Dominika

Here is our new exchange student. Sweet girl. I am so glad to have her here. I think she will be a great asset to our family.

Christmas and New Years

We had a really great Christmas this year. Tyler came home (not that he wasn't home last year) it always makes us feel a little more complete when he is here. I think the boys are really going to have a hard time with him leaving this time. He is going to be gone until July before we see him again.
Our Christmas was a little low key this year. Of course they got their usual pj's on Christmas Eve. But over all we just really downsized this year. Here are a few pictures of them hamming it up for the camera.


New Years

I had my good friends here for New Years Eve. We had a blast. we played some games (Skittles game, and the chocolate bar game. You have to put on gloves, hat and scarf before the person in front of you rolls doubles. The goal is get all the stuff on and open the bar of chocolate with a knife and fork and eat it. It was a lot of fun. We also made some really yummy Chinese food and totally pigged out on junk food.
A good time was had by all.

Prom Night

Today was Sydney's first date. She was so nervous. Her friends came over to help her get ready and I could see it in her eyes that she was just petrified. Luckily it was with a good friend of hers. Her and Jace have known each other for 5 years and are two peas in a pod. They are both really genius but are a little socially backwards. They are forgetful and scatterbrained but they "get" each other.
It was really cute how excited she was that his tie matched her dress. She was just giddy. I hope she has a great time and this experience is good for her.
I still remember my first date, and believe me that was a LONG time ago.

Festival of the Trees

The boys started ballroom in
October. This was their first
performance. Aren't they cute?

Word of the Week

At the kids school they have a pretty intense program that helps them to master the 1200 ACT vocabulary words. I love it when my kids tell me the meaning of a word they have just learned. Many times I don't even know the meaning. Sometimes they will hear a word and just spontaneously blurt out the definition. So I thought it would be fun to work on our own vocabulary words at home. This week the word is farcical (Far sickle) meaning absurd or ridiculous. They have to see how many times they can use it in a proper sentence. They have had a lot of fun doing that.
It has been a very farcical week this week.

Weekend

My best friend came up from Utah this weekend, with her kids Jake and Bryce. Oh yeah, and Bella (the dog). We had a great visit. She is so refreshing, and she makes me laugh all the time. My kids had fun, too. We took a trip up to Swan Valley (my kids insist we do an annual trip in the fall). The leaves were all gone, but it was nice outside. We had to stop at the Square Ice cream store, of course. We took pictures at the Dam, and the Dam store. The kids always like to think of all the things they can call the Dam..... It's legal swearing, I guess.
Can someone please fill us in on what Rip-Rap is?