Once there was a snowman... :)

Every once in a while we do get snow up here in Washington.  The girls woke up to a "bunch" of snow about a week before Christmas.  The first thing Riley said is "I want to make a snow man!"  So Casey promised to help her make her first real snowman.  The three of them got ready and headed out the door.  I dont like snow, or the cold so I stayed inside the front door and took pictures.  

First he showed them how to start the balls of snow...

Then how to roll it..

 Soon enough they had the base down.

Lots of butt pictures.  Sorry in advance, but I couldn't help it.

Tinsley wanted to roll this big ball so badly.  She was bound and determined to do it, so she did!  Even though it was nearly as big as her, she rolled it quite a ways.  You can see the progression below.

You can see here little trail that she left behind while making this ball of snow.  Its quite impressive!

The one on top is the one she helped roll.  Daddy had to put it on the snow man because it was so big :)

Making the head :) They had to go to the corner of the yard to find more snow.

Riley got to help carry the final piece of the snowman over and put it on.

She was so proud of herself!

Daddy insisted on it being an alien snowman.

Poking holes for the eyes :)

This was their finished snow man.  I think they were pretty proud of themselves :)

Of coarse you cant build snowmen without getting hot chocolate after.  So here they are waiting for their cup of chocolaty goodness.

Haha you can tell it wore them out.  But they were so excited to go and build their first snowman!  It only lasted about a day and then it rained and it started melting pretty quick.  

Getting ready for Christmas!

Here at the Ahn house hold we like to put up our Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, but this year we spent Thanksgiving day and most of Friday down in Oregon with family.  So needless to say Saturday morning I had Casey go out to our dreaded storage closet with me and help me get all of our boxes of Christmas decor.  While doing that we shuffled a few things around and put up another shelf.  Its a huge difference now!  But back to Christmas now.  We got inside and our girls were thrilled to help put everything up.  We opened their Christmas bears and animals first so that they could play with some old friends for a while.  

We have had our tree for over 7 years now.  Last year some lights had gone out so we re strung some of it.  When we pulled it out this year every strand but 1 and 1/2 were dead.  Casey had the very unpleasant job of unstringing the whole tree so we could start over.  Took well over 2 hours.  By the time he was done we decided to finish putting the tree together the next weekend.  

When we did finally get our tree together I was waiting for Casey to get home so that we could decorate it, but the girls were so excited to do it that they really didnt want to wait.  I gave them the ornaments and let them go to town.  They had a blast, and truth be told it was fun to have them do it all by their selves.  Casey and I decided to not fix it and just keep it like it was.  Over time a couple more ornaments were found so I placed them on the top just to fill it out a little. :)  

The last two years my mom has given us a piece to the willow tree manger set.  This year we got the animals.  It is something that we both have really looked forward to!  I had to put it up high so that little hands couldn't touch it, but Casey and I love it!

We have been slammed with orders since November so we only had a few days to even be able to put up decorations.

Casey has been helping me in any way he could this whole last month.  He helped unstitch, cup up patterns, sew, pretty much anything that I asked he would try to help.  Poor guy was exhausted after about 12:30 one night so he passed out on the couch waiting for me to finish a bag.  Riley came out and saw him and pushed over the ottoman and laid right next to him.  It melted my heart.  She sure does love her daddy!

Just like mommy..

The last little while Tinsley has been honing her homemaking skills.  While Im glad she is taking interest in sewing, cooking and make up I just wish she would let me help her.  

I walked into my little corner and found her working away at my sewing machine.  She was using a seam ripper and working on a piece of interfacing.  If you look closely you can see her cheeks sucked into a pucker as she concentrates.    

This time I was sitting at my desk on the computer and I turned around because I could hear Tinsley doing something.  She had my hammer that I use to attach snaps on my bags and wallets, and she was hitting a button that she found.  She would whack it, it would fly a couple feet away and then she would retrieve it and do it again...

She also has a love for playing with my scissors.  I try my very hardest to put them up, but that doesn't always guarantee that she wont get them.  This was a piece of a diaper bag that I was just about to sew together, but Tinsley found it first and snipped away.  Luckily I had enough fabric to cut it out again. 

Rest assured, she doesn't only like to play with scissors and hammers, she also loves to play by my stove.  Not once or twice, but three times I have caught her sitting in this spot after she had dumped out my spices so that she could "help" make something.  I do love her determination to do these things though.  I would rather my children take interest in Sewing and cooking and cleaning than all the worldly things that other kids thrive on.  My children fight over who gets to help me stir, who gets to fold that pile of towels mom set aside just for them, and who gets to out the dishes away.  

There is a reason that silence means trouble in our house...  and these are just a few of those reasons, but if she hadn't of done these crazy things I wouldn't have these "fun" memories.  Even though both my girls can be crazy I wouldn't trade them for anything.