Our Christmas Tradition

Every family creates their own holiday traditions. Some traditions stick from your childhood and some are all new. Our new tradition started last year and is a mix of old and new. When I was little, I used to draw a giant Christmas tree out of paper and hang it in my room and decorate however I wanted. I loved it. When I was much older (but still single), I would have a themed tree every year but my lovely husband didn't like that idea so much. So... we have adapted both versions to where the girls get to pick a theme to decorate their very own Christmas tree to have in their room. Last year's tree was fairy themed. This year, after a lot of compromise and deliberation, the girls settled on a mermaid tree.

The top 3 contenders were... A crown tree, a princess tree, and the mermaid tree. In addition to the compromise on the theme, was the compromise of the color. Since the fairy tree last year was mostly pink, Ryan let Charlie pick purple as the accent color to the aqua blue ocean. Yesterday, we had to visit two stores to find just the right accessories for the mermaid tree and then first thing this morning, the girls and I got to work on our masterpiece!

Charlie showed Mommy exactly where she wanted her ornaments to be hung. Now mind you, that everything has to be fair... I had to divide up the ornaments EXACTLY so that each girl got to place the same number of ornaments!

But then Charlie tried to sneak over to Ryan's pile and steal a few! Oh that Charlie!

Ta - Da!! The finished product!

We hope everyone enjoys getting ready for the holidays as much as we do!

Lots to be Thankful For

This Thanksgiving was easy, cozy, and mellow this year with lots of laughs and good conversation to fill the room. The Kudron side of the family joined us at our house for the Thanksgiving feast. It was sure delicious and as much as I'd like to take credit for the yummy food, I can't do that! I haven't quite been brave enough to learn how to cook Thanksgiving dinner which is why taking pictures of my table is so much fun... the decorating was the most effort I had to put into the holiday and of course, the most fun part of preparing too! Don't get me wrong, I desperately want to learn... but this year just wasn't going to be the year! My parents brought the appetizers. Mike and Nancy brought dessert. And the catering company took care of everything in between.
And for right now in my life,
that's certainly something to be thankful for :-)

The grown up sat in the dining room and enjoyed our meal while the little girls had their own Thanksgiving table in the kitchen. Steve had to leave the party early to get to bed and I hate that I did not get even one picture of him before he turned in! Sorry honey!

After dinner we had lots of time to chat and hang out!

It has now become tradition that Nonna likes to try to get her Christmas card photo of the girls on or around Thanksgiving time. She is learning more and more about toddlers every year. This is a picture of her bribing them with money to smile for the pictures! LOL!

Looks like the money did the trick Nonna!

We all have so much to be grateful for!
Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!

2008 Corn Feast

Wednesday was the Grace Family's THIRD Corn Feast (same songs, same food, same gig all together) but it was Charlie's first as an actual participant! She has been there in the past to cheer on Ryan but this year she got to be in costume too! She was so proud! And with Ryan being one of the oldest kids on campus, she loved being in the "back row"... Ryan thought that part was cool!

First they walk the "Sacred Circle" a few times. Lots of drumming and Indian hollers (and camera flashes of course). They circled the room 3 or 4 times to make sure all the parents got the pictures they wanted.

Usually the Corn Feast is out on the lawn but because of the rain the day before, it was just too muddy and wet. They moved the festivities into the church hall. This worked out fine. After the Sacred Circle, all the kids ended up on stage to sing their Thanksgiving songs.

Afterward, we headed outside to attempt to get a picture of the girls in their costumes. Have you ever seen someone make smiling look so difficult???

That's better Char-Char!
Good job on your first Corn Feast Big Girl!
And good job to you Ryan on watching out for your sister and helping her learn all the songs!

Girl Power Weekend

"Girl Power Weekend" is what we call the weekend when daddy is out of town and it's just us girls home to fend for ourselves. We all miss daddy dearly when he is away, but I gotta tell ya... we always make the most of our girl's weekends. We make messes. We are really loud. We have friends over. We run around the house screaming. All things that are difficult to do with daddy's work schedule. Plus, all the extra fun helps the girls pass the time so they don't miss daddy so much. If I let there be any down time at all, they remember that daddy is away and there are lots of tears! Busy is certainly better.
This is how we busied ourselves this time...

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We had sisters, Keira and Maya, over for lunch and a playdate after school on Friday. They are so cute because Keira is in Charlie's class and Maya is in Ryan's class. They are the only sibling pairs like this in the school this year and they all play together so well. This is Keira in this the picture, Maya was busy with the castle in the next room.

We went out for sushi with Auntie T on Friday night.

We had lunch and a playdate at the park with Cousin Katie and Cousin Cameron on Saturday morning. Don't let this picture fool you, Cameron sure is RUNNING around like you wouldn't believe!

Finally, we had Kendall over Saturday for the afternoon.
All the girls played so well together. First we played dress up. Look at the disaster mess of the dress up clothes! (Whew-wee... Steve would have NEVER let that happen! Hee-Hee! We loved it!)

Then, we read "Tea for Ruby" and had our very own tea party. Mommy even pretended to be the Queen of England/waitress. Pretty funny sight since I am horrrrible with accents! Thankfully only toddlers were the audience!


Next, each girl got to bake their own heart-shaped cake. This is them washing their hands before the baking began. Proof that the cakes were edible (at least until Charlie licked her own frosting of course!)

We painted a craft!

And finally took rides in the girls' battery operated car up and down, up and down, up and down the street before we ended the afternoon with the frosting of the cakes!

Can you believe we did all that in just 3 hours! It made me remember what it is like to be in the classroom... exhausting but so much fun and certainly rewarding!

We missed you daddy. I swear! (Don't let all the fun fool you!!!)

Our Lucky Day

The day after Thanksgiving, our neighbor came knocking on our door at 8:00 telling us that his son was sick and wondering if we could use their tickets to The Backyardigans show. Steve who had just gotten home from work an hour earlier almost said, "no thank you" with some big excuse attached to it until I jumped in and stopped him! I said, "SURE!! Absolutely!" We thanked him and he went back to home to his sick child and almost immediately I regretted my enthusiasm! I knew I wasn't going to make Steve go because he was exhausted and I thought this would be good for us to get out of the house so he could sleep in peace. I started to think about the drive to the Nokia theater in LA. And the parking. And the million kids. And trying to get my two through the crowds. But... with tickets in hand, I sucked it up, hurried to get ready and were out the door in an hour.
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Turns out... it was the luckiest day ever. Every move we made turned out to be the right one and the most exciting.

First, they had given us a parking pass for one of the lots but I turned into the wrong one. You'd think that was bad but it wasn't. The parking attendant said that he would not only take my pass for the other lot but that I could valet for an extra $15. Score!!! Steve taught me well. Never turn down an opportunity to valet with two toddlers in the car and no other adult help. Noboby else was at valet so I was nervous that I was in the wrong place. When I asked how to get to the theater, the guy said, "Just go through that entrance right there" and pointed to like a back custodial entrance. Low and behold, me and the girls entered WITHIN the paparazzi ropes. All the fans were behind the ropes snapping photos of Tori Spelling and family and the Backyardigan characters and there were me and the girls... right there with them. Literally, it was like we were supposed to go up next for our paparazzi photo shoot and interview. If I had been a little more brave I really might have jumped up there with the girls and gave it a shot! LOL.

So obviously by our first few moments, it won't surprise you that we have stumbled into the VIP area with celebrities and gift bags and fancy free food. The girls got very plush gift bags and mommy got danishes and coffee. People that I didn't recognize but I'm sure others would have were getting interviewed with their kiddos in every corner of the room. I just kept laughing to myself at how lucky we were to have stumbled into this fun scene.

Plus we had great seats and when the girls got bored during intermission, they had their handy-dandy new gift bag toys to play with! Heaven for mommy!

After the show, we tried to scramble back down to valet thinking it was going to be packed with families. This is when I really realized how truly lucky we were. When I tried to go down the escalator, the attendant said, "I need to see your VIP pass to go down there." I said, "Uhhh, I don't have one those but that is where I parked. I have my valet ticket." Begrudgingly she said, "Fine" but I don't think she was all to happy about it. Anyway, I walked out to valet and NO ONE, I mean NO ONE was in line for valet. Millions of people upstairs trying to get out but NO ONE at the oh so secret valet! We zoomed out and were home in 30 minutes! Best and luckiest toddler show experience ever! The Gods were looking down us on that day!

Halloween Night

Halloween with toddlers isn't quite what I remember of the holiday from my mid-twenties! haha! But... I have to say, we had a really fun time...kids and all! Our friends, the Scotts, had a Halloween party and we spent the evening there. We loved that it was a weekend night and we didn't have to rush home to get the kids to bed for school the next day like we have had to do in the past. Our neighborhood has a lot of kids so it's already lots of fun to watch all the kids in their costumes but this year was extra special being at the Scotts. The Scott's next door neighbors put out the full Pirates of the Carribean decor and show to match. It was truly awesome and the kids spent a ton of time hanging out with the pirates!

Here is some of the decor at a glance before the sun went down. The canons on the boat and balcony shot CO2 and the pirates and wenches walked around yelling very pirate-y things and handing out gold coins to all the kiddies.

Here is "Captain Morgan" with Kyle Scott, Kendall Scott, and Ryan
(Charlie was too scared for a picture.)

Ryan posed by the pirate ship

Captain Morgan had all his friends there in pirate costumes playing the part. It was like being at Disneyland.

Before trick-or-treating, Kendall helped Ryan and Charlie to do their makeup.

Ryan and Kendall are waiting for all the other kids to catch up. They went so fast to the first few houses. That was very, very, very hard for them. There were about 9 or 10 kids in our group so it was hard to keep them all together.
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Like I said... not exactly the kind of Halloween party from the twenty-somethings but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Plus... the Scotts had plenty of "witches brew" to make the screeching voices not seem so terribly loud!! LOL

Teddy Bear School's Halloween Parade

This was Charlie first experience in one of Teddy Bear School's parades. She has been a wonderful spectator in the past but she was thrilled to get to be an actual participant this year. This Halloween was a little different than the past two at school in that they used to BRING their costumes and changes right before the parade. This year they got to WEAR their costume all day! Oh brother! What a disaster! By the time the parade started (let alone trick-or-treat time that night) Ryan's peacock feathers were destroyed and Charlie was one filthy-broken winged purple fairy. Mommy spent the afternoon trying to doctor up the costumes before the Halloween party we attended that night! Oh well, they loved it.

Unless you have toddler little girls, you probably need the 411 on the costumes the girls chose this year. Ryan is Barbie Island Princess. Princess Ro has peacock feathers and lives amongst the animals on a beautiful deserted island and somehow meets an amazingly gorgeous prince out in the middle of nowhere! Charlie's explanation is a little simpler... Charlie loves purple. And Charlie loves fairies. So Charlie wanted to be a purple fairy. She picked out all the accessories. She didn't wear them all to school but she had a crown with purple jewels, a purple wand, even a purple mask. Her purple shoes were my favorite.

Here is Charlie's first go around at the parade. She was such a proud pre-schooler!

Charlie sitting pretty and following directions ready to sing "5 Little Pumpkins."

It's days like these that truly makes us love this preschool. It such a small town feel and all the parents take off of work to show up and watch with their cameras! The kids feel like celebrities!