Growing up!

I will post about Christmas and New Years later but for now I want everyone to know that my little baby girl..

is no longer a baby. This picture of Rylee I took the day after I gave birth to her. Can you believe this 10 pound baby? I absolutely love this picture, check out all those delicious rolls! I just want to eat her up! :0)
But I am wandering away from the point of this post, which is my sweet little baby is now a primary going big girl! Last week was her last day of Nursery class and yesterday was her first day of Primary as a new Sunbeam. Where has the time gone?

I was asked to substitute Avynleas class yesterday because they don't have a teacher called yet and so I got to be in primary on Rylees first day! I was super excited to actually be able to be in there to watch her rather then standing in the halls like a creeper trying to get a peek of my big girl. Of course she was kind of all over the place and kept waving to me and trying to get up to come over to me to tell me hi, she would poke at the boy next to her and lean down to look under her chair. But she also sat and tried to listen and tried to sing the songs. Basically she acted like a Sunbeam. I loved it! She is such a beautiful girl and even though she is a grown up Sunbeam she will always be my baby!

Oh Christmas Tree

Every year since a couple years after our marriage we have put up a fake tree. It was not that big of a deal for us not to have the real tree because I figured the fake tree would be less mess and I got that pine smell we would miss out on from a scented candle. So really, having a fake tree was no big deal. But this year Kefford was set on getting a real tree. I was a little against it because I kept picturing this huge pine needle mess all over my house but like the trooper I am I went with it. We were expecting Kefford to come home the first Monday in December to pick us up to take us with him to pick out a tree, what a not quite surprise to see him pull up with a tree already in the bed of his pick-up truck. He said that there was a tree farm right next to his work that had seven foot trees for only $20. Not too shabby. So rather then coming home to get us and backtracking he just got a tree. Perfect!

Kefford was in charge of putting all of the lights on. This tree is a bit bigger then our normal fake tree so Kefford had to go to Wal-Greens to get some more light strands. After the lights were placed just so Avynlea got the important job of putting the star on top. Every year the kids take a turn putting the star on top and this year the honor fell to Avynlea. She was quite excited about that important job!

After the lights on tinsel garlands were placed it was time to hang the ornaments. Last year I thought smart and packed up the kids ornaments all together. So each kid had their special ornaments in their own boxes. So they got to unwrap and put on their own ornaments without me going through and hunting for them all. Once they got done with theirs Kefford and I let them do ours. I was quite happy to turn that job over to the kids. I am not a huge fan of hanging the ornaments and get bored really easily. So this year I was able to sit back and let the kids do it!

After we got our tree all decorated I brought out our new Christmas book. Every year we get a new book to add to our collection of Christmas stories. Usually Keffords Mom gets us a book but I saw this book at our schools book fair and could not resist. It's called "It's Christmas David!" by David Shannon. We have a David board book that we all love to read and when I saw this one I knew we had to have it. It is a really funny book about a little boy named David who has a hard time being good. The kids loved it!

I also found a couple more pictures of the kids opening their countdown bags.

What a bunch of goofballs!

Christmas Countdowns

For Christmas this year my Mom put together a really fun Christmas Countdown for the kids. Every day they get to open a bag and inside is a piece of chocolate for each of them and then a slip of paper with something to do that day. Things like make Hot Cocoa and read a Christmas story or decorate your Christmas tree. It has been a fun thing for the kids to look forward to each morning.
Last year Avynleas Primary Teacher gave them each a Nativity Countdown to Christmas. It is a picture of the Nativity but the pieces are cut up so that each day a different piece is taped on until you get to the end and have a complete picture. So every day the kids have been doing that too. It is a nice reminder as to why we celebrate the season.

I started off taking pictures of each countdown until I realized that by the time I got to the end I would have a plethora of pictures that, really, I didn't need. So I stopped after the fourth day. I would like to apologize to Kenedy for not getting a picture on the fourth day with her nativity piece. I was super busy and had planned on doing it later but never got around to it!

Story time with Grandma!

My Mom came up from California for Rykers Baptism and for some fun time with the Peterson's :0) We were so happy she came and really enjoyed our time with her. As we were decorating our house for Christmas she would comment on different decorations that we had and it made me realize that she has never been in our home around the Holidays. It made me kind of sad that we live so far away but I was happy that she was there so she could see a little bit of how things look. The kids loved having her here to read to them from our collection of Christmas stories. We were really glad she was there and hope that she is able to come back sooner rather then later!

Ryker is a Scout!

Now that Ryker has turned 8 years old he is officially a cub scout. How cute is he in his scout shirt? I love seeing him being able to do new things as he is growing up. He is so excited about cub scouts and every week is really happy to go. Obviously, being a girl, I know nothing about the scouting program but luckily he has a Dad who is willing to help him in his scouting journey!

Cooooooooookies!

On one of our twenty-five days of Christmas cards it said to bake some cookies and take them to a neighbor. So I made up a batch of delicious sugar cookies and after coloring some frosting red and green I had the kids go at it with the decorations. We had some green sprinkles and I also bought some red hots and crushed up a candy cane we had leftover from last year. Once the cookies were sufficiently decorated we had the kids take them around to our neighbors. Everyone had fun doing this and we all had fun eating the leftovers!

Little Girls

I love that my little girls love to play dress up. Usually they stick to dressing up as princesses but this time around they went a little bit more risque!

Avynlea had to help Rylee not show too much in the front by holding up the front of her slip.



It cracked me up that they were wearing slips plus carrying around a Victoria's Secret bag. I think the Christmas socks added a nice touch!

Cute little darlings!

Rylee wanted to help me make dinner and she really wanted to "make" the celery, so I let her. Her facial expressions as she was breaking the celery in half made me laugh so hard.

This was my favorite. :0)

She did a good job on her contribution for dinner, I might have to put her to more work next time!