Rodolf the Red nosed Raindeer

Brent and I have been messing with our new web cam. Here is a video of Him and Aspen singing.

Disneyworld!

For Christmas this year Grandma and Grandpa Culbertson took us to Disney World. We spent an entire day at the Magic Kingdom and had a blast! G&G and Uncle Brad went with us.

The most important part of the trip to Aspen was that we were going to where the Princesses lived. We told her she might even get to talk to and hug some of them and she would go crazy talking about it! Here are a few pics of her with the Princesses.
Ariel was the first one we got to see. Look at that cute pose!

We then waited for about 1/2 hour to see 3 princesses at once. There we saw...

Snow White

Belle

This is Belle and Aspen playing Peek-a-boo with Ella.

And Cinderella.

We had to drag Aspen along from Princess to Princess because she just wanted to chit chat with them all day long! She loved meeting them and said Belle was her favorite.


The boys got into a little trouble in the park....had to be restrained for awhile ;).

Aspen and I watched a show about Dreams coming true. It has Mikey and Friends, Princesses, Pirates, and even a Villain or two! Aspen loved it. It was also the only chance we had to see Sleeping Beauty that day.

Aspen watching the show.

Waiting for the Parade to start.

This is on "It's a Small World". Ella's face never changed through the entire boat ride. She couldn't get enough of it!

You can just see us in the second back row. Aspen is riding on the outside horse (Harry) , Ella and I are in the middle (Hennerietta) and Brad on the inside (poor nameless horsey)

Waiting for the Teacup ride to start.

Ella conked out as we were heading in for some lunch. She slept for about 15-20 minutes and that was the extent of her napping for the day.

Here's Brent and Brad in front of Cinderella's Castle. Sadly, my camera pooped out right before they turned on all the Christmas lights on the Castle. Apparently Cinderella wanted the Castle to look like her glass slipper. It is draped in white lights and is very beautiful. I'll have to work on getting a pic of it!
Thank you so much G&G Culbertson for a great day at Disneyworld!

Believe it or not, this is NOT all of my pictures, but I'm sure you get the idea. Hope you all have a great Christmas Holiday!

ABC TAG

A--Attached or Single: Attached for over 4 1/2 years!
B--Best Friend: My Husband
C--Cake or Pie: Cake
D--Day of Choice: Fridays-really Friday afternoon/evenings
E--Essential Item: sun glasses
F--Favorite Color: Purple
G--Greatest Accomplishment: My two beautiful Daughters
H--Hometown: I was born in Portales, New Mexico but claim South Jordan, Ut as my hometown
I--Indulgences: sweets
J--January or July: January (especially since moving to FL!)
K--Kids: Aspen Elizabeth, Ella Mae, and Dane
L--Life is incomplete without: Family
M--Marriage Date: April 2, 2004
N--Number of Siblings: 4 Keith, Heather, Kimberly, Adam
O--Oranges or Apples: Apples
P--Phobias or fears: Tragedy in my family
Q--Quotes: "All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny." The Family: A Proclamation to the World.
R--Reason to Smile: kids, mine and all others I come in contact with!
S--Season: Winter-Florida Style
T--Tag 5 Friends: anyone who wants to do this!
U--Unknown facts about me: One of my favorite things to do, no matter the season, is buy things for other people! I have to be forced to buy for myself, but when it comes to ANYONE else I could spend spend spend!
V--Very favorite store: Joann's
W--Worst habit: Stress Eating
X--X-ray or Ultra Sound: never had an x-ray...ultrasounds gave me my first peak at my babies and helped us know they were still healthy and strong.
Y--Your favorite food: Anything Italian
Z--Zodiac: Tarus

Our Christmas Corner

Since we have always been renting, we don't have many decorations, but we have our little 'Christmas Corner' in our Front room and little decorations through out the house.

Brent, Sara, Aspen
Dane, Ella, Jules
I haven't gotten to the names on the stockings yet but will hopefully get that done this week. The are in order of coming into our family (except Jules because her's faces the opposite way of mine and Brent's causing all sorts of decorating trouble!)

This is our little 4 ft tree that I was sad to have to get a few years ago because I wanted a nice big one. Now, two kids and a dog later, I've never been more grateful for this little tree and being able to put it up on a table!

Aspen's Dress

I know the quality of the picture isn't very good, they are from Brent's phone. I had to get pics of Aspen in her Winter/Christmas dress. She loves this dress and says it turns her into a princess. What kills me is that I had to get it in the Girls section instead of the toddlers! She is very excited to wears her dress as many times a possible before she out grows it!

Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! We had a great day together as a family. Dane is spending his holiday weekend with his family so it was just Brent, me, Aspen, and Ella. We had a great dinner all our food was wonderful, Brent and I love to cook Thanksgiving Dinner. The girls favorite part was Brent's dumplings. Later that afternoon we went over to a friends house for pie.
Friday morning at 4:15 am I headed out with all the crazies. I went to Wal-Mart, Target, and Joann's and got some great deals. I actually almost completely finished my Christmas shopping in those few hours. Now we have the Christmas Decorations up and even presents under the tree (thanks to Granna and Grandpa's trip earlier this month bringing some of their gifts with them). The girls love to see the Christmas tree with it's lights on. It's funny having grown up with a real tree I was very anti-artificial tree. Now that we live in Florida we decided to convert to a 'fake' tree for safety reasons (plus the real ones either don't look healthy or are exspensive)! Now that we have been using our little 3 foot tree for 3 years now I don't think I'll ever go back! I love being able to put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving and keep it up till New Years and I really love NOT having to put the lights on it!
Well now that you've all heard my thoughts on Christmas tree.....I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, a blessed Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

Elf Yourself

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Luvys

I have always been a big fan of children having a luvy. Aspen became attached to her Ducky at an early age, and he is still luvy #1 (along with blankie) Ellas trek to luvyhood is a different story however. She also has a blankie that she loves and sleeps with and she was showing partiallity to a baby doll of Aspens. So, Granna and Grandpa Smith got her her very own baby doll for her 1st Birthday. She loves this doll and does sleep with it, but over the past few days I've seen a trend and an apprent #1 luvy standing out. Ella loves-and I mean LOVES-her shoes. She demands that I put them on her right after I change her diaper in the morning, she must hold them if I have to changer her diaper or her pants for any reason, and if I neglect to put them on her she crawls around with them following me. Oh and did I mention, she naps with them on! It was the only way I could get her to go down yesterday! So it appears that my crazy daughter's crazy luvy is SHOES. And these are not soft soled little slipper shoes, she has sandles, black shiny sunday shoes, and her favorites are her pink velcro sneakers! What am I going to do with these crazy children of mine!

At 1 year....

At 1 year Aspen was
28 in and 18 1/2 lbs
Wasn't walking yet
Said "Mommy, Daddy, WaWa, Apple"

At 1 Year Ella is
29 in and 16 1/2 lbs
Isn't walking but probably could be!
Says "Mama, Dada"

Both girls were/are amazingly friendly little girls.
I can't believe how lucky we've been to have two such amazing girls in our family!

Ella's Frist Year

Here's my little baby all through her first year! I can't believe how time flies. She is becoming such a cute little girl and less a baby every day. Hope you enjoy.
PS there is music if you want to turn your speakers on :)

Silly Silly Aspen

I'm sure many of you remember Aspen's 'cow' dress up game....

"MOOOO"

Now we have a new member of Aspen's clothing imagination....Meet Pirate Aspen "ARGGG" Don't ask me where she got this one from either, to me it's just a odd as the cow! But my adorable silly little Aspen got stuck undressing last night and decided that this made her a pirate!

"ARGG!"

New Play Group!

Today we had our first meet up with a new playgroup we've joined in our area. We went to a Cheer/dance studio and got to play on their tramps, in their foam pit, and they had a big bounce house with a huge slide the kids loved!

Miss Tina was the worker there and she was great with the kids, she ran all around with them and kept them very entertained.
Miss Tina, Aspen, Ella, Ethan, Gabe, and Phia

Parachute Phia, Kyndal, Aspen

Heading up the big slide, over and over and over again.
Aspen, Catherine, and Gabe




Aspen loved to jump on the tramp, she actually get pretty confident on it and was getting some pretty good air!
Catherine, Beth, Ethan, Aspen


Ella crawling across the tramp. Amazingly she didn't get stepped on once, thats better then at home! Kyndal, Catherine, Gabe and Ella


Ella and one of our new friends Sophia (called Phia)

Enjoying the Low 80's and high 70's!

Here are some of our decorations on our lani.

Ella Loves to chase balls around.

Hollering at each other, but all in good fun. They love to make as much noise as possible!

Pig Tails!

I have officially been able to get both my girls into pig tails BEFORE their first birthday! Ella was jealous of all the time I've been spending on Aspen's hair so we did a quick 'up do' for church yesterday. She did really well only fusing a little and never pulling on them, they lasted through all of church, her nap, and until bed time-taking them out wasn't as peaceful however.

Dane's Birthday

Dane's 17th Birthday was on Saturday, he had a competition with the Marching Band that day so we gave him he presents and took him to lunch at Iguana Mia's, then had his birthday cake on Sunday. Sadly I didn't have everything I thought I did, so he got just a boring chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, but I promised him a Batman cake for his 18th birthday!

We got a really good deal on two mountain bikes (thanks Craig's List!!) for 'family' use, but for his birthday we gave Dane some things to keep up and tune up the bikes.