Christmas 2012 in WA

 Well Christmas is over.  We've opened all the presents and had way to much food.  We had a wonderful Christmas, and hope that you all did too.  For Christmas eve we spent the evening with G and G Corier.  After dinner I told the kids a story about a little boy in the hospital on Christmas.  His nurse asked him if he would like a special treat for Christmas and he asked for a balloon. It was Christmas and the nurse had a very hard time finding a store that was open and selling balloons, but after several hours she finally found the balloon.  After she gave the balloon to the boy, he asked to go outside, so she wheeled him outside and as soon as they got outside he let go of the balloon, now the nurse was really upset and was about to give this little boy a lecture when he looked up into the sky and said "Happy Birthday Jesus".
This story was told in Young Women's on Sunday and I loved the idea of letting loose balloons to celebrate Jesus' birth.  So on Christmas eve we got two red balloons, tied with twine and the girls went outside and let go of their balloons and wished Jesus a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday.  With all the fun of parties and presents around Christmas, this was just a really fun and simple way to remind the girls why we celebrate Christmas and what Christmas means to us.

 watching the balloons float away.

 After we released Jesus' balloons we went inside and blew up a bunch for the girls.  They talked a lot about how these were their balloons and they already gave some to Jesus so it was ok to keep these ones.

 Claire helping Grandpa with his Ipad

 Grandma ended up with all the balloons.

 Santa came!  Zelda is guarding the tree!

 Surprise!  We had snow for Christmas!  I got up at 6 to put breakfast in the oven and then there was no snow, when I got up again at 7:45 we had almost an inch!  It was so fun to see fresh snow on christmas morning and the girls were more excited about the snow than anything else.  Vi didn't even notice the tree for a few minutes she was so into the snow!

 Claire is ready to open presents!

 Vi inspecting Santa's work.

 The girls were so cute and so sweet about the presents.  After every present they would want to set it up to play with it.  It took nearly 2 hours to get everything open, it was a very fun morning.

 Claire trying out the penguin game.  Peter says it is like topple but with a pirate ship and penguins instead.

They love the karaoke machine. I think we have a lot of music in our future.  I don't have a picture of it, but they also got a great dollhouse from Mary and Dave.  I think there is a picture on facebook.  Anyways, they LOVE the dollhouse.  We had to convince them to leave it in the living room and go to bed, they wanted to take it to bed with them.

 Just some shots of my parent's back yard.  So pretty in the snow.

 Miss Tiff on the only dry spot of the deck.

 Beautiful foggy, snowy christmas.

and Diana.

ok so we forgot to do a little talent show on Christmas Eve, but here is video of the girls christmas Morning singing a song, so this is our virtual Corier family talent show submission.

Merry Christmas!!

Pre christmas pictures

 I realized today that it has been a while since I uploaded any pictures, and with Christmas just a day and half away I am about to have a ton of new pictures!  So here are the things that we have been doing this month.  It's been a fun one.  2 weeks ago we went to my parents to decorate our "gingerbread" houses.  They were made of rice crispy treats.  I highly recommend this method, not only were they easy, they were delicious!  Thanks Diana for making all the rice crispy treats!

 This is my house..it's so cute :)

 Done decorating...now it's time to chow down!  Uh that's a lot of sugar, even the girls didn't get to far.

 You can also see the girls new hair cuts in these pictures.  Thank you Claire for being so creative with the scissors while Mom was taking a final...any ideas on where I can hide the scissors?  apparently on top of the fridge is not working.  I do have a few high shelves, where they currently are stowed but I have to get a step ladder out every time I need my scissors now :(

 Peter and his House

 I don't remember why Diana was doing this, but it was really funny at the time, and now we are left with this lovely picture to remember it by.

 It was so fun to have Grandma with us while we decorated.  The girls love spending time with their Great Grandma.   They are so lucky to be able to know her.  They are also lucky to have a total of 4 living great grandparents!

 I have been testing out new camera setting on my camera and Claire was a willing model for my little christmas tree photo shoot.  The girls love having the tree in house, although they have broken a few ornaments.  They love to rearrange things on the tree.  It may not be the most beautifully decorated but I think it is one of the most loved christmas toys they have!

 Hanging up this years ornament....a stegosaurus  

 Since the girls have been out of school I have been trying to come up with fun activities for them.  We are calling it ninja training.  I don't have a picture but the first day we drew faces on balloons and hung them from the ceiling so the girls could practice their ninja fighting.  Violet was still at school when we were setting it up, Claire had a blast drawing faces all over the balloons and the whole process took up most of the afternoon.  The above picture is of the girls practicing their letters...ninjas have to know their ABC's right?

 The next day we practiced our ninja aim with a game of bulls eye.  basically I drew a bulls eye on a plastic table cloth and the girls threw bean bags on it.  They LOVE this game!  Seriously it took me 2 minutes to set up and they were entertained for a half hour and they went back to it several times during the day.

 BULLS EYE!!!

 Santa came to the Clubhouse, so we went to visit him.  Told him what they wanted and then decorated a christmas ornament, and had some cookies.  I was so glad that our apartment staff put on this little activity for the kid so I wouldn't have to venture out to the mall the week before christmas.  blah...I hate the mall on a regular day, but the mall at Christmas is a special kind of awful!

 Claire telling santa that she wants a big boot for christmas.  I think she just saw Santa's big boots and decided right then and there that, that is what she wanted.

 Snuggling with st. Nick

 This is another ninja activity...ninjas have to be good at fighting balloons.

 Zelda loves the christmas tree because there are lights under the skirt and it makes it warm.  She hates her Christmas sweater.  When I first put it on her she just stood there looking sad and growled at me, she wouldn't even look me in the eye.

 This is Irma, she is our new addition.  We adopted her from a lady at Peter's work.  She came from a home with 8 pomeranians...that is not a typo...8.  She is enjoying the relative quiet of our home, she still doesn't like the girls that much, but she is slowly warming up to Violet and will let V touch her paw.

 Timm...these are from the first 5 minutes of the game, they are no indicator of how the rest of the game went or the outcome.  So if you haven't watched the game yet, sorry to have spoiled the first 5 minutes! Vi is really into watching the game with Peter.  She has even been practicing her kicking.

 She loves to play with Dad.

 I was hoping to get some cute pictures of Vi in front of the tree, so I told her to stand in front of the tree and be cute.  This is what I got....Lots of jumping.

This looks like a touchdown dance but I'm not sure it coincided with one.
Have a Merry Christmas!  Woods and Flynns, don't forget to upload a christmas eve video of your kids for Gma and Gpa!  Love you all!

Corier kids miss the Woods

So Katie came to visit last week with Kya and Rowan.  And one night while we were on our way home Violet asked when Wesley was going to get here.  I told her he wasn't coming this time, and she said Oh...I like him.

30 things to do before I am thirty

I turn 30 this july.

 It's making me feel old.

  This is the age that when you are a kid you think, by the time Im 30 I'm really going to have it together.  Well now that I'm almost there I think the idea that I might have it all together by 30 is pretty hilarious.  But nevertheless, there are things that I would like to do that I can do this year.  My themes for my goals are Health, Spirituality, Adventure, Books to read, Just for fun and life goals.  I've checked off a few of them already! yay!  But most are still sitting in the "TO DO" pile.

The ones in bold are either completed or I'm making very good progress.

1. I did the triathlon.  It was hard, but so much fun and I can't wait to do it again next year...well maybe I can wait.

2. Sort through all the junk I have in storage!  DONE!  We had a little garage sale and sold some stuff on craigslist and the rest went to the goodwill.

3. Become a bike rider...in progress, I went for a ride this morning and two miles from home I blew my tire out...with all my repair and replacement stuff at home. So today I was a walker...with a bike.

4. Lose 30 pounds...as of today I've lost....about 3 pounds...27 more to go!

5. Workout 5 days a week....I think I average about 4 days a week, but now that Claire is in preschool I have free mornings to work out. It is so much easier to workout when the kids are in school.  I am loving it!

6. Read the Book of Mormon- I'm terrible at reading my scriptures...I'm going to need the whole year for this one.

7. Read the teachings of Buddha, We can all use some spiritual enlightenment right?

8.  Keep a weekly blessings record.  I have always meant to do this and have never done it.

9. Read some scripture every morning.  The best times of my spiritual in tuneness have been when I have read scripture in the morning.  It's just a great way to start the day and makes me feel good.

10. Recommit to prayer.  Ok I pray, but I don't always take the time that I should to really sincerely pray, so yeah...I'm going to do that this year.

11. Go someplace new with Peter.  Peter and I have never been on vacation alone...even our Honeymoon was to a family reunion.  So this year we are leaving the kids with someone....any volunteers?  and going to Hawaii to celebrate his graduation from Evergreen.

12.  Go Kayaking in the puget sound.  I love Kayaking.  I don't get to do it very often and I've never done it in the puget sound.

13. Go Whale watching in the San jauns.  I have never done this and I really want to.

14.  See the Luchadores at Portland's Cinco de Mayo festival.  Ok this one is really just for fun.  I found it while dinking around on the internet looking for fun stuff to do.  Luchadores are mexican wrestlers.

15.-19 I have 5 books to read.  I already have my own list so don't feel the need to suggest any.  I figure with school there isn't going to much time for fun reading so I think 5 books is a good goal for the year.

20. Sew a piece of clothing for myself.  Ok I've done this one but the skirt was totally unwearable, so this time it has to be something I can wear out in public and doesn't fall apart in the wash.

21.  Be in the Procession of the species....what should I be?

22. Go to Wild Waves.  I have seriously never been.  not joking, I know...I'm lame.

23.  See the Nutcracker.  I've actually done this several times, but I want to do it again and if I don't write it down it will never happen.

24. Ride my bike along the Long Beach trail.  Long beach has a great bike trail and I go camping there often and now that I am a really cool bike rider I can ride my bike there :)

25. Go to school to become a paralegal- My tuition is paid and I start next monday!!! I am so excited....on a side note, if anyone wants to buy my 650$ worth of text books I have no shame in accepting charity :)  Just kidding...well sort of.

26. Make a will and choose Guardians for my children.  Since my kids are 5 and 3 I might have thought of doing this a few years ago.

27. Sell a photograph.  I love to take pictures, and I've always wondered if anyone would actually pay me for one so I'm going to try and sell one.  Who knows maybe I will make enough to pay for my textbooks.

28.  Do all the detail cleaning and repair work on our apartment....this is really just more of a regular to do list, but I figured as long as I'm making a list of things I have to do THIS YEAR, I might as well do some cleaning.

29.  Grow a Vegetable.  I have killed almost every plant I have owned in my entire life.  The only one left is a succulent my Grandma gave me a few months ago, and I'm not sure that counts because it's basically the easiest plant to keep alive ever...practically a cactus.

30.  Actually do my meditation.  I've been meditating since I took up yoga at 17.  I love it, but much like exercise, plant care, and scripture reading I just don't make time for it.  So this year I want to reestablish my habit of meditating.

ok well there it is.  If you want to do any of these things with me...except Hawaii.  No one is invited to Hawaii.  Let me know.  Should be a fun year!

First Day of Preschool!!!

 Claire is a Preschooler!!!  She did NOT want to get up today!!  She told me she was still sleeping and pulled the blanket over her head.   Then when we got to the school she didn't want to get out of the car without all of her toys!  So she starts gathering all the toys that happen to be in the car and the bell rings so I ended up dragging her out of the car, and putting all the toys back.

Then when we got to her classroom, she said "my School!!"  and walked away with her class.  No goodbye, didn't even look back and wave, just walked off.  She is so independent, what a funny kid.  I miss her already.

Because of the time overlap Violet drives with us to school now and She was pretty excited to see her old preschool teachers and told them all about Kindergarten.  Zelda went with us too.  After we dropped off Claire she sat on Violet's lap and then when I returned to the car without Violet at the other school she really got upset and sat on my lap the whole way home.  She is laying by the door, waiting for her girls to come home.  What a loyal puppy.

This is Violet after her first day of kindergarten last week.  Some kid pulled the fire alarm a few minutes before class let out so all the kids had to stand outside in the sun while the fire department came, then they went in and got their stuff and got on the bus.  Needless to say when she got home half hour late she was exhausted, hot and HUNGRY! I now have an after school snack ready to go when she gets home.

Well enough of that, it's my first time alone in like 5 years so I'm going to....well I don't really know what to do but I'll think of something :)

First day of Kindergarten!!

 Kindergarten!!! Vi was so excited to go this morning!  There are only 2 more hours till she comes home and I am so excited for her to come home! I miss my baby!

 On Violet's first day of kindergarten she told me she wanted to be a big kid who dives in pools when she grows up.  I think that is a great thing to be when you grow up kiddo!

And this is what Claire has been doing all afternoon.  Preschool starts next week!