Christmas With The Cotas

We went up to Grams and Gramps' house Christmas Eve day.

Lori, Jeff and Mallory came up to celebrate, too!

We had a delicious prime rib dinner and shared gifts to each other and from Auntie Rea Rea and Uncle Rob.

 

Then after everyone left it was time to get ready for Santa.

Annalise got the cookies and Avery wrote the note...

Story time with Grams before bed...

Then in no time, they were fast asleep....(and we caught them holding hands! :) )

 

And the next morning....Santa had been there!!!

 Annalise was thrilled that the message had gotten to him about the wheelchair for her doll!

There was time to play with all of the cool presents....

Time to go feed the horses and take a ride on the doodle bug with Gramps!

Avery was also anxious to try out the new game Grandma and Grandpa got her....Ticket to Ride.

It was really cool....long....but fun!

And most of all...we had time to be with family!

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas

We headed to Spokane to Grandma and Grandpa's house first.

We would celebrate Mark's birthday and Christmas with the Schneider side of the family.

Mark was well-celebrated.

Then it was on to Christmas!!!!

We started the celebrating with dinner and Christmas Caroling....

 Elsa even accompanied a song on the piano!!!

(Nice job Elsa!!!)

The next morning was our "Christmas" Day.

We started with breakfast and moved on quickly to stockings and presents.

Paul even got a present from his doppelganger, Todd Hoffman.....

Avery was SUPER stoked about her Seahawks jersey!!!

And Bella with her Snuggie....

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out and playing.

The girls even did a little performance for us.

We had a monologue, a piano concert and a magic show.

Annalise was a great doorperson! ;)

After Avery got to make elf donuts with the Girl Scouts, we thought it would be fun to make them with the cousins to leave for Santa and he could give them to his elves on Christmas Eve.

Our Winter Break and Christmas celebrating were off to a GREAT start!

Taekwondo

When Fall soccer finished, Avery had already decided that she didn't want to play the Winter indoor soccer season.  She wanted to try something different.

She was interested in Taekwondo.  There is a place in Ferndale that does a 2-week trial so that seemed to be the best way to try it out.  She started in November....

She LOVES it!!!
Her class is twice a week.
The discipline aspect of Taekwondo really suits Avery's personality.
It has been a great fit.

In fact, she has done so well, she was ready for her first belt test in just a month.
In order to test for the next belt, each student has to earn 5 stripes on his/her belt.
A blue stripe is for reading at home,
a black stripe is for completing a month's worth of pre-determined chores at home,
a red stripe is earned by having her teacher fill out a behavior card,
yellow stripe is behavior at home and
the green stripe is earned when she has learned her "poomse" (a taekwondo routine).

When it was time for belt testing, she wasn't even nervous.
It was very official. 

The judges had questions to ask her.

Then she had to demonstrate several techniques.

She passed and got her yellow belt!!!

A couple of weeks later was the OFFICIAL belt ceremony where she would receive the actual belt and a trophy for earning all five stripes.  It took place at the local community college and included students from the Bellingham Dojang as well.  There were LOTS of students....

Her yellow belt....

And her trophy....
(with all the other 9-year olds)

Then there were some demonstrations.
Even Annalise thought they were "SO AWESOME"!!!

Mr. Ross, Avery's instructor, came out dressed as Santa.
He did an amazing demonstration and ended with this....

Way to go Avery!!!!!!!

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!!!

The forecast looked good.

I thought for sure we would wake up to the phone ringing at 5:30 letting us know that school was cancelled the last day before winter break.  I told the girls if I didn't wake them in the morning that it was a snow day.

I really needed the day!!!  We weren't quite ready to leave for Spokane and knew it would be a late night the next night to try and get everything ready for our Saturday morning departure.

Phone rings. 

I'm giddy.

"2-hour delay. Staff should report on time."

WHAAAAATTTTTT?????

Oh man. What a bummer.

Look outside.

A couple of inches on the ground....not a lot...but it looked like the snow was still really coming down.

I figured I could still let the girls sleep a little.

Avery woke up on her own and came downstairs with the sweetest and biggest grin ever.

I said good morning and she said...."morning...SNOW DAY?!"

I had to break the news.

"No, just a delay honey."

She burst into tears.

(Which is exactly what I wanted to do when I heard!)
We settled down and watched the snow falling.  So cool!!!
We started to get ready for school and the phone rang again.....
SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!!!  School is cancelled!!  YIPPEE!!!!!

We sooooo enjoyed our snow day!!!!

The girls wanted to go sled the hill across the pond....

And we got everything finished so we could leave for Spokane the next day!
What a GIFT!!!!
(Now I would like a few more snow days, pretty please!)