Tea Time

It's cold over here in Iowa! Yesterday was 10 degrees- 30 degrees below what we should be at!! I had planned on going to town and getting groceries but when I woke up and saw -8 (yes that is a negative!!) on our thermometer I decided it was going to be a "stay at home day" (as Madi calls it). So we did crafts instead. This is what we made- pretty fans. I thought they would end up more colorful and full of decorations, but the girls were way more into smearing glue around rather than affixing anything to it! Oh well, they had fun!
Of course, you can't make tea fans without having a tea party! And you can't have a tea party without dressing up a bit! And pulling out the fake food along with some real goodies. I thought the perfect "accessory" to the tea party was my very realistic English accent. :) Madi thought it was the funniest thing ever! And Taylor even tried giggling behind her fan like I did. A tea party was the perfect way to beat the winter blues and make snack time a little more fun!

California Trip

The girls and I went to CA for almost 2 weeks in January while Eric was hunting in Kansas with a friend. They were huntng pheasant. It was a wonderful and relaxing visit and we enjoyed every moment of it!

Taylor snuggling with Uncle Jason:

Madi loved to squeeze fresh orange juice every morning from the tree in the backyard and we enjoyed eating them everyday too! Another great reason to visit CA in the wintertime:

We spent one afternoon at the Childrens Museum of Stockton. Grandpa and the girls are sitting in a helicopter in this picture. They also had a firetruck, ambulance and hospital, post office, face painting, a grocery store (that was their favorite!):

Yay!! Grandpa is home from work!:

Looking at books with Grandma:

Madi and Uncle Brian playing air hockey at McDonalds. Brian did a fantastic job of entertaining the girls all week and even made them a house out of a big box, complete with blankets, lighting and music! :

I think the girls favorite thing at Grandpa and Grandma's was their cat- Dexter! They followed him every where and never gave him a moment of peace!
It rained a lot while we where there, but we did have a few days of wonderful, warm sunshine. We played at the park, in the backyard and even had lunch on the patio! See those flowers in the background? Really?! Flowers in January?!! Its been a long times since Ive seen that! And not a snowflake in sight! :):
It was great being able to visit Grandma Sytsma almost everyday:
We went to my sister's class one afternoon (she teaches 1st grade). Madi was in heaven! She kept calling Kari, "Auntie Kari My Teacher", and literally beamed with pride when Kari put a smiley face on her paper like the other kids!:

Happy New Year!

I think we started a new tradition last night. Before our fancy candlelight dinner, with sparkling cider in our pretty cups, us girls decided to raid the dress up box so we could party in style! We had so much fun picking out our outfits (okay, I was rather limited since the only thing that fit me were the fairy wings and necklaces! :) Madi was so excited when I then let her raid my makeup! We all put on the brightest red lipstick I had! Then we put on some 80's dance music and did a little dancing before dinner! Maybe next year you can join us for our party!! We had extra necklaces!! I know you want to! :)

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebrating our Savior's birth and enjoying fellowship with family and friends! Our Christmas was great. We had a quiet night on Christmas eve opening presents. On Christmas morning we enjoyed a nice Christmas service and then got together with the big Hol family. It was a lot of fun. The excitement and wonder of all that was happening was so fun to watch through Madison and Taylors little eyes! It brought back a little magic to our holiday! :)
Heres a little peek into our holiday:

Digging out

This morning Eric finished digging us out. What a lot of snow!! When he finished, he headed over to his brothers with the back hoe to help dig him out too.
Taylor got to help this morning too!! She was so happy!! While I was bundling Madi up Taylor kept bringing me her hat and coat and boots. I knew that Eric wasnt going to be able to leave the house without taking her too!!

Oh shucks! Cant clear all the snow from the comfort of a heated back hoe, gotta put some muscle into it!

Snow!!

We got our fair share of the blizzard snow!! You can see how high it is by looking at the chairs and table behind Eric and the girls.

I didnt want to bundle up and face the cold so I just took this one through the window:
Our porch- who needs fake window snow?!:
In the afternoon, Eric decided to venture out and pick up his back hoe that was in another town so he could clear off our driveway. He got stuck with his truck in the field where the back hoe was, luckily he only had about a 100 yd. walk! Madi got to help him!! She wa grinning from ear to ear when she came in: