A Tradition

I started a post several days ago about traditions around the holidays. I never finished it, and I probably won't. Anyway, my friend and I were talking about holiday traditions and what we did as kids, and what we wanted to do with our kids. I was at a loss, as every year so far has been different. Both John and I have family in various states, so it's not like the same thing can happen each year. However, last year we made a gingerbread house, and thanks to Aunt Joanie from Oregon, who sent one down with Grandpa and Grandma, we are making one this year. Who knows...this might become a tradition of ours!


What are some special holiday traditions around YOUR house? I'd love to know.

1st Hair Cut

Abby got her hair cut for the first time a few days ago. Well, it was just her bangs, not the rest of her hair. John thought it all should be cut, to get evened out, but I just couldn't part with her cute baby curls.
She was so brave. She sat right in that chair like a big girl. No tears whatsoever. I cam prepared with Baby and a bottle of milk, but nope. Not needed.



Of course the gal cutting her hair was a pro with littles, as she has seven of them herself. William stood to the side, watching and holding the envelope to collect the precious hairs.


The finished product!

I think this bang cut just aged my little girl a bit more. Sniff.

Merry Christmas!

I know, I'm late. Sorry. It's been busy over here.

Here are some Christmas pics.

Santa came! Notice the open fireplace, cookies and milk, and forgotten hat. The stage was perfect!


Abby didn't quite know what was going on, but she went with it all perfectly! William totally understood that Santa had come!

Abby got this cute pillow pet, along with the boots she was wearing.


We opened our stockings after we got some morning nourishment of pancakes and eggs. Abby got M&Ms. Yes. She likes candy.



Grandma and Grandpa are over and are sharing the holidays with us!


MERRY CHRISTMAS from our family to yours!

Rain! Please stay...

William is loving the rain. He doesn't like having to stay inside while it is raining, but he's been loving splashing in the puddles when the rain takes a break.


We took a short walk down our street (it started raining again shortly after we left, so it was truly a short walk!) and he was going crazy with all the puddles! So cute!



This is actually on the side of our house...wow. I guess William will be taking out the trash for a bit.

Tree

We got our tree put up hours before we left for Michigan, but we ran out of time to decorate it, so literally hours after getting off that exhausting plane ride the kids were ready to decorate it. No rest for the weary. Seriously though, we had tons of fun putting all the ornaments on it! William and I made a paper chain garland that took hours, people, hours to make! Abby had no intention of going for a nap once the paper and stapler was out, so with her sort of stepping on everything and wanting to be part of each and every chain link, it took forever. But, I was resourceful and used her to throw away all the discarded pieces of paper. (She loves throwing things away!)


This is what I get when I asked them both to turn and smile for the camera. I snapped this one just as they both turned away! I just had to laugh...it's the best bad picture ever!


I tried to get them both to hold their "age" ornaments, but getting them both to look at the camera, smile, and somehow hold the ornament so it can actually be seen....well, that's hard.


Drum roll please....here is the finished product! I'm so proud of it. Actually, it's not quite the finished product, as I found yet another box of ornaments in the garage yesterday, and we also added candy canes. But, this is a close approximation of the final product.

Now go grab a tissue and wipe all that drool off your chin! This foil star tree-topper is MINE!

A Few More

I unloaded the pictures off my phone, and found another 50 or so pictures from our Christmas trip to Michigan.

Abby really got into doing this puzzle. Her favorite piece - "Nanna!"


We took a shopping trip to the mall, and what trip is complete unless there is a carousel ride?

I know, out of 50 I only post two. Sorry.

Christmas in Michigan

We are back from our early Christmas vacation with my family! Whew...on a plane for over six hours with two little kids with no Daddy is not something I really want to experience again for...well, a long time. The trip there and back is a post of it's own, and right now I just don't want to go down that road quite so soon after getting back. I'm sure you all understand.

Once we were there, though, we all had a great time! We celebrated an early Christmas, the kids made snowmen (four of them!) with Grandpa, went sledding, made and decorated Christmas cookies with Grandma, and other fun things. (Yes, I'm pretty fried right now and can't think of all the rest of the activities, but I know there are a few of you out there waiting for pictures.)

I love this picture...just makes me laugh! Not one of them is looking! But hey, it's all about the impromptu, right? (Someone please help me out with the word I'm looking for there??)

My parents, who graciously put up with my impossibly cranky kids.


Abby got the cutest Sleeping Beauty costume, complete with loads of bling. (Edit...I said previously that she got a Snow White costume. Whoops. I knew it was a Sleeping Beauty costume, as that's the only Disney princess movie we have...not sure where my brain was!)

Melissa, the bride-to-be, received this sexy little number from yours truly. (No worries, Melissa, I won't post the picture of you actually modeling it!)

It snowed a little, so the kids took Grandpa and Grandma outside for some sledding.

Here is one of the four snowmen that William and Grandpa made. Dad thought one would be good, but William kept insisting on making more!

William also made some Christmas cookies with Grandma. They baked them one day, and then the next they frosted and decorated them. Yum!

I have more pictures, but...right now I just don't have the energy to put them up.

Fall

Well, it's December so that can only mean one thing: fall has finally arrived! The leaves on our tree decided to give it up, so this morning the kids and I raked a huge pile of them and had fun jumping in them. This was both kids first time playing in leaves, so I had to give them a proper demonstration as to how to jump in leaves, but after that I think they got the idea and serious fun was had.Abby was seriously bothered about the fact that she was sitting in leaves...she got all pouty faced and I thought she was going to completely lose it, but once William jumped in she regrouped and decided that it was indeed fun to play in leaves!

Staycation

John took a class this week at a location a few hours south of us, so instead of just staying home we decided to truck along with him and hotel it as a fam. We had such a fun time! I was a bit worried about the whole "night time routine", since in the past staying in hotels with our kids has not worked out very well, but this time was much different. Everything went down beautifully. The weather worked out nice, too, and we were able to spend a day at the beach building sand castles and eating Bubba Gump shrimp. Yes, William likes shrimp.

William is still quite scared of the waves, so we were quite a bit off the water. We still had plenty of wet sand, though, to make our sand castles.

As we were leaving the beach William found an arcade and of course we had to go in. He immediately spotted the train and had to have a ride. The thing was so rickety and old that at one point I thought it was going to fall off the podium.

We are home now, unpacking, and doing laundry. Tomorrow, destination Oma and Opa's house! Sleds and snowmen await!

Gobble Gobble!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Aside from the kids being sick, and consequently getting John and me sick, the day was great.

John put the turkey on the rotisserie and it turned out delicious!



William is just too cool to look at the camera these days. If he does happen to look, he usually has his tongue out.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Hide and Seek

Abby loves to play hide and seek. She's a pro at hiding, actually. For a 16 month old little she hides and stays amazingly quiet.

Here she is...all ready to play!

Can you find her? I know, I know...sometimes it is hard! She is ohsoverystill. And never makes a peep.

I think I'm getting warmer...


Big bro found her! He and Abby can play this game endlessly it seems. William counts to 5, then says, "Apples, peaches, pumpkin pie...whoever's not ready...here I come!" Too cute! It doesn't matter that Abby and I only have 5 short seconds to hide; we have to hide in the same spot every.single.time. or else he gets quite upset. Oh, and he has to tell us where that spot is.

Conversations

We were driving down the freeway this morning, on our way to church, when William spotted a small body of water.
"Look Mom! The ocean!"
"That's not the ocean. It's a lake."
"Why is it not the ocean?"
"Um....well...because...it's too small."
"It's not too small. It's big!"
This conversation continued on for quite some time, with William convinced I was wrong on the lake thing, and that it was indeed the Pacific.

A motorcycle soon roared by us.
"Where's that guy going?"
"I think he's probably rushing to church. He's probably late."
"No. He's going to get the bad guys."
Seriously? Bad guys? Where on EARTH has he heard that?

On Saturday I decided to order pizza. I thought I'd ask William for his input on toppings.
"What would you like on your pizza?"
"Blueberries."
"How about ham?"
"No, just blueberries."

Abby is starting to talk! Okay, a lot of it is just incoherent babbling, but she is sure trying! Some words she knows:
*Hi Puppy! (She waves to every dog in our neighborhood, and there are a LOT of them!)
*Shoes
*Mommy (this is clear as day!)
*Daddy
*Cheers! (She only says this when holding her bottle/cup in the air!)
*Nigh nigh!
*Bye bye
She can also sign "more" and "please". That's it for the signing. I haven't done the signing thing much with her...I'm all about going straight to words! Or maybe I got a little lazy....

Park and Potatoes

We spent the morning yesterday at the park. What a fun time we had! It was incredibly windy, but no one cared. They played hard, ate their picnic lunch, and played some more.



I made for the first time some baked sweet potato fries. They were delicious. However Abby was so tired by the time dinner rolled around that she didn't know what to do with herself. When she's tired she does this face rubbing thing where she takes her hands and puts them on her head and swipes them down her entire face. Well, she did that again, but this time they were full of sweet potato. Poor girl was covered in them.


William is getting a bit obsessed with Christmas and Santa. He desperately wants to get our tree up. (We have to buy one yet, and there are no lots open!)
This morning he said to me,
"Halloween is over?"
"Yes, it is."
Thinking for a moment....
"Christmas is here?"
"Not yet. After Thanksgiving"
"What's Thanksgiving?"
"It's when we thank God for all our many blessings."
More thinking....
"I don't want Thanksgiving. I want Christmas. Oma is going to have a Christmas tree for me!"

No pressure, Mom.

Lately

Days are quickly going by. I can't believe we are already 8 days into November. We have continued to work on our letters, but I've been behind on posting them.

"H" in Zoo Phonics is Honey Horse. Sometimes our LOTW pages matche with Zoo Phonics, sometimes it doesn't. We are still learning the motions to ZP and William is really loving them!


"I" is for Inny Inchworm was confusing, because he still thinks it is a caterpillar.

I remember having to buy these cubes in college. I was quite upset that I had to spend precious money that I didn't have on these silly things. Now I'm glad I have them!


Abby loves to read books. John was lying on the floor, resting from a busy day at work. But dear Abby Girl had other plans! She promptly got a book and backed her way into the perfect position for her Daddy to read to her.

New Food

I know, I know, I am behind in introducing carrots to Abby. However, Infantino gave me a Steam Release Micro Dish so I decided to try steamed carrots.

The dish was awesome. It cooked the carrots in very little water, in about a minute. Sometimes I feel that the vitamins are cooked away when I cook veggies on the stove, but with the cook time under a minute I like to think that the vitamins were still there by the time Abby got it.

Yes, the girl has never had cooked carrots before. She was quite confused, but, in true Abby style she ate them ALL.After the carrots I got a little creative - steamed apples! She's only had applesauce, but the steamed apples were a huge hit with her and William.

I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for Infantino and have received various Infantino products for my participation.