Christmas Is Coming..Vegas Style

The excitement level for Christmas is high at our house these days. The Elf on the Shelf made his appearance at our house again this year starting on December 1. Kai was anxiously awaiting his arrival for weeks. Every morning he races out of his room to find "Elfie". He's even made him some gift and notes to take back to the North Pole. Rori waves goodbye to him and yells out "Bye Elfie" every time we leave the house. Elfie has found some pretty awesome hiding spots this year in the new house- like up on the highest windowsill which is probably about 13 feet up. We found him here on the Christmas tree the first morning.





The kids also got personal email videos straight from Santa himself (courtesy of Portable North Pole). We highly recommend this free website. It was a big hit with both of them.



We've also been having fun finding ways to experiencing the holidays here in Henderson for the first time. We got a tip that there is a neighborhood just a few minutes from us that puts on a big light display. We drove through it last weekend and then decided to go back and walk through it on Monday night. We all thought it was pretty neat.













Kai and Rori got a package from Great Grandma and Grandpa Michael in the mail a few days ago that had some fun holiday stuff in it. The neatest part was it had a The Night Before Christmas book in it that has their voices reading the story as you turn the pages. Kai had read it at least 20 times a day everyday since. Thank you great grandma and grandpa!



I got to cut out 50 gingerbread men for Kai's school. Can you say hand cramp?



Kai has been begging to make christmas cookis so we got out our Christmas cookie cuters and lots of sprinkles one night and went to town.



We can't wait to continue the fun over the next few weeks!

One Semester Down

Lance turned in his final papers for his classes last week and then finished grading exams for the class that he helps in over last weekend. So now with just work on his plate we are all excited to have a little more time with him over the holidays. Today we even got to go to school with him to drop off the exams he graded and have lunch. It was a lot of fun to see where he has been going these last few months. Kai thought it was great to see Dad's school and thought the food court area was pretty awesome. Lance seems to be really enjoying his program and we continue to feel very grateful for this opportunity.

Family Photos

We finally got some real family photos taken and we're thrilled to have them. The best part was we found out about the girls who took and edited them through our friends here. They are just starting up a photography business and were looking to build up a portfolio. We were happy to help and thrilled to get some fun ones out of the deal. I was nervous about if Rori at age 2 would cooperate or not (or maybe not even smile the whole time), but she actually did pretty well. Another major positive of this was we did it first thing in the morning and were done in about an hour without feeling rushed and even changing locations a few times. Big thanks to C Squared Photography! If you need some pictures taken in the Vegas area look them up! Here are a few of our favorites:

They've Got A Secret...

...they are going to be getting a little brother or sister at the end of May. Everyone is excited and doing well- especially now that we have made it past the inital weeks of feeling slightly green.

We've decided to keep the gender of this one a surprise so that should be fun. So, we're starting to take name suggestions since we will especially need ideas due to needing a boy and a girl name.

After we told the kids we talked about it all for a little bit and then asked them what they thought. Kai's response in a very matter of fact voice was "I think we can handle it". We laughed and laughed.