Walkin in a Winter Winderland

I am in love with my Winter shelves, and am so proud of how it came together. I can't stop staring at them. seriously. I have a problem. ahhahha.  I hate Winter, but maybe these shelves will help me get through it. 

The angel I got on sale at Tai Pan (I love this store!!!)

I got these red/white mitten ornaments at the $ store, and spray painted them chrome. 

all of these accessories I got on sale at Michael's, either before or after Christmas

My first homemade printable! I am so proud

Q chose this sleigh (also 50% at Tai Pan), and I thought it fit perfectly for my Winter shelves

And of course my simple Winter wreath (via Pinterest inspiration)

Winter is definitely here...

Make sure you read up on Winter Happenings, Christmas, and Q's preschool program below....Yeah for catching up on blog posts!!

This is how we do..

What have we been up to...Other Winter Happenings....

We got to hang with the Wise crew and celebrate Harper's Birthday. It was a cute Mary Poppins themed party with cute party favors and treats. 

We got together with the Woodruffs and made graham cracker houses. Always such a blast. Man I love these people. 

 We went to Elsie's recital! She did such a great job, we were so proud. Q sat on my lap and tried to copy every move done on the stage. She wanted a costume like Elsie so bad.

Q loves Christmas lights so we drove around one night and found as many cool ones as we could. This house by Ashley's house in Orem/Lindon was our favorite!

This other huge house in Provo, had their whole yard lit up with tons of colors all over the trees. it was pretty spectacular. 

Qiana has gotten plenty of snow time so far, playing with Elsie. She loves it.  The other day Aaron made this snow cave on the bottom of the sled hill for the girls. So awesome right?

and of course Q's been sick, yucky winter cold weather, but she is getting better..thank goodness for good sleep!

Simply, having, a wonderful Christmas time

Christmas was fantastic! Christmas eve we joined the Wise crew over at Gary and Sylvia's for delicious food, talking, laughing, presents and some games! It was super fun. Q had a blast running around with Elsie, Cannon, and Harper and even found new "boyfriend" in Braeden....seriously she loved him. At one point she walked up to him and said ( i kid you not) "I'm falling in love with you" hahahha. It was cute, and slightly worrisome.
After awhile, we played a little Christmas charades, and a minute-to-win-it game of marshmallow toss through the wreath.
Afterwards we headed over to Kim and Aaron's to get some sleep, and hopefully catch a peek at Santa the next morning.

Q was loving her some Braeden

Christmas Day:
It was early morning when we heard Santa's sleigh outside, I woke up Q and she bounced right out of bed with a very "let's do this" attitude. she was pumped. We quietly hid behind the couches, as Santa came inside, talked, laughed, left presents, and ate some cookies! At point Q pumped her chin on the couch and I thought she would lose it crying, but she held it in, while tears came to her eyes, and kept our hiding a secret. I was able to snap this one picture from behind the couch. Amazing right???

Q loved all of her Christmas presents, and spent the whole day playing with Elsie and their new toys.

Quick story about the zebra: At Disneyland, Aaron had taken Q and elsie into one of those stores next to the jungle cruise and Q became attached to this stuffed zebra, I came in to get her cause it was time to move on, and she wasn't having it (she needed a nap as well), and she ran away- with the zebra clutched in her arms-straight out of the store. I couldn't believe it. I put back the zebra, Q sobbed, and I told her if she was good maybe she would get one for christmas.  She loves her zebra.
Q wanted some baby stuff for christmas. She loves her baby dolls, and loves playing mommy, and I found this cute graco set on sale. I know people love those more expensive dolls, and they are super cute...but I can't see myself ever buying one when my daughter will put some fake diapers on her stuffed zebra and play baby ALL day with it.  She's easily entertained!

After a delicious brunch of stuffed french toast, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, and juice...freakin delicious!!....We headed outside for some snow time. Aaron had made this huge snow mound and track that was perfect for sledding. The girls were in heaven. I am not a snow fan, and especially don't like sledding, but I watched with delight as the girls laughed and smiled in the beautifully fallen snow.

It was a great christmas!!!

This one's for the children..

Q had her annual Christmas program at school, and it was just so cute. Q is not shy...like at all, and although she can get distracted a little during performances, she does pretty well, and you can tell she is really enjoying herself. This year she added karate to her schooling, and she really loves it. 

And as always the school gave all the parents a great photo!

And this is what I did for Teacher gifts! Thanks PInterest. 

Dreams come true

I don't even know where to begin blogging about our Disneyland trip, which pretty much explains why I'm so late getting it posted. The trip itself came together very quickly. We found a sweet deal on tickets at Costco, a little rebate deal on a hotel...and that was all Kim and I needed to plan a kind of last minute trip to Disneyland for the holidays. I think the hardest part was keeping it a secret from the girls.  So on Sunday Dec. 2, I woke Q up, got her ready, and put her in the car for a surprise trip. I put on a movie as her "clue". It was Cinderella...and she freaked out..DISNEYLAND HERE WE COME!

*Sidenote: I knew my car had maybe a year left until it would either need a massive fix or I would have to get rid of it. I knew that I hated driving in winter conditions, and that my car was no longer healthy enough for that...I had NO IDEA...that with 45 minutes of the roadtrip my car would start to decline at a rapid rate, and finally come to it's death 3 hours into what was to be a glorious trip. The transmission was toast, and with about $3000 could be fixed...my car is only worth that fully functioning. So while I was thoroughly enjoying my time at Disneyland half of my brain was trying to figure out a solution. On breaks from the park I was making phonecalls, emailing, and researching options on my phone. I know that I would have had a couple more options when it came to the outcome of said death if the car was closer to home, but since it met it's end far from home, I felt I only had one option. I left the car at the repair place, got a check for a few bucks, and prepared myself for a new car purchase. Kim and Aaron were fantastic through all of this. I'm sure they didn't want to have to cart me and Q around in their car to California and back, but they were good sports!

OKay now onto the good stuff....

Disneyland during the holidays is even more magical than usual!!  There was christmas music constantly playing, the park was decorated head to toe in festive decorations, and even some of characters had on their holiday best. The parade was knew, the fireworks show was new, the haunted mansion had a "nightmare before christmas" theme (one of Q's favorite movies), and they had snow falling over Main Street after the fireworks show! MAGICal.

Q was so excited to see Jack and Sally...she loves that Movie. 

Q and Elsie were at such great ages for our trip this time! Although they still enjoyed seeing and greeting the characters,

aaron got a little tired of waiting for characters...

they loved the rides even more, and were thrilled that they were big enough to ride some of the "big kid" rides with us. In fact, Space Mountain was the only ride we had to rider swap on. Even though the girls met the height requirement, we thought it would be pushing it to see if they liked it. We didnt want a bad experience to ruin the rest of their time there.  I had measured Q multiple times at home with multiple pairs of shoes to make sure she reached the 40" requirement of the big kid rides, so imagine my shock and Q's utter dismay when we were turned away at Thunder Mountain for Q being too short...and by too short I mean 1/2 cm too short. Q sobbed as we watch Elsie, Kim, and Aaron get on the wildest ride in the wilderness. But I wouldn't be defeated. After much brainstorming with Kim, and some friends on facebook, we folded a couple pairs of her socks into her shoes, and then tied them on...and behold she was tall enough! She loved Thunder Mountain (or the Rango ride as she liked to call it cause it was the old west), and Soarin over California!! It was so much fun!!!

The first character we met was Merida, and Q decided she needed to show Merida had to dance...she got a few laughs and thus a trend was born.

Q took it upon herself to try and get every character she met to "booty shake" with her. I was actually surprised how many characters did it, and loved it. I'm sure other people waiting in line were not as thrilled as us,with the time the characters were taking with Q, but she was in heaven...and therefore, so was I.

Here are two of my favorite videos...Mickey actually went over to Donald and had him join the Booty Shake party. 

                                        

We were excited to check out the new Cars Land, and it did not disappoint. It looked exactly like the street from the movie. a perfect replica of Radiator Springs. We hit up a couple of the new rides, but werent able to try out the Radiator Racers. The fast pass line was like two hours long at the beginning of the day, causing all the fast passes for the whole day to be sold out with the first couple of hours in the morning, and the stand by line was never shorter than 85 minutes. Um, yeah with two littler kids...that wasn't happening. We will just have to plan another trip down, after the "newness" has worn off, and hit it up then.

As always the parades, picture spots, treats, entertainment, fireworks, etc were a welcome break from the hustle and bustle and were thoroughly enjoyed by all of us!

Tarzan Tree House

Amazing Lego Display 

Q was enjoying participating in the Phineas and Ferb parade....Elsie was not. 

Pineapple Dole Whip...I crave this daily. 

We love Disneyland, and this trip was one for the books!


plus I got a new mini-van out of it....