Santa Came Early This Year

Our Christmas 2011

Santa had to come early to our house this year because we'll be traveling for 3.5 weeks over the holiday season and will miss the 25th.  Instead of dragging presents with us or delaying Christmas we decided to have it 1.5 weeks before we leave that way the kids have some time to play with thier new things before we fly out.  

It looks to me that the girls made out really well! They must have been very good girls to get so many presents!

As soon as they walked out of the bedroom this is what they saw!  A new playhouse and the tree with all the presents!

Tucked behind the corner was the new bounce house.  This was a big hit right away!

Of course I have tons of pictures to post and tell you all about those wrapped gifts they tore into, but that will have to wait until another post.  Merry Christmas Everybody xo Sari

Just another day at sea...

Here's our new 2052 Bayliner Trophy 22ft.  It was delivered on Wednesday courtesy of my in-laws.  The kids were so happy to see them that they were literally running around in circles going crazy haha.

This picture gives a good idea of it's size up against our two story house.

It didn't take long for the kids to climb up in.

Captain Emmy couldn't wait for her turn to drive the boat.  She got to sit on Daddy's lap on the way home and have a turn!

 Our water babies fishing with their Barbie poles!  Lilah has on her practice casting dummy fish and Emmy had a hook.  They didn't keep their poles in the water long enough to catch anything and after 10 min's of fishing they were ready to go home.

This beautiful Golden Trevally was pulled up by my father in law after only having his pole in the water for 3-4 minutes.  I couldn't believe it!! This fish was so big it totally makes my husbands foot look like a kids foot.  He was so big and he tasted so good :)

He gave Kingsley a really good fight.  It lasted a solid 5 minutes and he had to chase him nearly all the way around the boat before we were able to net him.  Great Job Pops!

After tons of whining and crying, Lilah finally went to sleep while Daddy was holding her and he laid her down in the lower cabin.  Because it's so hot I allowed her to take off her swim pack while she slept, so don't freak out when you see the photo's Grandma!!  To give you an idea of the size down there it had a table in the middle that was  3ft x 3ft with seating all the way around.  I made it into the "bed" right away and laid down a clean sheet (although daddy missed laying her on it) and they had their little portable DVD player.  Not a bad way to go fishing if you ask me.  Also no need for the amount of complaining we had to hear from both of them!

Whooohoooo! My first catch on the new boat and it was my FIRST SHARK ever!! I was very delighted!  We were getting close to quitting time and having to head in and I was so busy dealing with the kids that I barely had time to actually hold my rod and was thinking that I wasn't going to catch anything.  I was still trying to keep Emmy from complaining so I gave her my phone and I was posing for a picture when this bad boy took my bait.  He gave a good fight, but was by no means difficult.  I had him reeled in after about 2 min's.

 This picture shows a good representation of his color. He had a slight bronze sheen with a light underbelly.  Both Kim and I thought it was a Black Tip Reef Shark, and after using some identifying information I confirmed that it was indeed a Black Tip!

He went into one of two kill tanks, but I prefer to call them something a bit less scary like "catch tanks".  Once Kim shut the door he really went crazy and the thumping was so loud.  I was a little worried that it might upset Emmy but it didn't at all.  She's going to be a good little fishermen just like her momma was when she was little :)

 I waited to get my holding picture after he had been on ice for a while.  He was way too feisty for me to hold on the boat and I didn't want to drop him in the boat with the girls or even worse, over the side of the boat hahha.  I got a bit of sun too.  I had sunblock on, but forgot to put it on my face.....duh!

I feel a bad that I don't have a picture of Kim with his boat share.  Everything I have of him is on video and when we went fishing he didn't pull up a keeper so again no picture.  I also don't have a picture of the boat with it's canopy up or with all our gear on.  I'll try and do better next time.

Funny Faces

I was trying to photograph my new fabrics for the sewing page, but the girls were interested in playing games. They kept laying down on the fleece and saying "take our pictures, take our picture!!" I gave up working and we played for a while :)

I'm not sure why a couple of these pictures came out on their sides....huummm!

This one is my favorite!

Big Kisses!

Meeting The Fairies

Last week we took the girls to the grand opening of the Mt. Barker's new Fairies store/studio. They had the two main characters, Harmony and Rhapsody, to say hello to the kids, take a picture, and sign anything you bought or brought. We got there just in time to push our way into the door and right in front of me... only 3 feet away was the creator of The Fairies!! She gave a speech then the new owner of the store spoke. At the very end they called Harmony and Rhapsody to appear just the way they do in the TV show. It was so fun and the squeals of delight were so loud when they first "appeared"! Because we got there right before the speeches I wasn't aware that we needed to get tickets to see them. I was just about to walk through the door into the dance hall where the meet and greet was going to be set up and they were taking tickets and reading off numbers. They only had 1 room for meeting and 1 room for waiting with entertainment and then the normal seating area. Each group took about 10 min's and there were 20 people per group. When I got our ticket finally we were number 4, so I was a little disappointed with a 40 minute wait, but that quickly changed about 15 min's later when people were coming in and they had #10 and group one hadn't finished yet!

This was the main seating area where the parents sit to watch the girls on live TV from the dance class. Over all the girls did really good waiting, especially compared to some of the brats that were there!

I can't get her to smile---ever!!

While waiting and full of excitement, Emmy did some fairy dancing!

Daddy handled the wait pretty good as well.

hheheh I got her smiling while she's trying to escape because she didn't want to pose with me for a photo!

Finally we got into the "entertaining" area. They had coloring pages and pencils.

Again....Lilah's not wanting to have her picture taken so she's hiding behind daddy's leg.

Caught you!!!

I'm just as fast as you....caught you again!

awwww

I think the novelty of our game was wearing off. Just in time as well..........FINALLY it was our turn to enter into the meeting room!

Emmy was pretty shy, but that is normal for her, but she didn't hesitate when it was her turn to walk up to them. I also heard her say "Hi" to them.

All the kids were given bookmarks, and you would have thought they were made out of gold the way she loved it and guarded it until we got home.

Now it was Lilah's turn.... you can see that she had her normal sour face on. She wasn't scared to stand up there with them without me, but it looks like she wasn't too impressed either, haha. She defiantly knows who The Fairies are and requests to watch their DVD's all the time, so I was hoping she'd be a bit more excited, but I think she did enjoy herself.

All in all it was a fun family Saturday. I was very proud of the girls because they didn't ask mommy or daddy to buy anything for them. These stores are loaded with merchandise...it's even hard for me to not want to buy it all for them! They don't ever really throw a fit over something they want because they know I won't give in, but every where you looked kids where walking around with bags of stuff and I figured she'd want one too, but she was so proud of her bookmark! haha Before we left we grabbed the girls a "fairy box" that had popcorn, jello, and a cookie with a bottle of fairy juice. They had a good time sitting in their car seats eating their fairy treats while we drove home.....talking about it all the way there!