then letting go and falling into piles upon piles of foam squares. To be honest, I think that would be my favorite thing to do also!
Okay so the rumor has it that something is in the water at our office, specifically in my group because both me and Clarice are prego! That's okay, it just gives us a better excuse to eat more chocolate chip "Nothing Bundt Cake"...YUMMY!
Everyone else was very spirited about the gift exchange. Some were happy with their option of picking a gift from under the tree while others had their eyes on somebody else's gift and waited their turn to move in for the kill. Dallas made it clear that her gift would be going nowhere but home with her. It was really cute and although several teased she got to take it home with her, not to mention that she pretty much threatened anyone who attempted to take it from her! 
I don't think Joe even cared much about the present he received, he was just happy to get a new hair accessory. He must have known that a big present was waiting for him in Marty's garage. See Joe had a little run in with a pole in our parking garage, so Marty, being the good-hearted supervisor that he is, brought in a bike from the garage for Joe to use until his car was back from the shop. Don't feel bad Joe, when I was pregnant with Kadence, I reversed into a pole on two different occasions and reversed into a parked car. Hey, like they say, $h!t happens!
The night ended on a good note, and several left with new found hair accessories! I think we all had a great time and look forward to it again next year.
I started a tradition back when Kadee was born that every year, the night we decorate our Christmas tree we would sleep out in the living room with all of the Christmas lights on. So this year we ordered Pizza, set up the tree and blew up the air mattress as a bed for the 
kids. Me and Daddy sleep on the couch next to them. We watched "Polar Express" and Kadee and me were the first to fall asleep. Cole stayed up to keep Daddy company! Soon everyone was fast asleep and another tradition was over.
He recently was at my sister's house while me and Charlie went to some friend's for dinner. My sister has an old wooden train set that her son used to play with that Cole absolutely loves. When we came to pick him up that night he surprised us with a new saying, "All Aboard!" He's not talking a whole lot yet but this was clear as day, what was even better was the head movements he makes when he says it. So as we perused through all of the ornaments looking for some type of choo-choo train Charlie found this one from the Polar Express, titled, you guessed it, "All Aboard".
One down, one to go. Kadee's ornament is always a little tougher to find. We looked and looked, and there were some cute ones but none stood out more than the Pink Barbie Princess. We decided on this one for several reasons. This year Kadence has really started to play with Barbies. She has a huge container full and loves taking at least two everywhere we go. She also got to pick out her Halloween costume for the first time and as you all may have seen, she picked out a pink glamour Barbie costume. I always thought I would have a little tomboy, but boy was I mistaken, she is a little girly girl and loves all that is pink and pretty! That's why we decided this ornament was perfect for her this year. 
