Snapshots of December

 My snapshots of December are mostly Christmas related, because, hey, that is what December is all about!

We kicked off the holiday season with Jon's company Christmas party.  It was the first time I had met any of his co-workers since he started at his new job earlier this year.  

They had a silly photo booth too and since Jon wouldn't go in with me (one smile photo for the night is his limit - or the year maybe), I had to do my own shots. 

Shayla and Brooke went Ice Skating at an outdoor rink in Thousand Oaks

 
Shayla learned to "sew" at girl scouts

 
Mitchell helping with the holiday baking

 
Shayla helping making Chocolate Cherry Balls

 
Gingerbread House time!

 
Mom and Shay 

 
More cooking playdates!

Seeing the neighborhood Christmas lights

 
We joined our friends family to participate in a childrens live nativity - very precious!
 
One more ice skating adventure - indoor "Winter Wonderland" - now we have to find some real snow!

Christmas 2012

And thus ends Christmas 2012!  

We had a great holiday season and the excitement and joy of our children just made it even more delightful (except the part where Shayla woke up super early most of December wanting to see what her elves had done that night - another post on that later!)  So here are some highlights of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with family!  The best part of the holiday season is being able to share it with loved ones!!

Click HERE to see a slideshow with all the photos and more.

How we like the kids to pose...

How they want to pose...

At Grandma Bettys for Christmas Eve (me and Christine)

Baby Jesus escapes from the nativity...

The Ellis kids sang a beautiful song!

The 5 year old cousins!!

Santa came to the Nelson house 

Mitchell and Dad building Magneato towers!

The Nelson Family - Christmas 2012

The Nelson Grandparents and Great Grandpa 

A favorite Christmas pasttime

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

Happy Christmas Eve!

I love kids in (semi) matching PJs!  Here are Shayla and Mitchell in their holiday pj photos!  Happy Christmas Eve! 
May your home and hearts be warm and full of love today!!
 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Mud, Cold, Pain, Fun!

In the beginning of the month I raced the Malibu Spartan Race with my friend Leahna.  Yes, I paid to get wet, muddy, cold and bruised!  It is a race where you have 20+ obstacles (swims, wall climbs, carrying weight bags through an obstacle course, javelin throw, barbwire, etc)  to cover and conquer.  If you cannot complete an obstacle you have to drop and do 30 burpees!  This course is normally difficult but with 4 days of rains before the event  the course was VERY hard and extremely muddy.  There were some obstacles like the monkey bars and the traversing wall that I don't know how anyone completed with muddy drenched hands- you could not grip anything!  And the burpees in the mud were not very fun.  It took 1.5 hours to complete the course and without the added mud from days of rain it should have taken me under an hour but you could barely run in the race areas due to the suction cup mud!  But like I said I did have fun as races like these make you feel like a kid in a playground - a muddy, rainy playground!  

Pre race - see not muddy yet!

Here was the dreaded barbwire - yes we are smiling, but we did crawl and roll uphill under barbwire for close to 30 minutes!  I had many hip bruises and arm scratches from this obstacle. 
 
The gladiator obstacle where they would try to hit you 

 

Mid race - yep, just a tad dirty!
 (we had a volunteer take our pic and text it to us!)   

The fire leap towards the finish line - looks like my butt is catching fire!
 
We made it!

 
The WORST part - at the end of a FREEZING cold pond swim - there were 2 of these I could have been fine without completing!  

 
Almost there!

 
We did it!!!

 
I AM SPARTAN GIRL! GRRR!!

Legoland Adventures!

Legoland is so cool!  We took the kids this past weekend for a Christmas adventure and it was such a neat place to visit.

Taj Mahal made of legos!

 

The kids on the cruise checking out Mini land USA

 

In "New York"

 
At the Star Wars Exhibit

 
Mitchell favorite character

 
Shayla's favorite character - no wonder why she sleeps with the lights on!

 
Family with Chewie

 
The Aquarium Sea Life was awesome too!  Very well kept and beautiful displays.  This was in the crab area - they are all real!

 

Lego Santa and Tree

 

Can't go to Legoland without building with some legos! 

 
Lego Car Racing

 
M was a track master!