random silliness

so this is just a little random silliness from the world wide web! :) i saw this on a great inspirational blog done by the wonderful emilie ahern... so enjoy the fun! :)

we wish you a
merry christmas!

funny little story...
so we're getting ready to open presents and i tell the girls to sit next to each other. well, they did. they sat down in a "sister's pose" figuring that i wanted to get a picture of them. my mom and dad got a great laugh out of that! i said, no just sit next to each other so you can open your presents!!! (this was not that picture, i just thought i'd share that little story on myself.)

christmas jamies
culbertson tradition since 2000

writing some little letters to santa
totally not staged either! somehow it's so much cooler to write a letter by candlelight!

cookies for santa & celery for the reindeer...
(we didn't have enough carrots for all of them!)

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

it was nice to spend a laid back christmas eve with my parents. i thought these pictures turned out really cute. wow... my kids look like them, don't they??

merry christmas from the
culbertson family!

Merry Christmas
from the Culbertson Family

i laugh every time i see this "stan" ornament. :) having an obvious plethora of "noel" and "joy" ornaments, my mom decided we needed a "stan" ornament! so she made it from a scrap of paper on my counter the first year we were married. and it has been on our tree ever year since! (the noel ornament was given to me by my great grandma when i was a kid, and the joy ornament was from my grandma.)


and this baby right here is stan's pride and joy. we found it at a local farmer's market 5 or 6 years ago. it clamps to the center of the tree, and the tracks go around it. it sits about 3/4 of the way up the tree. and it is by far the coolest christmas decoration we've ever found! :)

Picking out Ornaments

every year we pick out ornaments at a small local farmer's market in town called schuh farms. we usually get them when we get our tree, but this year we settled on a fake tree since stan was leaving. that and we put the tree up the day before halloween... and there are very few fresh cut trees available then! :)

so the girls picked out their ornaments... this is how the process went this year...

this is the ornament i really want!
maybe not... maybe i want this one...

no, wait! what about this one?

this one is really cute, too!!!
nope... this REALLY is the ornament i want!

birthday date
with my grandma

wednesday i had a fun day with my grandma. our birthdays are a few weeks apart... a good excuse for some lunch and shopping in la conner. :)

we took a couple of pictures before hand... and the signs were my present, that and a vintage coffee tin we found at one of the stores.

saying goodbye

a few pictures with stan before he left on deployment this weekend.

happy thanksgiving
from the little turkeys

happy halloween!

this year we had "just a regular queen" (according to torrey) and snow white as guests at our house on halloween!

torrey (not) just a regular queen!!!

emma as snow white

our crazy fam...
stan wore his old leather jacket and went as
"bad bad biker dad"
i wore stan's grandma's society ball dress and a plastic crown from target and went as
"the queen"
torrey wore a nice red queen outfit and went as (again)
"just a regular queen"
emma wore a disney costume and went as
"snow white"

the girls had some suggestions for stan on his costume... first it was BALD the builder (they thought this was pretty clever, and called him that the entire halloween week!). the other suggestion was that he go as the king, since there was no shortage of queens! in the end he chose something he had on hand that was warm!

the girls at great grandma & great pa's house

the cousins
hey, at least they're all IN the picture!!!

the girls making the rounds, stopping at the lewis' house

fabulous fall

the girls and i went to the state park the other day to enjoy a little hike, the beach and to get some fall pics.

just a fun pic of some silly girls!

how lucky are we that the sign for the state park has the super cool logs on either side! and the leaves on the tops of each log were just like that when we got there... it was picture perfect!

freezing fall fun at the pumpkin patch!

gift with purchase...
little pumpkins for buying big pumpkins!

i just thought the muddy pumpkin path looked cool and fall'ish.

Sunrise

I woke up to this amazing sight when this morning. This is one of my favorite things about living where we do. (I took these pictures from the deck of our house.) I don't often see the sunrises in the summer (I'm just not up THAT early!) :) But in the fall and winter, when the sun rises between 7 and 8 am... it's a much more reasonable hour!

Open House
@ school

I'm not sure exactly how October snuck up on me... but it did! School has been back in for a whole month. The girls are loving their teachers... Emma loves being in kindergarten! Torrey is rocking the second grade, and I officially caved and joined the PTA. (I'm not sure why I was so reluctant... silly me!) I love this little brick ledge at the school, and I'm thinking I'd like to go back there some weekend, and get some pics there while there is no one around...

Festivus
...for the rest of us...

...for the rest of us...

cider pressin', hay fort buildin', mutton bustin'
and pot luckin' good time
good ol' fashioned country fun!

the girls are always so excited for festivus
as soon as we park the car they fly out and dash in

torrey catching air

torrey climbing the hay fort

stan & emma
early bull riding lessons

fun fall decor

cameron, the girls' cousin, mutton bustin'

emma enjoying a cold can of grape soda
while watching her cousin ride