A Little January Update (and January Preschool)

A few random pictures....

I think one of Carolyn's biggest passion in life is people. She loves people. Loves her family (us and extended). Loves her friends. Most everyday she asks me which of her friends gets to come over to play. She just can't get enough of the friends and family she loves.
Angela is obsessive about makeup. We had a few problems with her getting into my makeup so for Christmas she got her very own makeup. In the morning while I am getting ready, she just loves to pull out her own makeup kit with me and get all pretty (luckily the makeup is cheap so the eyeshadow all over her face only stays there for a couple of hours). In addition, she almost always insists wearing pants with pockets in it so she can carry her lip gloss around and reapply every minute or so :)
I thought I'd post some of our favorite preschool activities from this month...

This one was a big hit - MONSTER FEET! I drew some monster feet and put them on top of Angela's slippers. Then I set up blocks with different letters on them. Angela had to go over and kick over the block labeled with the right letter/sound of letter I would call out. You can tape whatever you want on the blocks...numbers, words, whatever concept you want to work on...I think we'll be doing this one a lot in months to come with both girlies.


Letters in the muffin tins. I taped little papers labeled with various letters in our muffin tins and had Angela match up her magnetic letters to the letter in the pan. I wasn't expecting her to be too excited about this activity, but she actually loves it.
Carolyn uses the magnetic letters/muffin tins to make up her own words.

I wanted to work on putting words in alphabetical order with Carolyn. What I did was tape papers with various words onto building blocks. I had Carolyn order the words in ABC order by connecting the blocks together.

Carolyn just loves this activity...and it's great for me, too. Often Carolyn will ask, "How do you spell......??" So, I made her an alphabet book that she can refer to while she does her writing. I just stapled papers together. Then on the right side, I cut just about all the way to the top and wrote the letter "A"...then on the next sheet, I left a little more space to write the letter "B." (hopefully this makes sense - see the picture). We put some of her favorite words to write on the pages (according to the beginning letter) so she can refer to it when she writes.
On some of the pages, she'd just write the word and then draw a simple picture of the word...
....or it can be more elaborate....(L - love- picture of her and dad)...
On most of the pages, she'd just write a list of her favorite words starting with the letter...

We Heart Andrew

We just love our Andrew around here. He works soooo hard for us and still finds time to spend with us. It's not even unusual to find Daddy playing barbies and baby dolls with the girls. We think we have the best guy around :) On Sunday, I walked in the family room and found these two snuggling while taking an afternoon nap together... Holding hands as they snuggled....

Christmas of 2010 (and lots more)!!!

December was awesome! The girls and I spent almost a month in Utah with Andrew joining us for a couple of weeks. It was great and even Angela did amazing at sleeping and adjusting to a different life for a month. The biggest reason we were out there for a month was to see these two get married: (The amazing photo is by my dad - he took some great engagement pics). They were married on December 18th - I thought everything turned out so perfectly! My camera has some major issues so I left the picture taking to Andrea's wedding photographer. She won't get her wedding pictures until March so pics of her looking SO beautiful in her dress (and me looking extremely pregnant...I know you're so disappointed) will not get posted til Spring. But, like I said- it was all so beautiful and just perfect. I did take a few pics of the girls on the big day...





For a couple of weeks, I had so much fun spending time at my family's house....Carolyn got in a lot of Jaxon time (and I got in a lot of Michelle-time (my sister) - which is always needed :)


A couple nights in Utah were spent at This is the Place. It's so fun to be there at Christmas time. There is a live nativity scene.....
Some of Santa's reindeer...
A train ride and much more....

One of the nights we were at This is the Place was for my sister's reception and the other night was for my dad's extended family Christmas party. For the Ashton Party, my girls got to play an angel and Mary in the nativity scene...(I just love Angela's big, blue eyes)...

Carolyn sure made a beautiful Mary :)


Christmas was wonderful! On Christmas Eve, we baked a lot of goodies to enjoy (Andrew's family is made up of some amazing cooks), sang Christmas songs around the piano, ate a delicious meal, acted out the story of baby Jesus, looked at some amazing Christmas lights, and gave a Christmas gift to our Savior. Christmas was so wonderful and spent at both family's houses. The girls got showered with gifts by grandparents and family (Thank you!)...


I love Angela's facial expression here..."Oooo!"
Carolyn has been loving working on her baseball skills since Christmas...
Angela got a few more babies that have been keeping her busy...so many for this little mama to care for...and she gets to them all :)
Angela loves, loves, loves to sing!
Carolyn was a happy girl on Christmas :) I was up Christmas morning at like 3 AM dying for the girls to wake up and see what Santa brought them :)....Christmas just keeps getting better and better.
Singing around the piano :)

Christmas Eve - acting out the story of Baby Jesus...



Andrew was the brains behind the girls' costumes :) It was fun to watch...
Making some sugar cookies...

We also went to a few games while out in Utah. One of them I got to go kid-less. I sure love those girls but it was fun to be able to actually sit there and watch and cheer for the cougs for one of the game. The girls loved the game they got to go to...
Sitting with Grandpa for the big game....we sure love Grandpa!

We did see Santa while out there...unfortunately, we couldn't take a picture of the girls with him. Here are the girls with Dad, Nana, and Ponka after seeing Santa...
I love this sweet girl
We had so much fun while out there...a few times I'd find Angela asleep on the couch at Ponka and Nana's house....which is so not like her...so much fun that she wore herself completely out at times. One of my favorite things about the whole trip was being able to snuggle this little sweety while she napped. Life is so good.
When Carolyn would tell people about going to Grandma's house, she'd usually mention three things. First, the movies Grandma has.... second, the chocolate there and...third, her grandparents (of course). I took this picture of Angela to show how much she loved the hot chocolate there, but it just turned out to be a funny pic....I promise that she was loving it.
I didn't get any pictures of my mom with the girls, but they just love their Grandma. I think one of Carolyn's favorite things about Grandma is the stories she tells. She tells Carolyn and Angela such elaborate stories before the girls go to bed :) We sure love Grandma.

We had fun playing out in the snow...
Snow Angels...
Uncles are the best! Whenever Richard is brought up in discussion, Angela will start to laugh and go on about how funny Richy is. Here are Uncle Johnny, Richy, and the girls are having a snowball fight.
Chasing Richy around...Uncles are the best. For the girls...and me (I get to be lazy and just watch them play while I sit inside the warm house).
Building a snowman...
On New Year's Eve, Chantal and Dave surprised everyone with some fun fireworks and sparklers...here we are at 8pm welcoming the "new year"...



While at Nana and Ponka's house, Nana helped the girls with this beautiful creation...
We were so happy to be able to see so many people while out in Utah. It was esp. fun having great grandma and grandpa at the Kims...we haven't been able to spend a lot of time with them since we moved to Colorado- so it was great to see so much of them. (Carolyn was way too busy admiring the masterpiece to look up for a photo)


Nana was so much fun to be around...the two Carolyns spent over an hour one night where they would read books to eachother. Carolyn loves being named after her Nana :)

Chantal and Dave were also there for the holidays...it was fun to see them...although I feel bad for Dave. The girls are just inlove with him and often express that love by jumping on him, slapping him in the face, tickling him...basically non-stop. They just loved having Chantal and Dave around. Here Chantal is helping the girls with the house.
We loved spending so much time with this guy...


Carolyn just couldn't get enough of the books Grandpa would read to her... (Pictures say a million words in these photos....just look at how Carolyn feels about spending time with her Grandpa....)



The girls reading on their own...us girls just love to read and spend a lot of our days reading together...it was sooo fun to read the books that I grew up with...
One of the days we were out there, we went bowling with Andrew's family. Here is Ponka with his girl. Ponka took each of the girls out seperately on dates while we were out there - they still love talking about those dates with their Ponky. Carolyn always makes it very clear to me that she is "Ponka's Girl."


This is usually how the scoreboard looks in our family when we play....Carolyn and Angela almost beating me in their game and Dad smoking us all :)
We had so much fun out in Utah! A big thank you for everyone for letting us invade your homes, feeding us so much delicious food, and giving us a great time!!! We can't wait to see everyone soon!