Tiffany, Chris and Ava

Rotary Lights!

The camera got left at home...thank goodness for cell phones!! We continued our after Thanksgiving tradition of going to LaCrosse on Friday and going thru the Rotary Lights. The weather was perfect!

We had to get a few selfies while waiting for the carriage to come back to get us and take us thru the lights!

We got to snuggle up with the girls in the carriage and enjoy our ride!

This year it was so nice we decided to walk around the park. It hasn't been nice enough to do that since we've had Ava!

Checking our Santa's sleigh!

My little reindeer!

Last year when we were living with my parents, Sparkles, our elf, sent a replacement elf for the year. She wanted to return when we moved in to our new house (AKA..she was packed and Mommy accidentally sent her to storage!) She was back this year and left a message for the girls in their bathroom the first night. Here are just a few of the silly things Sparkles did this year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was so much better this year...DAD WAS WITH US!!! Last year before Thanksgiving he was admitted to the hospital with a high fever that wouldn't break. The fever turned very serious as he rapidly declined in the hospital. He had every test under the sun performed at least once, saw almost every doctor known to man and we still never found out what exactly was wrong with him. He spent 10 days in the hospital. While we knew it was serious, we didn't find out until weeks later how serious. As dad went to all his follow up doctor's appointments, Dr. Capelli, our forever family doctor and friend, told us he was really scared we were going to lose dad. We found out he even spent the night he was on call in dad's room with him. We are so thankful that we weren't with dad bedside this year, rather we were table side!

Ready to go for dinner!

Ava helped decorate the table.

Having the mesquite turkey back was also another bonus of dad being with us!

Traditional pose...Ava and Papa making grasshoppers.

We gave Gianna a sheet of stickers and she found a way to entertain herself for quite awhile!

I love her little gramma lipped face!

Deck the Halls...

Our plan the Wednesday before Thanksgiving was to get the house and tree completely decorated for Christmas BEFORE leaving for Minnesota after Thanksgiving. Gianna was so tired, she went to bed early, so we skipped decorating the tree. Ava helped me to get other decorations out though. She hung our new stockings. (Yes, she is wrapped with plastic wrap. She thinks it's hilarious to wrap herself in it when we take it off the tree to set the tree up.)

I love our new stockings!

I also filled our new tote with all of the books to help us count down the days until Christmas. I think this is my favorite thing to do with the girls!

After we were done decorating, Ava layed on her belly and just stared at the tree. I couldn't help but snap this shot. It also made me teary, because I am so thankful and blessed to be able to spend our first Christmas in our new home. We worked (and are still working) our tails off to make our dream come true. The holiday season is a little more special to us this year because we are in the home we worked so hard for!

Ava's Birthday at the Ice Plex

We had Ava's birthday party at the Ice Plex this year. She wanted a Frozen themed party, so ice skating seemed fitting! We invited our family and friends. It was so fun to see some of Ava's friends from school and Miss Zivka's again.

Katrina made Ava's cake again this year and did a fabulous job like always!

We had to get the traditional picture of Ava and Addy!

My camera was being goofy (go figure...part of the other reason blogging has been difficult...a camera with a problem doesn't make taking pictures very easy!) so I didn't get good pictures of everyone, but the kids seemed to have so much fun skating. We were so lucky that our friend Brian was there! He manages the Ice Plex and let us have the open rink all to ourselves so we didn't have to be part of the open skate. The kids got the buckets to help them skate then too.

The LaGrange family made the trek down to attend Ava's party!

Ava's new friend from school, Olivia, was able to join us!

Ava wanted so badly to skate without the bucket. Brian took her for a spin around the rink. His hockey skills make him more stable than the rest of us!

Ava was also excited that her friend, Mogan, from Miss Zivka's was able to come to her party!

Happy 5th Birthday, Ava!

Once again, I have been horrible with keeping up with the blog! Work, the girls and my Thirty-One business have been occupying all of my time! My new year's resolution is to do better with this again!! On November 17th, we got to celebrate Ava's 5th birthday! I can't believe my sweet girl is already 5 years old! I got to decorate her new bedroom door this year!

She didn't know what to think when I started yelling to her at her door. She's used to me going in to wake her up.

Hmmmm.....

Then she realized why I couldn't come in her room and was excited to break thru her decorations.

We had to get ready quick, so Ava could open her presents before going to daycare and school. Chris was at wrestling for the night so we had to get some things in so he could be part of it. Ava was so excited to get a sleeping bag set from Gianna.