Fun with friends

Our visit to Santa this year went better than the last (terrified tears from Lily) and we had fun with Jack, Ford & Katie. We checked out the toy stores, ate lunch out and rode the train. These kids are crazy and so much fun :)

 

 

 

A few days before Christmas, we got together to play and let the kids exchange gifts. Lily LOVED her new baby doll that blows kisses and Wade has yet to put down his new Batman figurine. I love the group pictures we tried to take. We just wanted a picture of Jack and Wade, since we never get any of those two. Then the babies moved in and chaos occurred. Which is about right.

 

Christmas at Wade's school

Wade had his very first music program on the 17th, then his school party was the following Thursday. I can't believe I'm already going to these things! He worked so hard on his "motions" for the Christmas program. He kept telling me that he was practicing and when it came time to perform, perform he did. He actually performed directly for us. Instead of facing the whole audience, he turned his body (we were sitting off to the side) to sing and pantomime to Mark, Mary, Lily and I. He did a fantastic job, and it was so cute.

Of course, my crappy camera is a piece of junk and doesn't record sound. Thankfully Mary recorded a couple videos on her phone though and took a few pictures at the end. Although the kids were super wound up and very distracted by their cookies :)

 

 

 

 

Wade got to decorate a cupcake and sing a jingle bell song with his teacher, Miss Erin, at his Christmas party. I asked him if he wanted to take a picture with any of his buddies and he immediately went to Miss Erin to pose with her. Yes, he is one of THOSE kids :) He said he had fun and liked it that Lily and I came to visit.

 

 

Lily has her own style...

Again, apologies for the crappy pictures. But the content is funny. Lily has a personality that no one can argue with. Seriously, don't even try to argue with this 1 yr old, you will lose. Take for instance the fact that she ate dinner with a Batman mask on, wouldn't take her backpack off to eat lunch, or slept with 2 tutus on last night... Think I may have my hands full with this one.

It's that time of year!!

I LOVE Christmastime! I seriously love everything about it. Including the stressful family pictures, trying to remember to hide the elf EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, trying to remember to put up a new stocking on our advent calendar with some sort of Christmas-y activity inside EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, putting up the decorations that the kids pull down over and over again, hanging lights and fake pine tree boughs everywhere (much to Mark's dismay), Christmas carols at the stores, the smell of our REAL Christmas tree, turning the AC off and the heater on, art projects and glitter everywhere, baking cookies, buying and wrapping presents... Seriously. The list goes on and on.

The only thing I don't like is that my camera broke. Again. I don't even just dislike that. I HATE IT! I loved my new camera, but apparently the SD card I put in somehow shorted out the whole thing and I can either pay to have it shipped off and fixed or buy a new (used) one for just about the same price. So I went to Walmart and bought a $29.99 special that has screen with huge pixels on it, like our old Atari game. It sucks. But at least I can take pictures of CHRISTMAS!

Side note- I just looked at the pictures the first time on the computer. They are TERRIBLE! I apologize in advance for any headaches that might occur just in trying to look at them for all the blurriness. The camera is going back this weekend and I will be buying something that can actually take a picture in focus. Ugh.


Miss Star is back!!

Visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus went a lot better than last year!

 

A few Christmas preparations including watching Santa feed his reindeer on www.reindeercam.com . So cool!



All about Lily

I realized that I haven't done a Lily-milestone post in a LOOOONG time... Oops.

So, she's 19 months old and weighs 20 lbs. I can't remember what her height is (geez, I'm failing all over the place), but she's 75% for both.

She is talking, talking, talking. She is saying many things coherently and nearly as many incoherently, but she loves to try out new words. She definitely has her own lingo and we are entering the deciphering phase, where everyone asks you, "what's she saying?" For example, "milk" is "milku" and "snack" is "(s)nacko." We're pretty sure she is trying to add a little Japanese flair to our daily language...

Other things she has to say:
She wants "uppa" every time I'm in the kitchen and will cry pitifully and sometimes even throw herself onto her belly on the floor when I'm making breakfast or dinner and can't pick her up.

Most animals are identified by their noises, including "moo moo cow," "bibbit (frog/ribbit)," "meow (she LOVES to act like a cat, crawling around, rubbing her head on your legs and meowing, not sure where she learned that as we don't have a cat...)" and "neigh." She does say "monkey," though.

She can say a variation of nearly every one's names including-
 Way (Wade), Daddy, Momma or Mommy depending on her mood, Papa, Umma, Nene, Aaaley (Haley), Abelle or Anna (Annabelle), T (Uncle T.), Denno (Uncle Dennis), Jack (with a French sounding J), and Pord (Ford). She can even say Lily, but it sort of sounds like she has a mouthful of something when she's saying the L sounds.

She has an opinion about what she likes and she can (and will) tell us what she wants to eat-
appo (apple/applesauce), yogo (yogurt), p-cake (pancake), baco (bacon), dono (donuts), chicka (chicken), mami (salami)

She will also (try to) say-
muca (music), night night, cib (crib), ello (hello), booka (book), baby, bottle (with a very British sound), towwa (stroller), tuck (truck), bow, ball, wa (water), dink (drink), baka (blanket), tak ou (thank you), peas (please), malkee ((you're) welcome- not sure the correlation, but it is the same every time), fie (five, as in "give me five"), ug (hug)

She is such a funny girl and has a very lively personality. She loves to dance, including "getting low" and bobbling her head all over the place. She is constantly taking care of her babies, dressing them in her (too big) clothes and putting diapers on every stuffed animal she can find. Even our stuffed snowman door hanger isn't off limits to a diaper change or two. She watches everyone carefully and imitates the smallest action. I was vacuuming the other day and she was "helping" with the play vacuum. I saw her lean down, pick a small toy up off the rug and place it on the hearth (away from the path of her vacuum), and continue vacuuming. She has a huge repertoire of faces- from over-the-top surprised to a "fake" smile, she's got them all down. She is very affectionate and loves to give kisses and hugs. She will say goodbye to everyone in the room, either by waving, giving them hugs, kisses or high fives.

Her and Wade are still great buddies. She is becoming more opinionated, so the spats are more frequent, but they are fierce and over with fast. Usually over a toy that one of them had or wanted to have (or looked at, or looked at yesterday), then some screaming and/or yelling by one or both. Possibly hitting, then a "sorry," a hug and they are back to playing whatever game Wade had going on before it began. "C'mon Lily" and they're off.

Now, pictures!