Christmas Day ( a little early with the Tolfs/Chadwicks)

On Friday we headed into Christmas mode so that we could celebrate Christmas with Mary and Eric, and Kevin and Anna and Riley, since we won't see them this year on the actual Christmas. We headed out that morning to Hubert's Christmas Tree Farm to find the perfect tree and we found ours in a record 10 minutes or so. It was a gorgeous day and we had fun wandering through the trees trying to find the perfect one for us and then to help Kevin and Anna find a great tree. We both found really nice trees. Claire had fun running away through the trees and I was really wishing she had bells on her so we could find her easier.


Olivia and Riley
Claire running into the picture.

A picture of all three (kinda).



Here we are with our tree.



Olivia peeking out from a tree.
Riley loves to smile for the camera (he is so easy to get good pictures of).

Claire and I after I had just chased her down for 3rd time.
Kevin, Anna and Riley with their tree.
Here we all are with the two trees in the truck.

Warming up (although it was so nice we didn't really need to) with a little cider. Brother and sister with their kids.
Playing a game of spades. Anna and Eric against Hans and Kevin and there teams each time. I think Anna and Eric won.

Olivia, Claire and I decorating the tree that afternoon.

Claire and Riley playing on the stairs.

Our tree this year.
The girls playing with their veggie tale nativity. Every year I pack up all the Christmas videos, books and ornaments, and nativity and then when I decorate I get it out and the kids love having all this "new" stuff to play with and new books to read.

See good photos just happen with Riley.
Opening Riley's gifts so he could go to bed after dinner.



We had a great prime rib dinner with shrimp and then finished opening gifts after Riley went to bed. The girls had so much fun helping everyone open their things and their new toys. It was another fun day.

Thanksgiving...so much to be thankful for.

This year for Thanksgiving we had the Tolf side of the family to our house. It was really fun for us to entertain and not have to travel. I had a lot of fun cooking up the meal(especially since my kids are a little older this year and not quite so needy) and everything turned out really good. The girls had fun having their cousin Riley to play with and Auntie Anna is a favorite now with both girls.

Our Thanksgiving table...you can see in the background that we had our fantasy teams score pulled up on the computer. This week I was playing Hans for the final week. Unfortunately my team got off to a real bad start this year and even though I have done good in the last 3 weeks it wasn't enough to get me into the playoffs this year. But Hans made it in (even though I beat him this week hehehe) so at least we have one Tolf representing.
Riley man is getting so big these days.

After dinner the kids were playing upstairs and Claire wanted to get dressed up so we decided to dress up poor Riley as well. Sorry buddy you have 2 girl cousins for now :)
Claire in her pretty dress up.
Riley checking out his new get up.
Olivia the ballerina.


She loves to wear her high heels around already and gets so frustrated when they won't stay on.
Playing on the stairs was Riley's favorite thing to do this weekend. He even learned how to go down backwards.
Trying to get a picture of all three of them, but Claire was too fast.

As you can see everyone wanted to be with Auntie Anna.
Claire is still a dare devil hanging over the edge of the chair despite her broken arm.
We had a great day and lots of yummy food (with lots of leftovers the best part not having to cook much the next few days). And I have so much to be thankful for: a husband who loves me and takes care of me and his girls, 2 beautiful girls who I adore, a house that is home and so comfortable, and great family and friends who love and support us. You can't ask for much more than that. And to top it off I am a sinner saved by grace serving my wonderful Saviour. I am so blessed and thankful for all that I have in my life. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well.

pink cast, more dancing, and gingerbread house

Last Thursday Claire got her pink cast on. She did much better getting her cast on and did not cry near as hard and I did not have to restrain like I did with the splint. Since then she has been doing great and hasn't seemed phased by her cast at all. She still uses her arm and hand for most things. I have to remind her sometimes to eat with her other hand so she doesn't get her cast all dirty. The hardest part is keeping her cast clean and dry (she loves baths and when she took a bath last night she was not happy to have it all wrapped up and unusable). Also clothing is a little challenging wearing long sleeve clothes but fortunately she has a big sister so if I have to I just adjust some of Olivia's clothes for her to wear. She still climbs up on everything and falls and isn't afraid of anything still just because she fell. She might be my more accident prone child as she is so daring.

Here is a picture I took trying to get a cute Thanksgiving picture for our calendar. I am finding it is ever harder to get a good picture of both of them together these days.
On Friday Grandma Mary came to visit for the weekend. Olivia loved having Grandma Mary and playing games, reading books, and doing thing with her. We even took off for a dinner get together with some friends and left Olivia home with Grandma and they had a blast. Olivia kept asking when we were leaving as she just wanted some one on one time with Grandma.

Saturday Olivia had another performance and they did so good. She has so much fun getting dressed up and really loves the sparkles in her hair. We even got to watch a different ballet company do parts of their Nutcracker performance and she loved it. I am so excited to take her to the Nutcracker this year as I know she will love it and it will be a fun one on one thing we can do together.



Claire likes watching her sister.

Claire trying to get Livy's sparkles.

Jada came to watch Olivia perform and Olivia was so excited to have her best friend there. She really wants Jada to do dance class with her.

These were the snowflake girls...
...Claire liked them so much she ran out there wanting to be in their performance.

On Sunday Olivia and Grandma made a ginger bread house and I did some Christmas decorating while Claire napped. They had so much fun (although I think Olivia ate more candy than she actually put on the house as she didn't want to get sticky).


Claire was so excited about all the Christmas decorations and the gingerbread house when she woke up...obviously you can't tell from the picture.
Grandma and Olivia with their finished house.
The finished house is so cute. But now the girls just want to rip it apart I need to find a good spot for it.