Makeover Time

Emma and Analise love to put on makeup and style hair. Tonight they had the opportunity, just once, to put makeup on, dress and style mom's hair. Mom was unsure about the hair style that was pulled fully back because it made her look bald. She was also unsure about the mascara but according to the girls you can barely see it.

The girls picked out jeans and a pink shirt for mom to wear. Somehow we all ended up wearing the same color of shirt. The girls had fun and mom was very glad when she could take all of the stuff off. She was also thankful that she is not at the stage of life where she is trying to impress others with how she appears. Whew!

Painting the Icicles "Red" and Rainbow

Analise loves icicles and regularly goes around collecting them from all sides of our house. When she was bummed that her friend Tessa was sick and could not come over Erin and Emma decided to get her in a happy spirit by designing icicles.

"We are painting the icicles red, painting, painting, painting...painting the icicles red." Well, it was not exactly like Wonderland rose bushes, we actually painted them many colors using food coloring and a bit of water.

We also spray painted the snow with our food coloring filled spray bottles with a "Love you" message for Dan (who is working hard designing a program for Erin to use with her students to help with vocabulary development).

More Snow Means More Skiing

We went out at the warmest part of the day yesterday for some more cc skiing. The sun was shining causing the snow to look like sparkling diamonds. Everyone was pushing forward until we met the giant snow mountain at the road crossing. Everyone eventually scaled it but many had to slide back down multiple times before they were able to continue on. We plan to ski again in the next few days now that we have received a few more inches of snow.

Glide Time with Friends

Emma got together with her friends, Nevaeh, Tabi and Lily at the TCO open skate in Vadnais Heights. The girls had a great time meeting up and chatting about their Christmas break thus far. The snow is coming tomorrow so hopefully there will be some good new fluff for us to ski and play in soon.

Everyone got their chance to help Tabi learn how to skate and hold her up when she was unstable. They are a great team!

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpas

We spent the afternoon hanging out with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Mark. We shared memories of Christmases past, played some games, opened presents and had a meal together. The girls enjoyed their bouncy balls that they got from Aunt Joan and Uncle Don as well as their gift cards from Grandma Kathy's cousin, Jeanne.

Finally It is Christmas

This year school lasted until the day before Christmas Eve. It was harder to get in the spirit of the event when working all the way through so we decided to visit the house of a man who recreated the holiday tradition from the Dayton's display.

The line was long and stretched down the block as people waited to see the holiday creation. We were impressed that so many people were lovers of the holiday show. It was fun to talk to people in line about their memories of visiting Dayton's each year and which stories they remembered most. The woman in front of us said she loved Frog and Toad.

When the girls were little, we took them every year to see Santa's workshop with all the elves and magical animals getting ready for Christmas. Emma remembered the singing trees. It is hard to believe that they closed down the event almost ten years ago.

Erin still remembers going to it as a girl each year they told a different story. When she was in first grade she had a dream of a career designing the sets for all the characters. It was Dayton's display or Disney World animation that had her attention. Unfortunately teaching was the more feasible route to take in the end.

Luckily, the man who designed his house to incorporate the Dayton's display windows collected some of the singing trees so Emma got to see them once again.

Christmas Choir Concert

Emma and Analise had their choir concert this week. It was fun to see everyone come walking in with candles.

Analise's group sang, Sing of a Merry Christmas and Midwinter Snow. Emma's group sang Riu Riu Chiu and Humble. It was also enjoyable to sing along to popular Christmas Carols as the groups rotated on stage.