Christmas Recital

Winter danced her way through another semester of ballet. Her teachers do such a good job making it special and keeping it fun. They danced to the tune from Charlie Brown Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here. Do all ballerinas like cookies this much?

Walking to Church

By Winter Nottingham (5)

Easy Bake Oven

The Nottinghams love the Free Store! We look forward to shopping there at least once a week. Sometimes you score big....a brand new, still in the box Easy Bake Oven! Winter wasted no time!

"This is my first cake ever!"

The Free Store is a donation center set up by the seminary. Students and others in the community can donate their trash for other people to treasure :)

Our Ballerina Turns 5 !

Winter and her "best-cousin", Emma.

tutu cute!
rehearsal

inspecting
getting crafty

cake!

performing to the Nutcracker Suite

What fun to celebrate Winter!

Thirty-three

I felt so celebrated on my birthday! The kids chose an "underwater" theme for my special day. With some research on Dad's part and a lot of half kept secrets, we headed to the City Museum and World Aquarium. What an amazing place! It is hard to describe. I'll let their website:

.Housed in the 600,000 square-foot former International Shoe Company, the museum is an eclectic mixture of children's playground, fun house, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects...

the most monumental, monolithic, monstrous montage of monkey bars in the world.

That's right! Ice... man. I am dangerous.

I wouldn't say I was stuck here, but I did need a couple trial runs.

"The Cake" always elicits a huge amount of excitement at our house. I think my sweet, talented friend, Wendy, did a great job capturing the zany requests of my 4 and 7 year olds!
This is only the g-rated party. Jeff planned a night away for the two of us the following weekend. It included a tour of the Saint Louis Art Museum, tapas, a movie and a night at the Cheshire Inn. Thirty-three ain't half bad!

Reece's Roaring Party

We made it to Indianapolis to celebrate Reese's 3rd birthday. This little guy loves his dinosaurs. Wish I had more pictures of the prehistoric fun we had.

Violet is feeding a real baby! Too bad its not real food. I love the way Violet switches into mommy mode around anyone her size or smaller. Thanks for hanging in there Avery.

Trick-or-Treat

Trick-or-treating is fun to read about even if it is January! Candy is candy at our house no matter the shape, color or season! Our participants are as follows: Winter-the world's sweetest clown, Violet-the world's shortest (and cutest) fairy, and an unidentified ninja with big sticks.

The Fairy trying to turn her mom into tootsie pop.

The Ninja revealing his deadliest move.

The Clown flashing her precious smile.

The Fairy unhappy with the pace strikes out on her own. Notice her height to hat ratio.

After making the rounds, we climbed in the car and headed east to Indianapolis. I told Asher and Winter that I trusted their wisdom on how much candy they should eat. The conversation that followed was hilarious as they shouldered their new found responsibility. I am proud to say that no one puked. Not bad for a four hour car ride and three gallons of candy. Violet just ate till she fell asleep.