Snow much fun!

We  had our first real sticking snow about a week ago and the girls had a blast playing in it.

 This is their first snowman.  They were very proud of him.

 The first one started to fall so with Bella's help they made this one.  He lasted a while and the bottom of him stuck around for a while.

 Despite what the weather may be outside this is what Bella wears any chance she gets.  I get her up and dressed in the morning and the minute my back is turned she will undress and put on a dance dress, she is such a girly girl.

 Yesterday we were blasted with another mighty snow storm.  After James shoveled the drive he decided to play with the kids.  They had snowball fights.  And in traditional James fashion he taught them how to fight, i.e. to hit the other person when they are down, and or not looking.  The kids had a great time!

 He really gets into his shots.

 Someone always ends up crying though.

 No he's not comforting her, he's putting more snow on her despite the tears.

 He really is a nice dad, he is comforting her now.

 Bella decided to get in on the action.

 One of our neighbors saw the fun and got into the fight as well.  Apparently she has some skills with the snowballs, James said she pelted him pretty well.  She was also devilish in her attacks, she eventually took a snow shovel and would chuck snow on him, and then on his freshly shoveled driveway, just to get his goat.

 Isn't she a cute little snow baby!

 Yay! She got daddy.

 Lest you think we forgot about Handsome, here he is as well.  I love how babies sleep with their arms up over their heads.

New Family Photos

Thanks to a wonderful friend we have some great photos again this year.

Family photo 2010

Annika

Arabella

Jonathan

 

MacKayla

 

All of the kids together.  I was going to try to find one where Bella had her hands down, but this is more of her personality - she has to be the focus of everyone.

 

I  love this sweet picture, my handsome men!

He is the cutest little guy around.

Just being Bella

Arabella is a funny kid.  She cracks me up with the way she treats the world and how she sees life.  As the youngest of three girls, she is the bossiest, the most vocal and the most forceful.  There will be no holding her back in life.  One of my favorite things that she does, when she doesn't hurt others doing it, is to walk with her elbows out and push her way through anything; it's cute to see.

As Bella has such a strong personality, somethings she gets upset when things don't go her way.  She is a serious snacker and rarely likes to eat a real meal.  Well I have been trying to break her of that.  This morning she had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a cheese stick for a snack about a half hour later. Well, a few minutes after she finished it she came to me asking for more snacks.  I told her she needed to wait until lunch, an hour away.  She looked at me and gave me her most pouty face and stalked off.  I heard her go sit in the living room at that point and mutter "fine I not play with you anymore."  I started laughing at that point and had to call James to share with him.  When she heard me repeat it to him she continued to tell me that she was "not gonna play with you anymore."

What a character!

Halloween

Two posts in one day, wow a record :)

We had a lot of fun with Halloween this year.  James and I were invited to an adult costume party and we decided to go all out.  As James works with nuclear fuel we get asked a lot about radiation exposure (of which he gets hardly any at all) so he wanted to play off of that.  We came up with being radioactive zombies.   The jumpsuits are similar to the ones that nuclear workers wear, and the taped on gloves as well.

 

Zombie James

 This is his scary face

 My scary face.

 Evil zombie.

 I made a scary face at Bella and she freaked out.  She had watched me put the makeup on but I guess it still freaked out.  The older girls wanted to pretend to be scared as well, so here they are showing off their scared faces.

This year we asked the girls what they wanted to be for Halloween and they wanted to go with Star Ward again so that Johnny could be Darth Vader.  So here is our whole nerdy Star Ward family.  James is Obi-Wan Kinobi, I am a Jedi, Annika is Padme, MacKayla is Ahsoka (from the Clone Wars), Arabella is Leia, and Johnny is Vader.

 We had fun with Pumpkins as well they are as follows: Dad/Johnny - Storm Trooper, Mom/Bella - Pooh Bear, Vampire Jack-o-lantern - MacKayla, Happy Jack-o-lantern - Annika.

Annika's birthday

I'm a little behind, but Annika had her sixth birthday a few weeks ago.  Sometimes it seems like she is so much older, but at other times I can't believe how fast the time has gone.

Annika is a fun kid to be around.  She is funny, loves to laugh and is very kind.  I can always count on her to nice to her little brother and sister and most of the time to her older sister as well.  She loves to be moving, she has really been loving this great weather lately and has been playing outside for hours every day.  This year she officially joined the Jump Rope Club at school (I say officially becusae she came with me all of last year, but wasn't a student yet) and just this week she was able to pass off her first task of 25 single jumps.  She worked everyday on this and was very proud when she was able to do it.  She is also working hard at school and loves her teachers and learning new things.

For Annika's birthday this year she decided to go with a Halloween theme.  For her cake she had seen the commercials for a BigTop Cupcake and really wanted that.  It came out okay, but I think she was a bit disappointed that it wasn't as cool as on TV, although mostly that was because her mom has no cake skills.  It seems that we also forgot to get a picture of it, we have it on the camcorder but no photos, oops!  She was also able to have friends over this year and she had a blast playing and hanging out with them. 

 Here are the kids enjoying dinner.

 Annika being silly.

 Opening present from her friends.

More presents.

We are so glad to have Annika in our family and love the happiness she shares with all of us.  Happy 6th Birthday Annika!