Christmas 2010

Christmas arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Miles City. It looked like a paper war as we went along, with wrapping paper strewn far and wide across the living room!


Apparently all the excitement made Rori and Grandpa tired!

Pre-Christmas

December contained a number of great adventures in our house!

We went on our annual Christmas tree hunt outside of York. Even Bryce braved it. Rori got cold feet due to snow getting in her boots. Rylie didn't ride in the sled at all and was quite the little snow hiker.


Rylie's school does a Christmas program. Last year as a kindergartner, all the speaking roles went to older first graders. Her school only has K-1, so when you are a first grader, you are at the top of the food chain. This year, we were surprised when Rylie came home and said she was going to have speaking parts as a ladybug in the the 2010 Eastgate production of A Bugz Christmas. Always glad to see when popular culture spelling put into our schools!
Check out her costume:


Rylie also just finished her first basketball season. She played on a girls' 1st and 2nd grade team. It was quite fun to watch at times. I mean, it's easy to play defense if the girl you are suppose to be guarding is guarding you instead. Very funny at times. Ry even made a basket in one game and improved on playing defense and getting open. Sometimes it looked a little like a rugby scrum, but very cute overall.

We had a great time this holiday season. We went to Miles City for Christmas and arrived on December 23rd. The girls were very excited to get to Grandma's house.
The electricity went out that night for a couple hours, which led to pajama flashlight dancing. Grandpa gathered all the flashlights and lanterns throughout the house.

All kiddos received new monkey pajamas which they loved. Rori put hers on and they were little long with floppy feet. She said, "I look like a duck". She proceede to convert this phrase into a song to which she flashlight danced in the power outage.


On Christmas Eve day, all the preparations were made for the welcoming of Santa and his reindeer.










More to come in the next installment:

Rori "isms" part 2

Rori is the wild child in our family at this point. She is 2 going on 16 and tries to negotiate herself out of trouble. She threw a toy at Rylie and I told her we don't throw toys, to which she promptly responds, "But we throw balls". Of course, those would be toys too. She also is acquiring quite the vocabulary. The other day she had a runny nose and said, "I certainly need a tissue." The word, personally came out of her in some context. We were driving in the car and she said, "Isn't that interesting?"

For a few days she kept asking me if I knew gono and ghost. I thought this was some cartoon character that I was not familiar with. I asked her what she was talking about and she would just get mad. I asked her again one day when she was talking to Mark and she said it's spanish. Dora is her friend, so this didn't surprise me. Mark finally figured out the gono and ghost were uno and dos. She also added ocho to the mix for good measure.

So, adios for now!

Skating and Santa Claus

This past Friday, we went to an ice skating party thrown by the kids' dentist. I think it is just a ploy to see if anyone can fall and knock a tooth out :) Instant business!!

No, just kidding about the teeth falling out, but it is a well attended event by hundreds of kids! Santa Claus was there along with treats, hot chocolate, and crafts. And yes, even Santa skated. Rylie wasn't really shy about talking to Santa, but Rori didn't want anything to do with him as you can see from the photos (until he offered her a candy cane). Apparently we haven't had the "don't take candy from strangers" talk yet!

While waiting to speak with Santa, a little girl around eight years old was asking Santa for a machete. Yes, a machete. Apparently she and her dad go hiking a lot through the vast rain forest/jungle of Montana. Santa deferred this request to her parents and asked if there was something less violent that she wanted. It was pretty hilarious!

Rylie did a great job skating around and hardly fell down. Rori's skates didn't really fit and were kind of trashed. She tried though, with Daddy's help. I guess Rylie's roller-blading in her mom's size 10 blades in the basement has paid off.

Rock and Roll

We were at Costco a few weeks ago and Daddy had to go and mess with the electric guitars, so others had to follow. I think they look like naturals!