Its beginning to look like Christmas

We have been getting ready for Christmas. The girls love listening to Christmas music. I think the favorite is Frosty the snowman. Avery talks about how we are going to build a frosty and give him a magic hat. She hopes that he doesn't melt. We have been slowly getting out the Christmas decorations. Avery helped with the tree and I rearranged it a bit after she went to bed.

We have already been to see Santa once and talk about what we want for Christmas. Avery was set on a Barbie house. But when we were at Joanns she saw a miniture sewing machine. She told me that she wanted the Barbie house next year and wanted the sewing machine this year. Then she asked me if I would teach her how to sew.

I was wanting to do an advent calendar. But changed my mind after doing one for Halloween. It was fun and we enjoyed the activities, but Avery never forgot and sometimes I just didn't feel like doing anything. So I got them each the chocolate calendar and we will still do the activities when we can.

One thing I wanted to try this year was Elf on the Shelf. We watched the movie that came on TV a couple of days ago. Then we had a knock on our door. Avery went to go get it and was so excited that it was our very own Elf in the Shelf. Since we had just watched the movie, she had to name him Chippy. IT was cute to see how excited she was. We then read the story and I helped her and Halle decorate their own little Christmas trees for their rooms.

Halle wanted nothing to do with Chippy.

We had fun looking for him this morning. We found him in our tree.


Just some other things. My sister had her baby while we were on our cruise. She is darling and I can't get enough of her. The girls love her as well. The girls love to play Hide and go seek. I was humming this morning and Avery told me to stop because it was "Bringing on her nerves". Halle talks so much now and is putting sentances together. She seems so old now. I love how she says OK. She holds out the O for awhile.

Tree House Museum

This past Monday, we met Sharelle and her boys at the Tree House Museum.

It was my first time going with both girls being mobile. It was busy because they each wanted to do different things. They enjoyed music and story time, making masks, the music room, the little farms, the school house with the little chalkboards, the little houses and the dress ups. It is so fun to get out of the house and play.

Mexican Rivera

Monday was our first day at see. It was still a little chilly with the wind, but we still got some sun, and reading in. We enjoyed painting eachothers toes. Aaron had a fun time playing basketball and ping pong. That night we had a Karoke night.



Our first port was Cabo. It was beautiful and so warm.


We took a water taxi to Lover's beach. It was so beautiful and we even saw some whales and sea lions. It is called lover's beach because of how pretty it is, the nice beach and calm water. It is at the Sea of Cortez, but you walk about 200 yards over a sand bar, than you are at a rocky beach with very dangerous Pacific Ocean water. That side is called Divorce beach.

I not quite sure why I chose to make this face, I think because I already felt so cool with my snorkle gear. We snorkled on the Lover's beach side. The water was so clear, and got deep really fast. I counted up to 14 different fish.

Divorce beach.




When we went on a cruise about 8 years ago to the western Caribbean we ate some authentic food and still talk about it today. So again we followed Spencer and ate tacos from a street Vendor. They were Delicious. We did avoid the guy selling the tacos out of a bucket on the beach though.

Mexican food isn't the same with some orange soda.

Beautiful Cabos Sunset.


The next day we set out to do some ParaSailing.

I was nervous at first, but it was a lot of fun. I am glad that I got to go Tandem with Aaron.



After parasailing we had some more tacos and walked around Cabo and had our picture taken with a baby Lion.

Our next port was Puerto Vallarta. This was our favorite. We rode an open bus clear up into the mountains? The rode was very narrow, dirt with a river, and often had a drop off on the other side. We had to stop several times while the chickens crossed the road. The ride up to the canopy was an adventure in itself. Was we were there we did several Ziplines. Some over deep gorges, canopy tops and one into a river. It was a blast. I was really nervous for the first one, but after that I felt safe. Our guides were Hillarious.

Aaron was brave enough to do one upside down.

We also did some repeling, a free fall, tubing down the river and rode mules to get back up the mountain. My mule was named Banana and he had a mind of his own and kept trying to pass everyone.


After the zipline, we had the bus drop us off in Down town Puerto Vallarta. There we did some shopping and walked the 4 miles back to the ship along the board walk. It was beautiful and there were so many statues. I haven't downloaded the pictures from that because I only had our small camara.

We had a blast. We enjoyed being with our family. We loved talking, eating, playing cards, dancing, eating, mini golf, basketball, reading, and did I mention eating. We can't wait for our next big family trip.