Right now she is so very excited about turning 12...

She is obsessed with Instagram and texting and is super excited about the possibility of a new phone... a smartphone with unlimited texting for her birthday.

Right now she has been making these fun bowls out of Perler beads...

She got her Science test back and was completely freaked out since her teacher had been mentioning all week how everyone failed it and how disappointed he was.  She had the 2nd highest score in the class!!! 19 people failed and 9 passed.

Today was a day... the terrible twos were nothing compared to the naughty nines!!  This pretty much sums up today...

Last Monday evening the site at our house was this...

Why you ask??? Well.. 20 minutes before this picture... we had the kiddos tucked in bed were watching the season finale of Major Crimes and during the height of the police chase... Walker yells down, "Um Mommy... I just saw a mouse!"

My first thought... he's just getting to sleep and dozed off for a second... I went up to get the details.  Walker said, "He was sitting right by the stairs and as soon as I called down to you he ran in your room!"  I didn't want to just dismiss him so I looked around didn't see anything... no signs or anything.  Pretty soon Stewart comes up and we re-check all around in our room and decide to just be on the safe side and try the cubby dormer area.  Bit by bit we take out the storage things... talking all the while about how there couldn't possibly be a mouse... we have 2 dogs and a cat and we are on the second floor of the house... no way!

And then as Stewart is reaching in for one of the last things... he says, "Oh crap there is a mouse!"

We had to come up with a way to get it... man that bugger was fast. Just as we have it cornered... it shoots right out in between us and into the middle of our room!  Stewart had some fast ninja skills to get the box over the top of it... whew!

While all of this was going on... Walker had crawled into Ainsley's bed with her... both bears are grabbed onto tightly and there was constant chatter of... "Did you get it??"  They look all fine and happy here... this was after mousie was disposed of and Daddy was making them laugh so that we could all go back to normal.

We get back down to our 5 minutes left of Major Crimes and Stewart turns to me and says, "Don't mice come in pairs??"  Off to Lowes we went and have traps set up and Decon in the garage but nothing... not a turd to be found either... so very strange!  Hopefully it was just a freak thing because I've torn up this house looking for another one and nothing.

We are back in the swing of schedules again but man was it was super hard Monday morning to get up and right out the door at 8am. Now that we are mid way thru the week we are getting back on track.  It's so nice to all be on a schedule again... creatures of habit we are.

To celebrate the last day of our winter vacation we made walking tacos and continued on with our Harry Potter marathon..

The kiddos started a new craft... making polymer clay creations...

I even got a half way decent picture of Luna...

Usually they are more like this... a black streak!!

At 7:11 am Walker was ready to start his Big Lego Gift...(he would have liked to start it at 6am but this parent needed some coffee and wake up time first before the big project covered the dining table).

Midway through the project...

And finally at 1:03 pm, it was finished!...pretty darn cool!

Every year on Christmas morning we stop the kiddos at the top of the stairs to capture a split second of their excitement Christmas morning and as usual I tear up thinking about how fast the years have come and gone.  If only I could bottle up time and release it slowly over the year!!

2004: The first year of togetherness...

2005:

2006:

2007:

2008:

2009:

2010:

2011:

2012:

2013:

My oh my how fast time flies!!

Little Bug can often be found here... either reading or watching Minecraft videos.

Yesterday after Ainsley's  double header basketball game and before Walker's caroling with his scout troop, the kiddos did their Christmas piano recitals...

Walker played It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and Ainsley played Deck the Halls.  It was fun to have a Christmas recital this year... between this and caroling with scouts it has definitely put me in the Christmas spirit!!

Practicing for this recital has also put the love of Christmas music in them as well... instead of practicing his books last week, Walker wanted to learn and perfect his favorite Christmas song... Little Drummer Boy and while it was pretty cool to hear him finally get it at the end of the week... it was not cool when the parents figured out the day before piano lessons that this wasn't even in his lesson for the week!! Luckily he picks up music quickly and was able to pull off the lesson for the week in a day.  This week he wants to get down the Carol of the Bells.

Ainsley of course has been playing her Christmas song since August so she had been playing her required pieces for the week.

Love the two of them by the Christmas tree...

And my favorite shot of the day... sigh... she looks so grown up!

My favorite thing right now...

Playing cards with little Bug and having only the warm glow of Christmas lights on!

Over the week we had Ainsley's Christmas Choir Performance...

and then she and I did a quick peek at all the fun trees at the Festival of Trees before heading off to Basketball practice.  Each school is in charge of a Christmas decoration for the auction.  Her school did a wreath this year...

Our school did a tree... winter wonderland tree and I got to help decorate it this year (which was way fun instead of doing paperwork!!) I didn't get a picture of it at the festival but here it is being decorated in my room...

Ainsley had a BB game that went into to DOUBLE overtime...

They ended up winning by one point... just one more weekend of games... and a doubleheader at that.

We had our first big snow of the season... all in all 4.5 inches... and brr cold, headed to school today and it was 6 below!

The dogs in their winter coats... having an awfully fun time playing!  (Willow looks a little perturbed to have her lil sis follow her every move.)

And then a boy... a bucket... and his bear... hopefully on the mend now.

Hoping this week is a bit more low key!