Our Gingerbread House

Here are some pictures of our Gingerbread House for this year. According to Avery it is "the best gingerbread house we have ever made."

We were really concentrating!

And here's the finished product..

...I think Avery might be right!

Our Trip to California

We arrived in California late Friday night, so Saturday was kind of a lazy day at Cousins Jack and Luke's house. We relaxed and played and decorated Christmas ornaments.

Here we are diligently working on the Christmas ornaments

Sunday morning started out with donuts for breakfast, always a great way to start the day! Then , in the afternoon, while Sierra and Luke took their naps and Nana "rested", the rest of us went to Old Town Temecula. Our destination was The Old Town Root Beer Factory. I never knew there was so many different kinds of root beer. After having a refreshing drink, we strolled through Old Town for a bit. When we got back to Jack and Luke's house, to our surprise, Santa had made a surprise visit. So we got to open some presents and spent the rest of the night playing with some of our new stuff.

Enjoying our Donuts with Nana and Grandpa

Check out all of these different kinds of Root Beer

AAAAAH...Refreshing!

Avery making a friend on the streets of Temecula

This guy liked her even better!

Jack and Avery posing for a cute picture

We were even able to get a few nice family photos together.

Our first attempt at playing Twister

On Monday we spent the entire day at Sea World. It was such a great day! There is so much to see and do there. In addition to all of the awesome exhibits and shows, there is a whole section of rides and a huge treehouse with ropes to climb on and bridges to run across. It was so much fun and we all had a great time!

Our Souvenir Family Photo

Avery & Jack posing with a friendly Walrus

The Shark Tank

The Penguin Exhibit which was my favorite, there was just a huge window separating us from this whole Arctic World of Penguins

Cousins posing with the Polar Bears

Sierra really liked this walrus!

And The Beluga Whale

The Dolphin Show was pretty cool

This was a game where you had to climb the ladder to the top to win. Sounds easy enough, but not so much. This is Jack, Sierra, Avery and Uncle Bobby trying. Cory tried too and everyone got flipped off before reaching the top.

Sierra, Avery & Jack posing with Zoe and Elmo

We were so excited to see Shamu

And there he is. This was the best show. It is amazing what these whales can do!

Posing in Santa's Village with our Shamu Santa hats on

We ended the day going on as many rides as we had time for. Here we are having fun on one with Uncle Bobby

On Tuesday morning we spent some time at Mr. Pennypickle's Children's Museum in Temecula. It has a whole bunch of interesting and different inventions. We all had some fun playing with everything.

Avery inside of a triangular mirror

Sierra and Grandpa in the hot air balloon basket

On Wednesday, we went to Nana and Grandpa's house. But, on the way we stopped at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. It is a big tram that takes you up into the mountains of Palm Springs. It was pretty cool to go from the desert to snow in one short ride.

Sierra, Jack and Avery having some fun in the snow

And posing for a picture in the mountains

We walked around until it was dark but we were able to get one picture with Nana and Grandpa

The next day we managed to get in some pool time

Nana & Grandpa's Christmas Tree

We were so excited that Aunt Ami had planned Jack's 5th Birthday Party while we were in town. So, Friday night the kids put on their pj's for a glow in the Dark Pajama Party at Pump It Up!. I think it was one of the biggest parties Pump It Up had ever seen. And all of the kids had a blast sliding, climbing, and jumping around. It was a great party!

Happy Birthday Jack!

And, finally, the last hoorah, Saturday morning before we left we went to Breakfast with Santa. We had a yummy breakfast. We got to sit on Santa's lap. Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph were there too. And then we got to decorate our own cookies. It was a great way to end a great trip!

Our breakfast table

Sierra and Avery with Santa and Mrs. Claus

All of the kids did a great job decorating their cookies, there were barely any sprinkles left when we were all done!

Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

We had a very nice and quiet Thanksgiving. It was a nice day of relaxing and playing together and, of course, eating. Then, we went to our friends, The Ogert's, for dessert so the girls also got to play with some friends. It was great. We also had some fun reading the "Turkey Recipes" that Mrs. Dawson sent home with Avery. Mrs. Dawson had sat down with each kid in the class and asked them how to cook a turkey and she sent home their responses. Avery said "Get your turkey in the woods. Take the feathers off. Cook it for 18 minutes in the microwave. Then cut it up like we do at Aunt Sarah's house." All of the responses are so funny!

After Thanksgiving was over we went right into Christmas mode. We got all of our decorations out. We put up our tree and put up all of the outside lights and decorations. We all did a great job. Everything looks so festive!

Two Rudolphs getting ready for Christmas

Daddy read us some of our Christmas books

Decorating the Christmas tree

And, this morning Elvis The Elf on the Shelf showed up in our tree

Thanksgiving in State College

Last weekend, we went to State College, PA to have an early Thanksgiving celebration with the Hine Family (Gramma's brother and sisters and their families). Almost everyone was able to make it this year, so there was a quite a group of people with lots of kids for the girls to play with. It was a beautiful weekend, so the kids were able to play outside and have lots of fun. Every year, someone brings a craft project for the kids to do. This year it was glitter christmas ornaments. They turned out great! And, of course, there was so much delicious food all weekend long. We are so very thankful for the wonderful time we were able to share with family.

The girls running in the yard with Edna

We had lots of fun exploring the farm

Craft time...Glitter, glitter, everywhere!

The Saylor's

All of the kids