six days till christmas?

we went to the beach today. the girls were a little hesitant about the sand. they needed a little convincing...

addie agreed that it looked like fun right away...

ella on the other hand, took a little longer to agree...

before long addie dug right in with aunt rachel

while addie played and laughed ella stayed very serious and preferred to talk about the ocean...

and of course wanted to be held

austin loves the ocean with his girls and couldn't have been happier all day!

baby angel waltz of the flowers

that was the title of the little number adeline danced in at her first ballet recital on thursday night. she did such a great job, we could not be more amazed and pleased with how she did. i thought there would be some tears but was so glad the only tears were mine when i saw her dancing her little heart out.

getting hugs from miss cammy and erika before the big show! they were so sweet and brought the dancer some flowers. she's been looking at them everyday and reminding me who gave them to her! she loves them and loves her cammy! she was also thrilled to see some of her other friends from high school group there, thanks sarah, corey & franklin.

this was the moment of truth as she watched the final number before hers. wings on, she watched the girls intently the whole show and couldn't believe how good the big girls were at dancing.

it was so cute to watch the girls dance. one of the highlights was when adeline stopped dancing and yawned as big as she could. the crowd roared with laughter.

as adeline crawled into bed after the recital she said, "i love ballet momma". we love you, our tiny dancer!

this fun week...

this week we had a lot of fun. ella got to wear a big girl scarf (thank you laura stone!)...

the girls ate lunch outside with the neighbors and had a wonderful time...

the girls wore their matching christmas outfits (thank you norton girls!)...

and had a very fun time at our annual norton christmas tea...

we had our first annual "pajamas & pancakes" family christmas movie dinner which was invented by adeline!

sweet little ella was so tuckered out after all the fun :)

jolly old saint nicholas?

tonight we went to pasadena with austin's parents and on our way back to the car the girls saw santa in front of a big tree in his sleigh. there was a tiny cute little girl in her little beanie sitting on santa's lap, smiling and laughing, her parents cheering. adeline said, "oh that's fun, can we sit on santa's lap?" adeline has never been interested in santa, much less sitting on his lap, so we agreed. once they got on his lap their laughter turned to screaming, they drew a large crowd & scared a few of the children waiting in line. when i reached for ella, she turned to santa and between her sobs said, "thank you. bye-bye". once the girls got off santa's lap and stopped shaking with fear and caught their breath, the photographer reviewed the photos and realized his flash had overexposed the photos, he said he would be willing to take them again, but there was no way those little ladies of ours would be getting back on santa's lap. all that to say, this is the best he got. my favorite is the sheer terror on adeline's face & the fact that ella is crying too hard to open her eyes. this was a first and i can say with some certainty that it was also most likely the last.

a great question

this week after watching a christmas cartoon adeline asked me when she's going to build a snowman. yikes! i hated to tell her that it wouldn't be for a very long time so instead we got creative!

the girls did such a great job making their tiny snowmen and couldn't be more thrilled with their little projects

& when we were done everyone's socks were still dry! i guess fake snowmen have their perks after all.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

so thankful...

for our sweet girls

even when they aren't so sweet!

Sisterly Fun

the girls love playing together (most of the time!). here are a few things they did together this week.

addie decided the laundry basket was a good place to play...

ella decided it was a good place for smooching!

the girls made these fall headbands...

and helped make these fall cookies.

this was their reaction to fall cookies after breakfast! ella said, "oh wow!"

like father like daughter

austin and jesse became fast friends about 12 years ago. it's been entertaining to watch these 2 characters over the years but not nearly as entertaining as watching their daughters play together. this week we went to the grove with deidre and madison & it was so cute to see the girls little relationship blossom into a sweet friendship. ella loves "baby" maddie and hasn't stopped talking about her. this morning while talking about her she got her purse and said, "bye" i asked her where she was going and she said, "deidre's". needless to say, she's a big fan, as is adeline who referred to madison as "ella's little friend". we had a great time and i can't wait to see how ella and maddie's friendship grows!

i forgot my camera, thankfully deidre brought hers and took these great pictures of the girls on their fun adventure!

the fountain was one of the highlights of the day, they all three agree that it was pretty captivating.

it was a little bright for the babies to take a photo, but thankfully adeline was ready to pose in her "kunglakek" (sunglasses)

i'm sure deidre and jesse are thrilled that my girls corrupted sweet maddie by introducing her to their love for jewelry. sorry johnsons, enjoy the never ending task of keeping track of tiny bracelets!

and that should bring you up to date!

here are the long awaited updates! enjoy! and i promise to update more often than every 3 months!

an outrageous october

in october we went to albuquerque for the balloon fiesta and also to celebrate our 5th anniversary. we had so much fun with our family & enjoyed such a special time taking the girls to the balloon fiesta for the first time. we went to the balloon glow and the girls loved every minute of it.

the little kids got some bunny ears, the girls loved the ears & baby trey tolerated his and wore it his own way

grandama lorna & addie touching noses like the cute bee balloons

we love the balloon fiesta!

the twins liked the glow too!

we had such fun with the family

one morning we had breakfast with the buffalo

we went to the zoo, rode a train and saw a new born baby elephant

and officially wore the girls out!

to celebrate our anniversary austin arranged for a day full of fun. we went to one of my favorite abluquerque lunch spots, then i had 3 hours to unwind at the spa, followed by a nice afternoon ice tea and chips on the patio overlooking the river and the mountains, then we went to the bed & breakfast where we had our wedding reception and spent the night (i should also mention that when we got to our room i found 3 dozen long stem roses in the most beautiful arrangement i've ever seen, austin is so thoughtful and way over the top!). we took a few pictures in the field where some of our wedding photos were taken. this one's my favorite.

when we got home from albuquerque we went on a family date day and adeline had her first face painting experience, only she opted to have it painted on her arm instead. when we got home she wanted me to take a picture of it to put on facebook and the blog.

the girls have started doing something we refer to as the caterpillar or "capitillar" as the case may be, where ella hangs on to addie for dear life and they march together like a caterpillar. it's so funny, we all laugh every time.

i really don't have anything to say about these 2 photos!

october also marked the beginning of adeline's ballet career, and judging from her first class we thought it may mark the end of it too! thankfully she's doing much better now and looks forward to going all week long.

we took a little family trip to the pumpkin patch again this year. such fun!

these 2 photos were austin's creative photo contribution on the trip. so many crazy teeth!

we had a great time looking at the animals, flowers and pumpkins and taking a tractor ride

we all chose a pumpkin to bring home, here they are!

that afternoon when we got home adeline made a petting zoo of her own during her room play time. i laughed so hard.

one final milestone for the month of october is that ella learned how to feed herself her breakfast yogurt.

the final weekend in october our sweet friends, matt & jenny poladian, watched the girls for the weekend while we had our 180 staff retreat. i didn't get pictures of either event but we had a great time and it was a wonderful way to end a very fun month.