November Memories

I feel like our family pretty much skipped over November this year and had two months of Christmas celebrating. It was great to have an extra long Christmas season. We all loved it. Paul kicked it off by putting up our lights within the first few days of November. I bought a bunch of lights last year after Christmas and he was super antsy to get them up! 

Next up was the Winters traditional gingerbread houses.  My mom decided to do houses for just the kids this year. We all agreed that it was a better option and a lot more enjoyable for everyone :)

Santa!!

I seriously love our Santa in November trips. There is absolutely no line and it really helps us to get into the Christmas spirit early. It's a nice time for the four of us to spend some quality time together before the all the fun and craziness of Christmas starts.

 

 the lighting was horrid in there, but it is what it is!

 One of my favorites yet. Zara looks like such a big girl. I can't believe that she is almost the same size as Kitana! She was a little unsure about the whole thing, but loves to do anything that sissy does.  She didn't cry at all, but she also didn't smile either! She is pretty sensitive and gets very clingy and unsure when she's in a new environment or around new people. She's a lot like me :)

 Tree decorating time. It's time to hang up those reindeer they made at Bass Pro.

 This picture just reminded me of baby Kitana. She has always done this. She loves to sort all sorts of items by color. She is such an organizer.

Thankful FHE

This next set of pictures makes me so happy! Paul did a family home evening lesson on being thankful. He gave each of the girls our cell phones, and for the activity they were supposed to go around the house and take pictures of things they were grateful for. I just love what they came up with :)

 Pretend City

I had been dying to take the girls to this place called pretend city. I wanted to make sure that Zara was old enough to really enjoy it and then Kitana started school. So, I ended up taking them over Thanksgiving break. It was quite a drive to get there, but the girls had so much fun and talked about it non-stop. They actually still talk about it and want to go back so bad. It really was a blast to see them doing adult activities like grocery shopping, gardening, cooking dinner and being a doctor/dentist. I find, now that Kitana is in school, I make a lot more of the time that I do get by myself with just the two of them. They are very limited now and I always enjoy every second of it.

 

Just some pictures of my beautiful Kitana. I snatched her one day right after
nap while Z was still sleeping and snapped these pictures of her. The lighting was too good to pass up!

 

This is seriously the only picture I took from Thanksgiving :( #motherhoodfail