Christmas, part 3 - with the Bixler's and Day's

Our last and final celebration is with my mom's family and sister.  Everyone came to our house this year and we made Christmas dinner.  Then the girls got to open the last of all the gifts.  A busy holiday season but alas we made it through the Christmas season yet again.  Here's a few more to share!

Christmas morning, just us and the girls

Of course, here are some of the pictures from Christmas morning with just Jason, Rylee, Marissa and me.  I absolutely love watching the girls open their presents and they are so good at not arguing over who got what.  I look forward to the day that Jason and I have the extra money laying around to buy gifts for one another as I do enjoy getting him gifts.  However, for the last 5 years we've given that up to be able to give the girls a nice Christmas!

Christmas, part 2 - with the Diehl's and Day's

Our 2nd celebration this year was with my dad's family and my sister.  We celebrated with them on Christmas Eve, Saturday the 24th.  Every year since I've became an adult, Christmas Eve has been reserved for them.  I use to just go down in the evenings but as I get older and cherish my time with my dad, Jason and I make an effort to spend more of the day with them for this holiday.  Here's some pictures from Christmas Eve at my dad's house.

Christmas, part 1 - with the Barmore's and Hannon's

As we do every year we celebrate Christmas 3 times outside of our very small gift exchange with just the girls.  That happens on Christmas morning with Jason and I giving the gifts we got for the girls to them and them opening their Santa gift.  Santa leaves them one gift each and then Daddy & Mommy get them each 3 or 4.  They also each have picked out one gift for each other, though right now we still help Marissa with this.  Rylee has gotten pretty good at picking out a gift for Marissa.  The first celebration this year was with Jason's parents and sister's family.  We did this on the Friday before Christmas (12/23).  Here are some pictures from that evening!

Rylee and Marissa's dance

Well as I mentioned Rylee is doing her dance class now.  She is actually liking this much more then she did the gymnastics.  This is through the West Shore Rec Center as well and again is ages 3-5, so she is one of the older girls in the class.  She is doing a little bit of ballet and a little bit of tap, but it's all geared down to her age group.  It's fun to watch her do this!

Marissa also started her class which is KinderTots.  Her class is only for 2 year olds and is a combination of gymnastics and dance.  She seems to like the tumbling part a little more, but she sure does enjoy dance around and singing the songs!  Lots of fun in her class as well :)

Thanksgiving weekend

Thankfully there was a nice weather for this Thanksgiving weekend as we got to take the girls to visit with Grandma and Pappy and they even got to run around in the backyard for a little while.  Lots of fun playing with Pappy and the "fetch" toy :).  The girls enjoyed chasing it down!

Apple Harvest Festival 2011

Oh how I love fall!!!!  And what better way to enjoy fall then the Apple Harvest Festival.  We decided to take the girls this year along with my sister.  We also meet my aunt and nan out there.  It was a lot of fun and we made some memories with the girls.  What was even better was remember some of the memories my sister and I had of going when we were kids.

We went through the petting zoo, did some arts & crafts, built a scarecrow, took a hayride, rode a pony (just Rylee), did some shopping, and of course ate some yummy food! Here are some of the pictures from our day. Looking forward to more fall activities...

The other nice part of this day was that it was our 6th anniversary.  So I had a completely enjoyable day with my husband and making memories with my family that were similar to my own childhood memories!

Rylee's gymnastics

On Monday, September 12th Rylee has started a gymnastics program.  Jason and I have talked on numerous occasions about how we should get the kids involved in things.  So we finally did.  For 6 weeks, Rylee will attend KinderGym on Monday nights.  She is really enjoying this so far and is doing very well with the other kids.  It's quite a range of kids (ages 3-5) but she adjusts well and deals with the younger ones who don't do quite as well with rules and lines.

Yesterday, her Aunt Christie came along to watch Rylee at gymnastics and she even took some pictures to send to us. 

Stay tuned for some more as after this ends both girls will be involved in activities.  Starting November 3rd, Rylee will be doing KinderDance and Marissa will be doing KinderTots.  It should be very interesting!