Season's Greetings!

Brooke and Carson's Clogging Recital

On December 15th, Carson and Brooke had a dance recital. Both of them are taking clogging. Carson is also dancing hip hop too. They both did excellent. I already knew Brooke was a good dancer but I was equally impressed with Carson. He has moves and timing (definitely not traits that came by me, we can thank Julie for those). We didn't get very good dance pictures, however we did video it and they turned out good. I need to learn how to upload video to this blog.

I asked myself the same thing, "what in the world is on his head?" Well, Carson did a cute polar bear dance.

Here are a couple of pics of Carson showing off a move called the "Cheerio."

Brooke Wins Again

Brooke entered a Christmas Card contest at her school. She was really reluctant to enter because she procrastinated till the last night. So, Brooke designed her Christmas Card and entered it. Well it turned out that she was one of 10 third graders in the whole district choosen as a winner. There were 3 girls choosen from Monroe Elementary. The other two girls are Brooke's really good friends. She ended up winning a $50 savings bond. It is Brooke's third drawing contest that she has won.

Gingerbread House Building

Our friends the Christensens invited us over for a gingerbread house decorating family night. Being the engineer, I took control of putting the house together.

It was now ready for the kids to decorate.

And they were off.

Chloe had the method of decorating down. One on the house, two in the mouth.

Nearing completion. Everyone stopped for a pose.

The end result.

Happy 2nd Birthday Chole

On December 7th, Chloe celebrated her 2nd Birthday. I can't believe my youngest is now 2! Julie made her an awesome present cake as seen below. It was as good to eat as to look at.

Chloe LOVED blowing out candles. Julie had to light each candle at least 5 times because Chloe kept blowing them out. She has quite the huff.

She has opening presents down. Rip and throw, rip and throw! She will be ready for Christmas.

Here Chloe is showing us some of her new gifts from her birthday.

Like I said, the cake rocked.

Santa in Monroe

Every year Monroe City invites Santa and Mrs. Claus to come visit the kids in the park. It is a pretty fun time for the kids. The junior high student band always plays (which I feel really bad for because it usually is really cold). This year I took the four oldest kids up to the park, Chloe wasn't feeling very good that night. Below is the older four waiting in line.

I can't really believe Cannon didn't bite Mr. and Mrs. Claus, he seems to bite everyone else. I guess he wants something for Christmas.

Carson always acts so shy.

Now Brin is never shy. I think she asked for a fairy tale life.

Brookie giving me her cheesiest smile. What a cutie.

After the kids sit with Santa, Monroe City always has donuts and hot chocolate for everyone. As you can see below, no table is safe with my kids.It was good cocoa, ask Brooke.