Just hangin around

 Not too much excitement around here since winter break.  Just been hanging out and doing our normal things.  Athena got a really cool 12 ft. long floor puzzle from us for her birthday in December. She put it away in the cabinet and didn't show any interest in it until tonight. She decided to bust it out and put the whole thing together in the hall way.  It's an alphabet puzzle that makes a long alphabet line and she did great at it:)

Had a little bit of coloring fun.  Alton usually lasts a few minutes with coloring-just long enought for me to snap a cute picture:)

Christmas 2011

We had an awesome first Christmas as a family of four:)  We started with Christmas at my parents house on the 24th where the kids were happy to be able to spend the day with their cousins from Ohio! 

All 5 of the cousins together:)  So cute!

Christmas Day we spent at home just the 4 of us.  It was such a great day!  I hope we can manage to keep a day to ourselves at home every year for Christmas.  We slept in and got up to the excitement of discovering that Santa had visited!  It was so magical to see the excitement on Athena's face to wake up on Christmas morning at home and see that Santa had come:)  We woke up Alton and then the kids opened presents in their jammies.  Such a fun morning and day! 

Alton got a big red wooden barn from Santa!  He loves it and immediately rounded up all of his tractors and started driving them into the barn and parking them all there. 

Still loves the tractors.  The big one in his hand was a Christmas present from grandpa Ralph and grandma Janet. 

This melted my heart.  I knew she was up to something because a couple of days before Christmas she asked me for boxes and tape.  I gave them to her and she disapeared into her room and when she came back she put the boxes under the tree.  She had wrapped up some of her dollie clothes to give to her dollies for Christmas so they would have presents to open too:) 

Last summer Ena and I read Charlotte's Web together one chapter a night and then watched the movie.  So for our next mommy and Ena book and movie adventure we're doing Mr. Popper's Penguins.  She got the book and movie from us for Christmas.   

For her Santa gift, she wrote a letter to him asking specificly for a blue, Columbia fleece jacket.  Santa made it happen! 

Alton was so cute opening his gifts.  He would tear off one little piece of wrapping paper at a time and hand it to John before tearing off more. 

Since Athena is constantly sneaking into the office and taking envelopes we thought we could remede the situation by giving her her own box of 175 envelopes.  She plays 'work' all the time and writes tons of notes and letters and sticks them all in envelopes. 

After 9 months of using all of his sister's princess stuff Alton finally got a new 'boy' snack plate.  He was pretty excited and immediately carried it into the kitchen and pointed to the pantry.  Smart boy;)  We put a little snack into his new plate for him and took a snack break before opening more presents:) 

Our sweet girl Amber taking in all of the excitment:)

Three piggies in a blanket snuggling after lunch. 

Of course a huge part of our special Christmas Day at home including lots of great food.  We made lots of yummy things throughout the day, but I focused on pictures of the kids this day:)  No foodie pictures in this post.  I will say that a certain little boy was happy to gorge himself on home made swedish meatballs though!
We're traveling up north for this coming New Years weekend to celebrate Christmas with John's family:)  So we have even more fun and celebrating yet to come!

Party Weekend #2

Athena's friend birthday party went great this weekend!  We went with the rule of having as many kids come as how many years old you are.  Though we needed a minumum of at least 6 to have it at the pottery studio she wanted it at, so we invited 8 to make sure we had at least the minimum number of kids.  As it turned out, exactly 5 of her friends were able to make it:)  They all had a fun time painting their projects, eating cupcakes and watching Ena open her presents.  The hour and a half flew by!  In a few days I can go back and pick up everyone's projects when they are done being fired and then we can take them to school and deliver them to her friends along with her thank you cards.  It works out pretty slick;)     

Such concentration!  Artists hard at work:)

She went with a horse theme for this party.  We had fun finding these little plastic horses and decorating the cupcakes with green sprinkles to look like the horses were hanging out in a grassy field. 

Happy 5th Birthday sweet angel baby!!!

Party weekend #1

December is usually a pretty fun & busy month around the zuge zoo:) In addition to all of the Christmas celebrations, we also have Athena's birthday. This weekend was the kick off! We had the family celebrations for Athena's birthday this weekend. Grandpa Jim came to spend some time visiting for her birthday on Saturday and then Grandma Kathleen, Grandpa Mike and my family came to celebrate her birthday on Sunday. Seriously can NOT believe she is turning five! Yeash!

Here she is with her cupcake tower fit for a Birthday Princess:)

Oh my goodness, a huge box of baby dolly clothes! This is one happy little girl:)

Next weekend is her friend party at a neat pottery studio here in town. Should be fun!

A Big Day For Athena!

Athena had a very big day (and night!) this weekend! She slept in her own bed, by herself, all night for the first time since she's been about 18 months old! She has separation anxiety that surfaces at night time. John and I have been very patient with having her sleep with us knowing that it is what she needs to feel secure. It's been hard when we felt like we needed to defend it to others who have no idea about adoption and separation anxiety but we know we're doing the right thing. We told her that when she felt ready to sleep alone in her own room we would get her a pet fish to have in her room to keep her company. We headed out today to pick one out:) We know she's going to have a long road ahead of her until she feels secure enough to hop into bed by herself with no tears every night, but we sure celebrated that first night and her getting her pet that she earned!

Here she is with her new pet Goldie the Goldfish. Yes, there is a fish in there-hiding behind the red plant in the corner after her exciting day of a ride in the car and a new home:)

We even celebrated with a goldfish breakfast! A PBJ cut out into a goldfish (a circle for the body and a heart for the tail), then covered with orange carrot 'scales'. The eye is a dried blueberry and the bubbles are cookie sprinkles.
We'll see how tonight goes! She's tucked in and reading books to Goldie right now, but she was very anxious about being alone in bed again tonight. I think we'll also do a sticker chart where she can earn other fun things for sleeping in her big girl bed. The sticker chart worked great when she started at preschool and there were tears every morning when it was drop off time. I needed to use it for about a month. After that she was used to drop off and we didn't need it anymore.

One thing is for absolute sure. We love her so much and are so proud of her no matter how long it takes! We're going to continue to be patient and do whatever it takes to help her be successful at this next big step:)

You'll never buy pancake mix again.

This is my go-to recipe for home made pancakes. They turn out great every time and the ingredients are things you always have on hand. They taste way better than the box mix kind and you don't need to worry about pancake mix expiring in the pantry if you don't go through it fast enough. The cast of characters:

1 1/4 cup flour

3 t. baking powder

1 T. sugar

1/2 t. salt

1 egg

1 cup milk

2 T. vegetable oil

Directions:

Mix all ingredients with electric hand mixer until mostly smooth. Let batter stand 20 minutes. Then fry 'em up:)

Wilderness Waterpark 2011

We had our second annual trip to the Wilderness Waterpark in Wisconsin Dells last weekend with friends. As expected it was so much fun and we're already making plans for next year:) This year instead of getting all separate rooms, we all shared a 3 bedroom suite and it was so nice with the kids to have the room to spread out and hang out together. There was a kitchen and living room and 3 bedrooms and each family got one bedroom. We arrived Friday evening and stayed until mid afternoon on Sunday and we all played in the waterparks all 3 days. The kids were exhausted after the weekend! (and the parents were a little bit too;) It's an affordable little mini vacation that we plan to keep doing every year as long as the kids are interested and keep enjoying it.

Here is Athena on her favorite 'green slide'.

Alton was a total water baby and had a blast in the baby areas at each of the 3 indoor waterparks at the resort.

Handsome surfer dude!

Look out below!
Daddy and Alton taking a Cheeto break:)

The 3 big girls goofing around:)

Our crew for the weekend:) Ages 2, 5, 4, 1, 4, 1

We're already looking forward to our 2012 trip back!