Just a Bunch of Snow Bunnies

Since we didn't go to Flagstaff over Christmas, we knew we wanted to go up sometime this winter so the girls could play in the snow.  I saw that Flagstaff was expecting snow over Martin Luther King weekend, so I booked us a hotel room just in case. We decided to go up, and ended up pulling Liv from school a little early to try and beat some of the bad weather.

We made it up safely and got to see some snow falling on our drive up.  We let the girls play in the hotel parking lot snow,  unpacked,  and then went to grab food at a local brewery.  

We got up the next morning and got everyone bundled up to go sledding.  The girls had a blast in the snow - sledding, building snow piles, and snacking on chips and hot chocolate!  I'm amazed at how brave Sydney was!

After a few hours of sledding, we picked up our favorite food from MamaBurger and went back to lay lowwww at the hotel!  After a few episodes of Fixer Upper on HGTV, we took the girls down to the hotel pool to swim.    The next morning, we spent a couple hours walking around downtown Flagstaff before heading home.  It was so nice having the next day off to just relax and recover.  

She wanted her picture taken with her new friend! ha!

Thanks for a great weekend, Flagstaff!

Well, She Was An American Girl...

One of the presents the girls gave their grandma was a date to the American Girl store and Cafe while she and Peter were out visiting.  We chose to go the Saturday after the New Year, and fortunately, I had the great idea to call ahead and make a reservation.  Little did I know, the "Girl of the Year" was going to be introduced that weekend and the store was going to be full of little American girls excited to meet Lea, the Girl of the Year.

The girls got ready, and got their dolls ready too, and we headed up for our lunch and shopping date with Grandma.

Sadly, about halfway up to Scottsdale, Sydney started crying really hard complaining that her ear hurt.  I was hopeful that maybe her ear had just popped in the slight change in altitude, but she continued to complain about it once we got into the store.  I left Olivia and Irma at the store and took Sydney to the closest gas station to get her some children's Tylenol.  Bless her heart, a few minutes after taking the medicine, she wanted to lay down in the car.  

She took about an hour nap, and we had to miss the lunch, but it gave Irma and Olivia a chance to have a nice date together.  Sydney perked up after her nap and we were able to make it right at the end of their lunch.  Thankfully, she felt well enough for us to do some shopping!  :) 

Sydney got a mini Kit doll and Olivia got an outfit for her Julie doll.  Grandma got them each a Valentine's dress, and Uncle Rhino phoned in a purchase for the girls to get Lea's smoothie stand!  The girls were so excited!

It was a great day and we are SO excited go back!

Christmas Eve

Every year, we say we are scaling back on Christmas gifts, and it never really happens.  I think we scaled it back a little bit this year, or maybe we just spread it out a little bit better.  :)  We were blessed to have Peter and Irma here with us this Christmas, so it was nice for them to be here to see the girls open up their presents in person and watch their excitement on Christmas morning.  It was great to be able to be in and sort of settled in our new house before Christmas Day too!

We ordered delicious tamales and Irma made some authentic rice for our Christmas Eve meal at my parents' house.  Afterwards, we opened some presents there and then came home and stuffed 10 stockings (not including the ones my parents had already stuffed and sent home with us) before getting a few hours of sleep.

Santa was great to the girls and got them an American Girl camper filled with all sorts of fun camping gear!  He also got them a few extra sets of clothes and accessories for their dolls.  Olivia got a real American Girl doll from us, which works out great since one of her gifts to her Grandma was lunch at the American Girl cafe!  I busted Santa at our house filling up some of the stockings.  He was just as jolly as you would suspect!  ;)

On Christmas morning, my parents came over so we could all open stockings together.  David has to earn some sort of prize for keeping the girls upstairs while we waited for them to get here.  We finished opening presents and then the girls spent the remainder of the day playing with the doll stuff, putting together Lego sets,  and singing on their karaoke machine!  

It was a fabulous Christmas!