With Rich, Rhonda, Maggie and Tommy in town, we had tons of fun with them. One day, we went to Amazing Jakes – an indoor rock climbing, video games, bumper cars… place. The girls had a blast, and I think Maggie and Tommy had a pretty good time as well.
Another Christmas has come and gone, and we had another fabulous time with family and friends! This was my sister and Mitch’s first Christmas as husband and wife, Mike and Nicole are expecting their first child, Rich, Rhonda, Maggie and Tommy were able to come in town, which we always love, and Nicole’s mom, Paula and brother Reed were also here! So much fun and love with these great families!
Christmas morning started at our house with the Franz/Milam side of the family coming over for breakfast and presents:
The girls all got DS’s for Christmas – a gift from Santa and mommy and daddy! Here McKenna is showing Uncle Brian how to use it :)
Next we headed over to Tom and Linda’s for round 2 of presents and fun! Rich, Rhonda, Maggie and Tommy weren’t getting in town for a few hours (they got to spend Christmas morning with their OK grandparents), so EVERYONE came back over for dinner that night!
The big hits of this year: PILLOW PETS – It’s a pillow, it’s a pet, it’s a Pillow Pet! They are also enjoying the DS as well as new Wii games. Paula and Reed got the girls dresses that will be used for the Daddy Daughter Dance in February! We are blessed by the generosity of our families every year! Merry Christmas, we love you!
We had great friends of ours, the Zander’s, invite a few families out to go in a horse drawn carriage/wagon to look at Christmas lights. Jennifer’s sister drives the carriage, and we had a wonderful night of lights and friends! The girls were so excited to go, and the weather was perfect. I didn’t get too many pictures (ok I only got this 1!), but we will definitely try to do this again!
The last 2 years at the girls elementary school, they have had The Polar Express day where the kids got to wear PJs to school, watch the movie and the kinder kids got to have popcorn and hot chocolate. Anna has been talking about this for 2 years, and McKenna was anxiously awaiting the big day. I hadn’t heard anything about it, so I emailed her teacher to find out that they are doing it this year!!! The tears fell that afternoon, so I promised that over the Christmas break, we would have our own Polar Express day, complete with hot chocolate, popcorn, and most importantly – FRIENDS!
Neither I or the girls really like the Polar Express movie, but I do LOVE the book, so no one actually watched the movie. We did have fun eating, drinking, decorating cookies, playing and talking with our friends.
It was another fun day with friends!
Our, now annual, outing to the lake for pictures with the Claus’s! In past years, it was Mr. and Mrs. Claus, but this year it looks like their daughter was there instead. Ava still didn’t like Santa, but as long as I was with her, she took the pictures!
Anna and McKenna both wanted to get their hair cut short, and since Patrick was out of town (and didn’t want them to get it cut), I took them! Patrick wasn’t COMPLETELY opposed to it, he just likes longer hair better, but he couldn’t convince them to keep it :) Anna wanted to donate her hair, and it will be borderline if they can use it or not, it is just at 8 in, and that is the requirement for Beautiful Lengths, so we will send it in anyway.
Here they are with long hair
and as soon as we were done with haircuts, we ran over to Willow Bend mall for a picture with Santa! Here they are with the new ‘do!
They both look so grown up to me!
The Santa picture was pretty funny – Ava only likes Santa from afar. She will wave and get excited and want to see him, but come within a 3 foot radius of the big man, and she freaks out. Anna and McKenna have no issues with him and ran right up and started talking to him. Santa was great and talked to the girls and then told me ‘Mom, it is fine, I will take a screaming kid photo. Lets just get these two next to me, you put Ava on my lap and back out of the photo.’ He really did know Ava’s name – they take your names while waiting in line and then go tell Santa before you come up – the girls thought that was wonderful - Anna did figure out how they did and she just explained to me while I was writing this! So I was all set to do just that, and we did, but Ava was squirming all over the place so her dress was riding up, and that was not the picture I wanted. I was trying to fix her dress and the helper elf, came over and gave Ava the snow globe she is holding. It was obviously a magic snow globe, because she took it and then it was all smiles! I don’t know how it worked, but it did and I got the awesome picture above! Yes, Anna and McKenna are in pajamas (it was pj day at school), but I think it is a a great photo. I said something to the helper elf that the snow globe was a pretty good trick, so McKenna proceeded to run back to Santa and whisper in his ear ‘You have some pretty good tricks!’, then run laughing back to me. Ava now says she likes Santa, so hopefully next year there won’t be a need for a magic snow globe.
Today is McKenna’s 6th birthday, and she is having a blast! She is so excited to get to wear a birthday hat all day at school, and she wanted to bring donuts in for her class this afternoon so she is really looking forward to that.
UPDATE: I just got back from taking the donuts to McKenna's class, and she amazes me even more! I bought 15 glazed and 15 chocolate donuts (per M's request because 'Mom, not everyone likes chocolate!'), and when she started passing them out most of the kids wanted chocolate. I was quickly counting, and saying a little prayer that I had enough, but 15 kids wanted chocolate. I pulled M aside and asked if it was ok for all of her friends to have the chocolate donuts and she have a plain glazed. She didn't even pause and said 'Ok'! She, of course, asked if we could stop by Dunkin' Donuts on our way home to get her a chocolate one, but talk about a sweet thing to do for her friends. Melts my heart :)
We will have a special dinner for her tonight and then a chocolate cake at home, just a little more celebrating since she had her party this past weekend.
Her birthday party was at WOGA gymnastics and now she wants to get back into gymnastics :) We had a great time with her friends and family.
McKenna – we hope you have a wonderful birthday! You are an amazing daughter, and we love you so much.
We have so much to be thankful for in our lives, just to name a few – Patrick and I have each other (I may be putting words in his mouth, but I am pretty sure he is thankful for me and I know I am thankful for him!), Our 3 wonderful daughters, Our families, Our health, Our home, Our jobs and all of our friends. (I am also thankful for my sister and mother in law who bug me about updating my blog, otherwise the updates might be even less frequent!) One day doesn’t seem to be enough to emphasize just how thankful we are.
We celebrated Thanksgiving at our house this year and had a wonderful day. My family came over early to make the ‘Franz Family Stuffing’, while Patrick’s mom made the turkey and the ‘Clerkin Family Stuffing’ – the girls think it is funny that we have 2 types, but they are each a big part of the family tradition, that it wouldn’t be right to not have either one, so we just have LOTS of stuffing at the table! I now have to remember that it is the Mahfouz, Clerkin, Franz and Milam families at the table – check out these 13 beautiful people :)
We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Our good friend, Charlotte, auditioned and was selected to be a Snowflake in the Moscow Royal Ballet Nutcracker! Several families attended the performance to see her dance. She was a beautiful snowflake, and the girls had a great time seeing their friend dance.
After the engagement on Memorial Day, 6 months later, they tied the knot! Please note that all of these pictures are from my camera, not the professional ones :)
The day started out with my aunt Sharri and Uncle George (yes, Anna got to meet another of her ‘great’ relatives this weekend!) coming to our house for breakfast. The girls had a blast playing with them, and my aunt went straight to teacher mode and let McKenna read a book to her :) Yes, the girls are still in PJs because they needed button up shirts for getting their hair done later, and it was just easier to leave them in the PJs until it was time to get into flower girl dresses!
McKenna with Uncle George
Aunt Sharri and Mom (sisters!)
Then we were off to get our hair done!
The girls would have stayed all day if we let them!
Then we were ready for the big event! Getting ready in the Johnson House at Chestnut Square:
After a very nice ceremony, performed by a friend of Mitch’s, it was party time! Here are some shots of the dancing and reception.
It was a perfect day – perfect weather, a great wedding and reception and the beginning of a beautiful marriage. Congratulations Jenny and Mitch – we love you!
