Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas Eve festivities

We've had so much fun over the last week leading up to Christmas! Both of the grandmothers are here visiting and the girls are just in heaven! Lots of spoiling going on in this house.....and we wouldn't have it any other way!! One of the things this year that we've been able to do is play games with Natalie. She is showing her Cadden roots and has become a real card SHARK! She can't get enought of Go Fish and somehow she manages to win EVERY game!!
We've also enjoyed our time off work (Friday - Monday) and have had fun hanging out with girls too. Plus we got to celebrate a milestone birthday with Grandma Zook (70 years young!!).
Another thing we enjoyed doing was making christmas cookies for Santa Claus. Rachel helped me eat the icing and Natalie helped me decorate them. They did such a good job. And the grandmothers helped us eat them!! DELICIOUS......
This was the first year that Natalie has really gotten into the whole Christmas/Santa thing. We also had our first visit from Buddy (that's the name of Natalie's elf) and he's been hiding in such silly places. I am going to miss that little guy....we just mention his name and Natalie stops whining so that she will get a good report that day.
And one of my favorite sayings from Natalie this Christmas was when she came home from school on Thursday and saw that the tree had gone from nothing underneath it to an abundance of presents. She told me "Mommy, thank you for making all of my dreams come true!". How cute it that?

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Natalie's Dance Revolution!!!!

About 6 weeks ago, we enrolled Natalie in dance lessons through her new day-care. My big-girl just LOVES IT!!! We got her all tutu'ed-up and turned her loose.




Her first recital was last Wednesday! (please note - my daughter is not a wee pixie - most of the "giant" girls in her class are about 8 months older that Nat.)



Practice makes perfect:

Natalie's intro:

the Frosty dance!:

OHIO Quest! Mission: Laura's Wedding

So, with Erica and the kids in Mississippi with her family for Thanksgiving - Matt headed back to the Buckeye state to hang out with his old gang and watch his freind, Laura Keiper, get hitched!

But first - Matt had to stop by Tom's and check out the new addition to the Ewing household: little Allesandra!





Then, it was off to catch up with the old Northside gang for the wedding! First stop was the rehearsal dinner:



Then, the big wedding! (which I'm glad included professional photographers - because all my pics came out SOOOOO bad...) Congrats Laura and Jason!

Next up, Cartwright finally joined the mix and we all cut a mean rug at the "rockin' '80's" reception:




There's a silly rumor circulating that we may have helped get Laura's car "ready" for her departure.....but c'mon....would WE do something that childish.....please!




Finally, the boys got a chance to hang out and catch up on old times while breaking all the church's "no loitering" restrictions:


Random Vid-yas

If you want a new truck, Rachel can help!

Natalie is an expert on green anaconda snakes! According to her, they spaz alot and hop around like rabbits. Cool....I did not know that..... :)




And we call this one: "Wow! ...and that's cool"

Erica's Thanksgiving wrap up...now with more GOATS!

Let's wrap up Erica's Thanksgiving pics with a trip to see Uncle Rogers' lil'goats...

Somebody's......

...got a new buddy :)

Time to go with cousin Matthew and Uncle Roger to see the goats:







From cute to complete meltdown, the tale of Moses, Natalie, and Rachel

No captions needed to tell the story.....