Christmas 09

We've had a great Christmas! Christmas Eve, Claire's choir sang for the family service at our church. After that, we headed back to our house and Eric's family joined us for dinner and presents. The girls loved spending time with their cousins Liah and Cedar. All their gifts were a big hit and then they ate their fill of all the Christmas cookies we baked. We also followed Santa's path on NORAD all afternoon and evening. Christmas morning came and Santa indeed found our house. The wrapping paper flew. After we made breakfast, we got cleaned up and headed over to my parent's house for the next round... Here are some pictures from church and my family's Christmas. (I'll try to post some video of Christmas morning later after I have a chance to go through it.)

At church on Christmas Eve. (Claire was warming up with her choir)

Christmas morning

With part of my family

Preschool Christmas parties

This past Wednesday, I party hopped at preschool to attend part of both Elise and Chloe's holiday festivities. They both enjoyed snacks, holiday games, and a gift exchange. Here's a couple of pictures:

Elise's gift exchange

Elise decorating cookies

Chloe's gift exchange

Chloe's snack time

Gingerbread Houses

Click on the link below to go to my friend Nikki's blog and see some pictures of our Christmas craft day at their house. The kids had a lot of fun! Great pictures, Nikki!

Gingerbread house post

Cookie craziness

We baked Christmas cookies over 3 different days this year! The girls really had a blast mixing, baking and decorating all the different types of cookies. They even got their cousins Liah and Cedar in on the sugar cookie decorating day. Although I was so busy icing and getting people more cookies/sprinkles/etc. that I forgot to take any pictures of that! But here are pictures from the other 2 days:

Breakfast with Santa

We took the girls to Breakfast with Santa at our church. They enjoyed all the arts and crafts activities and the pancake breakfast. They were even tolerably good about posing with Santa. No one was scared this year! Athough there are so many of them that poor Santa is almost invisible in the picture- LOL!

Claire's Hot Air Balloon

Claire had to do a project on a form of transportation or type of housing that plays a part in Missouri's history. She chose the hot air balloon. She had to write a report on how the balloon worked, what part it played in MO history, and how she made her model. She got an A+ and wanted me to take her picture with it for the blog. So here she is:

Emilie lost another tooth

Emilie wanted me to put up pictures of her new smile. She lost her first top tooth a week ago. Here's a picture we took that night after many tears shed over her inability to get this tooth out. Finally she agreed to let me try and we were all much relieved when it came out really easily :-)

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We tried to get a group picture with the girls this morning. Evidently it was not a good day for pictures. We did however have a great day. Lots of good food and fun with both sides of our families. The girls had a blast playing with their cousins, Liah and Cedar. Here's the best pictures we got:

Claire: actually pretty good after I cropped out the others :-P

Elise: once again after some cropping...

Emilie: the only picture she wasn't crying in (something about a toy...)

Chloe and her foofy bow: didn't get any of her actually looking at the camera

The "best" group shot: oh well!

Chloe's new earrings

We took Chloe today to get her ears pierced. I waited until the other girls were at least 3 years, but Chloe really wanted to wear earrings like her sisters so I caved a little early. She was excited to go get them but kept asking, "I cry?" while we drove there (her sisters told her that it would hurt- gotta love big sisters.)

She got her birthstone (emerald). She did really well and held very still while they pierced them (I had them use 2 people so they could do both ears at the same time). She cried a little, but her sisters were so excited for her that she was soon all smiles. Then we went and got a cookie at the food court to make it "better." She showed everyone we saw her "pretty ears."

When Eric wanted to see them after we got home, she told him he could but that he couldn't touch them. We'd been talking about how only mommy could touch them until they healed up!

Anyway, here's some pictures of my big girl (oh, and speaking of big girl, she's is pretty much completely potty trained- underwear all day. I'm still using a pull up at night, but she's been dry in the morning for the past week. Pretty soon there will be no more diapers in the Humes' house. Its only been 9 1/2 years...) So here's the pics I took with my phone, I'll try to get some better ones with the camera tomorrow:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Halloween pictures

The girls had a blast last night for Halloween. Cousin Taylor came over and trick or treated with them. And my mom and dad came over for dinner and joined in on the fun. We walked our entire street which is a mile down and back. Even Chloe walked almost the entire way. Needless to say they were worn out by the time we got back, but they got a ton of candy. Here's some pictures of them right before we left to go out:

Chloe the white kitty, Taylor the cowgirl, Elise the leopard, Emilie the black cat, and Claire the spider witch

Preschool trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Chloe and Elise's preschool took their annual trip to the pumpkin patch. The girls had a great time checking out the hay filled play area, taking a tractor ride, and picking out pumpkins for us to carve this weekend. Here's a couple of pics:

Not so sure about the giant spider behind her

Corn maze

Chloe loves getting to go places with Elise :-)

Climbing the hay tower

Tractor ride

Camping Trip according to Claire

We went camping this past weekend with Eric's parents. We had a good time relaxing around the campfire and enjoying the fall weather (although it was a bit cold on Saturday!). Oh and Emilie is officially riding around like crazy on a 2 wheeler bike. Claire brought her camera and was our photographer for the weekend. So here's some pics, courtesy of Claire:

Campground

Buddy

Emilie

Elise

Chloe with smoke in her eyes :-)

The foliage

Happier Chloe

Starting a campfire

Eric and Elise