Winter Break

Our winter break was very fun and we enjoyed every minute. This particular afternoon the kids were dressed up over their pjs.
We had Payton and Parker over for some gingerbread decorating.



Josie found a new favorite spot at Grandma and Grandpa's house - their dog's kennel and Ian joined her for the "fun" of sitting behind bars.
On Christmas Eve we enjoyed our little nativity play and Josie was an adorable Mary. Ian delivered quite the line as the inn keeper (when asked by Mary if she could stay there, he replied, "no. There's no room. Go sleep in the manger with the sheep.") and Rachel tried to wow the audience with her rendition of British-accent Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
All in all, Brady and Kassia are going to miss out next year when they're in Hawaii for Christmas.
We headed home and the kids opened their Christmas Eve presents of new pajamas. Ian was weird in every picture...


The big day finally arrived and the kids loved opening fun presents.
Josie is a charmer. Here she is singing a snippet of her favorite Christmas song this year and the ever popular Jingle Bells.
Fun stuff!
Yippee!
Justin made his delicious crepes and we had everyone for breakfast.
The Easy Bake oven has been a hit (no we're not frying Rachel's head in this picture).
And Josie's dress-ups have been put to use.
Rachel hosted a tea party where she baked quite a few of the refreshments. The Green Lantern made an appearance as well as a couple of cute neighbors.
Justin took a whole day to put together this great loft bed for Rachel. It also has a desk that pulls out from underneath - our girl has been in heaven.
Josie is growing a little more hair and had fun with her Daddy one night.

Rachel has been putting her new telescope and microscope to good use.
And Josie tried to pack herself away with the Christmas decorations.
The others thought it looked like fun too.
Ian and Josie have been playing a lot more together lately. They insisted that we document this fact.
And our girl has "big girl hair" in that we are able to put it in an elastic. Even though it's hard to tell in this picture, she was pretty excited about her new 'do.
We had fun cousins visit for New Years and to say goodbye to Brady and Kassia. The iPad was the best babysitter ever.
Grandma made a great treasure hunt for the kids with these fun animals at the end.
And since there was no snow Justin concocted the insane idea that we slip-n-slide at the stroke of midnight. Yes, Ian and Rachel voluntarily participated and we had a ton of very cold fun.
We finally got snow this week and Rachel put this snowgirl together by herself. Her siblings jumped in the picture to enjoy the spotlight.

Our big news is that Rachel starts at a new school tomorrow in a Chinese immersion program. There is a big waiting list for Kindergarten and Second Grade (this is only the second year of the program), but there was a random opening in First and so we jumped at the chance. She is more excited than anyone and we hope that she'll be able to catch up and enjoy this new opportunity. We hope that everyone had a great winter break!