Willa's Holiday Program

Willa had her holiday program at school. She has been practicing the songs for weeks. I can't tell you how many times I have heard "Feliz Navidad" lately!

Ready to go:

At the show...of course, she did great!

She belted out all the songs, and was excited to sing with all her friends.

Yay Willa!

Winter Letterboxing

We went Letterboxing again last weekend. We have had unseasonably warm temps this winter, and rain had melted away all the snow. A light new blanket had fallen on Friday night, and it made everything so pretty.

Peanut joined us on the adventure! The first park had a lot of deer and coyote, and her nose was working full-time!

Our first letterbox was hidden in the woods under the remains of an old tree fort!

As for our second and third letterboxes, well, we never found them. The clues for our second letterbox were confusing, although the park was pretty.

The third letterbox was under a bridge near our house, but the area was under construction so we got hot cocoa instead! It was a good end to the journey.

Thanks for the comments about Jia, too. Her surgery went well!

Gingerbread Houses

We had our annual Gingerbread House get together with our family friends, the Thompsons. The kids spent about two hours decorating their houses this year. (An amazing amount of candy was consumed during that time as well!) It was great fun as usual.



In a side note (and in stark contrast to the story above), our school district has been encouraging kids to support the famine relief efforts in Somalia. Jia came home from school and told us all about it. We gave her some money for donation. I also told her that my friend Khatra, who she knows, and who is a Somali refugee, is currently in Kenya, providing care to Somali famine victims. We have a large Somali community here and Jia has classmates who are from Somalia. I think this helped it hit home more for her. She donated the money the following day, and after she returned home, decided to donate her entire piggy bank, too. The day after that, I heard her tell Willa all about Somalia, and she convinced Willa to donate her piggy bank! They then ran around the house chanting, "Let's help Somalia! Let's help Somalia!" I love their big hearts.

Please keep Jia in your thoughts on Wednesday morning as she is having surgery on her ears (tubes) to help with her hearing. Thank you!

A hot and cold weekend

We traveled to Duluth for a weekend of opposites with our friends Susie, Jim and Katie. We stayed at our favorite kid-friendly hotel with a steamy warm waterpark, and then strolled through a spectacular light display on the shores of frosty cold Lake Superior. One thing had no opposite...we had great fun the whole time!

Now for loads of pictures!

On our balcony where we watched mammoth ships glide by:

At the waterpark:

Can you tell she just ate a blue sucker?



We rode an old train from the hotel to the light display - a double decker - and we were on top!

Someone was quite excited about it.

The light display is called Bentleyville. It was humongous, and beautiful. Plus, it was free and included hot cocoa, cookies, marshmallow roasting and more!





There were many characters to hug.

Rudolph and Mr. Penguin were top on the list.


The next morning we clambered around the rocks at Canal Park.

Willa found the perfect "mermaid" rock:



The kids are already asking when we can all return!

Baby love and more

The girls met their cousin Mac for the first time this past Wednesday. They were so excited to hold him!



Willa plays babies all the time and she finally got to hold a real one!

We also went to see Disney on Ice. The girls dressed for the occasion.

Willa changed at the last minute from Wedding Ariel to Mermaid Ariel.

We had great seats.



And big smiles.

We love snow!

Most of the time. We had such fun pulling the girls around the neighborhood last night while it was snowing. I love how the entire community is outside.

We had a great time today playing with neighbors:

On our walks:

Sliding down icy driveways:


And eating breakfast outside!

We also had a terrific time yesterday. We put up our tree. Our first real one. I love the smell! Cousin Han (dressed as a reindeer), his Grandpa Mike and my mom (happy birthday!) all joined us for decorating.

Lining up to put on the high ones!

Love the sparkle!

I was very excited to have found this advent calendar for the girls.

We had one like it when I was a kid. We lost it in a large house fire, and I recently found this one online. I had such fond memories of it, and I hope my girls grow to have them too!

Tonight, we did our annual tour of the holiday lights at Lake Phalen. We had a new family member along this time!




Fun as usual!