This sums it up nicely...

"Exploding Head" by Keith Haring

The last time we purchased a home we were in escrow during the holidays and visiting family out of town. It seems we need to learn a lesson in stress management. It's happening all over again. Déjà Vu. Only this time we have two little ones along for the crazy ride that is our life.

That being said. We are excited to have a new home soon and spend some time with our Utah family for Christmas. Snow here, we come.

Outtakes

Getting Lil Sis to smile for the camera for our Christmas card photos was torturous this year. She fell asleep in the car on the way over. And in typical Lil Sis fashion is an extreme grump when she wakes up. I tried every trick in the book to get her to smile (candy?). I resorted to some pretty funny stuff. What finally did the trick is a little too embarrassing to post! Since I embarrass the girls enough on this blog, I thought I deserve a turn now. Enjoy the pics. (BTW we did get one shot of her smiling, just the one!)

Baby M is here!!!

Ludikus had their baby boy today at 1:16pm. He weighs 7lbs. 1oz. and is 19 1/2 inches long. Congrats to my brother and his wife.

We're singing in the rain...

Finally some cold weather around here in California. I got to wear my new scarf I just picked up here.
The girls played in the rain.
Then we had a great thanksgiving at my grandma's. I was in charge of making dessert. My mom, gave me a tutorial on how to make pies. They turned out really well, if I do say so myself. Everyone loved the Gingered Apple-Cranberry Pie. I'm hoping my in-laws will let me make it for them at Christmas.

Just for giggles... this is how we found Lil Sis after Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Birthday Lil Sis

Lil Sis just hit the big "3" this weekend. She requested a Pony Pinkie Pie cake. A little to ambitious for me so we settled on cupcakes with a Pony Pinky Pie decoration. We just had a family party, and invited her bestie Pita and her family. I really can't handle big birthday parties every year. Both girls birthdays land right on the two biggest holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

She enjoyed her party. I learned an important lesson. I'm going to remove the toys from the boxes before I wrap them. I mean it took the whole family cutting and sawing our way through all that plastic packaging about 10 minutes. Toy makers if you hear me, please do something about this!!!

It's funny how siblings get so jealous when its not their birthday. After Lil Sis received a gift from Oma and Opa, Big Sis exclaimed "wow, thats just what we wanted." It has been hard for Big Sis to come to terms with the fact that these new toys belong only to Lil Sis.

A big thank you to Grandma J. We love the CooCoo the Rocking Clown Game. It is a lot harder than it looks, even for mom and dad!

We've been quilting

My mom is an amazing quilter. One of the benefits of living with my parents is all the knowledge I am gleaning from my mom. We have been busy quilting like crazy the last couple months. On Monday we started a baby quilt and it was finished by Tuesday night. (I won't tell you how late I stayed up though!) The girls love to come watch and poke around with the needles and thread while we do our projects. Big Sis loves to take the scraps of fabric and lay out quilting patterns. Lil Sis had been begging me to let her do some quilting. This week I decided to buy some big plastic needles and see what they could do. I pre-punched some holes in some red felt to make it easy. They had a blast and were proud of their creations.

My finished project. I love the way it turned out.

Missed Birthday

I missed posting a Happy Birthday shout out to my little brother. Happy belated birthday. You deserve the best. Check out the photos, you were always so serious!