Melissa’s Blog

Of course Christmas is always fun with kids. The kids made Santa cookies, red and white striped candy cane cookies. Justin doesn’t believe in Santa anymore and Nikki is not so sure. I didn’t get the video camera out fast enough to see/hear Nikki’s reaction to her electric scooter. She wanted one for so long. It was awesome and when I think about her reaction I will always smile. And Justin’s main gift was the Xbox. How I will miss him asking for an Xbox-NOT!! Nikki made Justin a really pretty frame and put a picture of her and Justin in it. So sweet as Justin saw it he told Nikki he loved it. She also gave him things she was saving up for about a year from treasure boxes and such. Justin gave Nikki two Skylanders and a magic set. Justin has been playing Xbox every opportunity he gets. We also got lots of Legos so have been re-arranging their rooms so we can display them. Justin and Nikki made dad and I awesome photo coasters at school. We love them! Dad got me lots of camera stuff-new version of photoshop elements, camera strap, camera necklace, etc. So on an off roading trip Bret mentioned his jeep looks so wimpy compared to others….so I decided to splurge and surprise him with his new bumper. It was so cool and fun to surprise him, even though it came the day after Christmas. Here are some pics from our day:

The kids had a holiday party @ school. They played Bingo, made scarves, and snowflakes. Also made some snowman out of marshmallows.

And here is our Sanders Christmas card for 2014. We had to use the Jeep, moved it on the greenbelt 🙂 and decided to show all religions. Nikki really wanted us to take a picture and I am so glad she forced us too. I love it!

I am probably out of chronological order but as I remember things….The kids had to do non fiction book reports for school. They both chose Alcatraz. It was so much easier having them do it on the same subject. It was pretty cool as the kiddos had to design a box of cereal based on the book. Justin came up with Prison Bran and Nikki came up with Coco Cuffs. I have a picture of Justin’s hanging in his classroom but still need to take one of Nikki’s box.

Nikki received an A on it but still waiting for Justin’s grade.

We headed up to Big Bear for an off roading trip. We decided to make a weekend out of it. Off roading in the snow was pretty fun. The kids couldn’t wait to get out and play in the snow. The day was great but a little long! There were some huge mud puddles and the kids loved when dad went flying through it all. Mud hit Kate’s roof! You can’t tell from the pic but Kate was extremely dirty.

That night we went out to dinner. There was a magician there that was amazing! It was really fun and we are still in awe of the magic tricks. The next day was snow day. The snow was great! We were able to make snowmen and lots of sledding. The kids had a blast and we had a blast watching them. It was a little icey so I ended up going down the hill on my butt! Here are some pics:

Not sure how I can catch up but I am going to try.

The kids had crazy hat day at school. We made Hershey kisses hats out of funnels:

We went to Northern CA for a wedding the weekend before Thanksgiving. Bret was in Bob’s wedding and it was the kids first wedding ever. Bret had to get to Gilroy before us so he flew. I grabbed the kids out of school early and we did the long drive, The kids were awesome in the car. Seeing the kids all dressed up was great! They looked awesome. There were only 2 single boys at the wedding so Justin caught the garter, it was hilarious. The kids had fun dancing. Nikki didn’t want to leave the wedding as she was having so much fun dancing.

We spent about 5 days in Northern CA. Bret could only stay for the weekend. We did a lot in the few days. We went to the Jelly Belly factory. We all thought that was cool. We went to San Francisco but the day we went it was so unbelievably crowded. The next day we figured out how to avoid crowds and have fun. We rode the cable cars, went to the fortune cookie factory, went to the shopping center and the kids thought it was so cool to go up/down the curved escalators. We went to Foster City and looked around. We took a walk to the park we used to take Tracey too. It was cool to see our old house.

For the kids 9th birthday we decided to give them Disney passes. We finally made it to Disney three weeks after their bday. We got there when it first opened and got on lots of rides. Can’t believe the kiddos are 9 and growing up so super fast. I took a few pics but haven’t had much of a chance to edit. Here is a preview of their 9 year old pics: