January Came Early

It was -35 yesterday with the wind chill. It was awesome.
We had the perfect Saturday last weekend. We walked/ran/played on a frozen lake, went sledding, and paid a visit to Santa Claus. Will was gone at work and I decided to take the kids to a frozen lake. I was terrified to go but I knew that I had to try it while I was here at some point and time.



When I first stepped onto the lake I thought that it was weird that I could see black asphalt under the snow. As I walked further I knew that it could not be asphalt, it had to be the frozen ice. I was expecting it to be white and not black. That was when I felt a chill go up my spine. What am I doing on this frozen lake by myself with two little monkeys? There was a group of men ice fishing on the lake close by. If you look close in some of the photos you can see their small little tents set up onto the ice. I tried to stay near the fishermen, assuming they knew where it was safe to walk.


Rex was eagerly looking for fish under the ice.


Constantly running from here to there.


Making a skinny snowman together.


I wanted to take a picture here for our Christmas card but Rex and Ella were busy doing.....


Some of this....


Lots of this.....


They had lots of fun. I couldn't capture a perfect picture for Christmas but I was able to capture them having a good time.

Thanksgiving and etc.

Thankful for our extended family. This was the very first time that we had family come and visit us for a holiday. I was super excited to say the least.


Rex is thankful for the school bus, microphones, and rockets.


Ella is thankful for wheels, fish, and Sister Yang.


Thankful that Will was home and not on call for once.



Thankful that Christie and Rick drove a long way to come here for Thanksgiving. Rex is SO thankful for his Uncle Rick. Even though he mistakenly called him Dad several times (Ella called him Dad also). I can't blame them. Will is never here and Rick looks like his twin.



Oh, the joys of decorating for Christmas.


Until someone knocks the tree down.



Or breaks the ornaments. This happened several times within a few hours. Each time I started to raise my voice to stop Rex from spinning the tree around and around, he would yell at the top of his lungs, "Merry Christmas Mom." I was seriously thinking about putting the tree back in the garage. The novelty is sort of wearing off.



Our friends had a party to celebrate Sinterklaas. It's a Dutch thing. The kids had a ball. I think that we totally confused them because they were familiar with hearing Santa Claus and not Sinterklaas. I missed hearing the story about who he is because I was in the hallway in time-out with Rex. It was definitely a good excuse to have a party and a lot of yummy food.


This is the first year that I had to put the gingerbread house up and away. These two like to gnaw on it like little mice.


Ella likes to sing all day "You've got a friend in ME." Then she proceeds to laugh at herself for singing.

Twilight

For just two hours I felt like I was 14yrs. old again. It was good.