Tessa turns 6

Tessa turns 6!  We pushed for her to finish the reading book by her birthday.  Her well earned prize was an LOL doll.  She had puppy dog cupcakes and our dear friends, the Christensens, came over to celebrate.  Very easy to celebrate birthday as the town always has a great fireworks show.  

This year we did a few fireworks of our own.

Speyer

Technik Museum

We went to the cool Technik Museum with the Floreses, Angles, and Jack Orton.

Afterwards we went to the New Year's market and got some hot chocolate.

I loved Speyer and hope to go back.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

What a perfect tree!

Gingerbread houses with the Groves

Singing carols at the Nursing home

Getting to snuggle the Elves

Singing and playing bells to our neighbors

Nativity play on Christmas Eve

We were so glad that the Harshbargers came to celebrate.

Christmas Day

A trip to the movies

Cool steam engine from Jeff and Jenny

Nuremburg Christmas Market

We have wanted to go to the Nuremberg Christmas Market for years and we finally made it happen.  

It was huge and crowded and luckily wasn't too cold.  We drove there and back in the same day and had a great time. 

Look what we found in the hall.

Funny to see them cuddled up at night when they fight like cats and dogs all day.

Visits from the Elves

The kids' favorite thing about December is the visit from our Elves. 

They are pretty creative.

Visit from the Andersons

Our friends from Lacey came to visit.  Tessa and Anika did "Sunshine School" together and were dear friends.  We went to Gondwana Prehistorium together and the girls picked up even though the last time they saw each other was when they were 3 years old!  

They found the lipstick. 

Skiing with the Harshbargers

There is an indoor Snowhall about an hour and 1/2 away in France.  

It is a great way to teach kids to ski as it has bunny hills and a conveyor belt to take you to the top.  Tessa screamed the whole way down saying, "I'm gonna die." Then she cried at the bottom for an hour before getting enough courage to try again.  It was a little challenging trying to teach 3 kids at once.   I asked the boys how much they enjoyed it on a scale from 1 to 10 and they gave it a 9.  I said, "Great, then we can come and do it again." And they replied, "NO WAY!"  

Well, maybe I can make them do it again next year.  

That night we went to the Burg Lichtenberg Christmas Market

Thanksgiving Dinner

I was not in the mood to make a big Thanksgiving dinner so we 

had a delicious meal at an Indian Restaurant.  

I wouldn't mind making that a tradition.