Land of Make Believe

We have been caught up in the land of make believe.   I am not quite sure how this all starts in a 2 1/2 year olds brain, but it's here!  Our first make believe characteer presented himself last week.  Allie was sitting on the potty when I hear her talking to herself

 

Allie:  "Sit right here Freddy."

Mom:  "Allie, who are you talking to?"

Allie:  "Freddy"

Mom: "Who is Freddy?"

Allie:  "My friend"

Mom:  "What does he look like?"

Allie:  "A purple monkey"

             

So there you have it, make believe has started.  Every few days I am introduced to a new character around our house.  The other day we had Paudo and Caudo come play.  They were also monkeys.  

Last night I peaked in on Allie who was laying in bed waving her hand up at the ceiling.   I wispered in and I asked, "Allie who are you waving to?"  She told me it was "fiddle diddle, the boy."  I think we are reading to much of Dr. Seus around our house.  She is starting to make everything rhyme.               

Double Coupons at Albies

Well...you guessed it.  Another great grocery run this week at Albertsons.  I don't know if this whole coupon thing is starting a craze around here or what, but Albertson's was doubling coupons this week. It was limited to 3 per transaction, but I'll take any doubling that I can get.  I ended up with 12 transactions this run.  There were lots of household things included in the deal this week: paper towels, tide, towlet paper, fabric softener.  Pamper's also had a screaming deal going on this week that I ended up taking advantage of for a few friends and also some baby presents. 

All in all my total was $130.61 and I saved $402.90

My transactions included

3-large 8 packs of Bounty Paper Towels

4-Tide Laundry Soap

3-Downy Fabric Softener

14 packs of Pampers (6 not included in the picture)

8 packs of Pampers wipes (4 not included in the picture)

9 boxes of cereal

4 packs of yogurt

6 packs of Fiber One Bars

8 Puffs Tissues

2 fruit snacks

2 Fusion Razors

1 carton of O.J.

It's not to late to jump in this week.  The sale goes through Tuesday.  Good Luck!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW

What a day!  We woke up to a couple inches of snow and the ground and it kept snowing throughout the day.  At 5 we thought we'd hit the sledding hill before it got dark and cold. 

Allie just loved this.   We just went to a few small hills in our neighborhood and suprisingly they weren't crowded.  Everytime Allie got the bottom of a hill she would say, "more, more."  She wanted to ride her sled every way imaginable: forward on her bum, on her tummy, and backwards sitting up.  Crazy girl!

We had Macy come join us too

Allie lasted about 45 minutes.  It then started to really snow and the kids got cold.  I tried to catch a picture of the falling snow seen in the picture above because it was really coming down

New Years Eve

We were all exhausted the next day and couldn't think about venturing out on another skiing run.  We decided to play around at the cabin on the snowmobiles and sleds.

Noboday tell Papa Von what we were doing with the canoe

The kids enjoyed sled rides provided by Jane

Jane got to enjoy some sledding herself

We all gathered onto the lake to watch Uncle Rod use the auger and break through the ice

Then we all joined in with Uncle Blake's activity and became snow angels

Lucy girl was loving her freedom to roam out on the lake

Allie just loved hanging out upside down on her head...goofy girl

Warren in true boy fashion.  He went and got a shovel and just loved walking around the lake shoveling the snow

After all of our snow adventure fun, we headed back to Boise to celebrate New Year's Eve over a Papa Von's

Fun was had by all as we danced away to Papa Von's music on the accordian

Allie showing off her crazy dance moves

These crazy clowns put on a musical production for us

The little kids joined in and I had quite the time watching them all perform.  Aunt Katie took over the reigns for a little while and led the musical production.  I am so glad we got it on video because it was hilarious watching everyone attempt Aunt Katie's dance moves

Happy New Year!!!

Cabin Adventures

Blake's brother's family came up from Utah to join us the week after Christmas.  We headed up to the cabin the first night that they arrived in town.  Our first nigth was quite an adventure...we had no power.  As we turned onto the road that led to the cabin we saw 2 Idaho Power trucks. The workers were trying to repair a power line that was knocked down because a tree had fallen. It was undocumentable via pictures because my flash kept going off, but we had organized chaos that night.  We first started out with one flashlight, which led to us locating a headlamp, which lead to Uncle Rod finding a kerosine lamp.   Oh what fun!  

We tried to get the kids to play by the gas fire so they had some light 

With no power there was not much to do, so kids got put to bed early.  Allie and Cam wanted to sleep together and finally ended up falling asleep after about 30 minutes of chatting.  It was too cute because Allie had fallen asleep and Cam still wanted to talk.  We heard Cam say to sleeping Allie, "Say okay.  Allie, tell me okay."  He never did get a response and finally went to sleep himself

The next day we went on a long cross country ski adventure.  Blake's brother and his wife got us hooked on Cross Country skiing.  We love how family friendly and cheap it is compared to downhill.  It is a good fit for our family right now

Allie and Cam ready for the treck.  Allie loves her sled...she falls asleep anytime she gets strapped in here

This picture is very deceiving.   We are actually climbing a very steep hill.  It was the toughest one of the day.  At the top we stopped and had lunch

The crew making it to the top

My little niece Jane and I.  This little girl is quite the skiier.  I am quite impressed by her skills and have to work hard to keep up with her

We stopped to eat on this great little over look at the top of the hill.  We had a great view of the Seven Devels mountain range

Adorable Lucy in her cozy snow suit

Smiling faces as we near the end of our 4 hour excursion

When we got back that night, we were all exhausted except for the kids.  We all just vegged around that night watching DVD's from Office Season Three

The kids were balls of energy.  Allie and Cameron both slept the entire time we went on our ski treck. even through lunch.

The kids entertained themselves and had a blast going down the stairs in their sleeping bags

Merry Christmas

It was so much fun to watch Allie this year on Christmas morning.   She was so excited to see that Santa had come and brought the two things she actually asked for 1) A bed for her baby 2) A book called Silly Sally.  Allie loved the fact that Santa ate her cookies and the milk was gone out of her pink cup.  Blake had asked Allie what cup she wanted to leave out for Santa.  Allie told Blake her pink cup.  She must have really wanted to impress Santa, because the pink cup is her absolute favorite.  I can't wait for the years to come.

Allie loved unwrapping the gifts.  We really could have stopped with the first gift. Allie just kept wanting to play with everything and we kept making her go back to unwrap more

There is a story behind this cradle. It was a joint effort between Santa, dad, and mom to get this cradle made.  The cradle was actually mine when I was little.  My grandpa made it years and years ago when I was little but it was in shambles.  It needed wood glued back together, sanded, and repainted.  The white that is seen is actually the primer.  We ran out of primer at 2 am on Christmas morning...I know procrastinators.  Well, what you see is what you get, a cradle with primer.

Allie also kept asking for a new baby.  Honestly how many babies can one little girl have.  We weren't going to get her one, so I thought she might be a little disappointed.  Well GG came to the rescue.  She sent a baby to Allie for Christmas, so it couldn't have gotten much better

We got Allie a vacuum too.  She went right to work cleaning.  Can you tell she has seen me vacuum a few to many times.  Scary!  She got right down on her hands and knees and started on the baseboards

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve

We woke up Christmas Eve morning under the Christmas tree

We continued another tradition of having Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve.  Since I had to work this year, Blake and Allie came to visit me and brought Yen Cheng for all of us to share together

Allie's great pic of mom and dad

Allie loved seeing the fish at mom's work

Allie and Dad leaving Aunt Katie's house.  Santa and the sleigh bells were just heard outside, so Allie is getting ready to head home and hop in bed