merry christmas 2011!

Well, we made it! A long weekend with the family, four dogs (five at one point), a broken water heater, lots of sugar, lack of sleep, lots of excitement!

Christmas morning with the girls (at my parents' house, also known as "another grandma" and grandpa)






four of the five dogs (and my brother)


home again, home again (opening presents with mommy & daddy)


Cora was a "machine" opening gifts. Just three months ago, she lost interest after opening the first few presents for her birthday, so we let Olivia open the rest for her. I don't think she even paid attention to what was under the paper this round. She just unwrapped, tossed the gift aside and asked for more. See the determination in her eyes?




the aftermath: hanging in her new cozy clothes and playing with her new toys






And, I know, it looks like the only thing we did to celebrate Christmas was to open presents. (I guess I was just too lazy to get the camera out at any other time! Oops!) The girls had a blast with their grandparents and aunts and uncle, and were sad to leave. It was fun seeing family, especially my brother and his wife who we hadn't seen in two years! And now we're just trying to get back into our normal routine (one with less sugar and lots of sleep!)

nine months ago... (and two days)

We met this little girl.


And here she is now. (again, in her "gotcha day" gear)

I know! She doesn't even look like the same child. And do you see those sleeves? She's grown!

She is so funny. We catch her dancing all the time, whether it's in the car, on our lap, watching Sesame Street, or just bopping around the house. (My favorite is her Curious George monkey move.) She loves to sing, and occasionally I'll hear her during naptime, singing, "you.... peck.... doo-doo-doo. bum! bum!" (Gramma sings Bushel and a Peck by Doris Day. The girls love it.) Our all-American girl loves McDonalds and she points every one of their restaurants out to me. She hardly ever forgets to say "thank you," although we're still working on "please" when she wants something. (Right now she prefers to whine for it.) She's two in every sense of the word and tests me like crazy.



She LOVES her "two piggies" If only you could see her bounce around after she's had her hair done...



She's currently obsessed with "purple" but it's not a color to her. She just wants it. And sometimes it substitutes for the number 10. She doesn't watch a lot of tv, but she does like "Baby Signing Times" and will randomly show me the signs for different words she has learned. (Love that!) She now lets her daddy put her to bed, even though she still cries a little at first, but once they start singing "This Little Light of Mine" and "The B-I-B-L-E", she's golden. She LOVES going to nursery, and starts cheering and clapping as soon as we pull into the church parking lot. (She used to sob and scream.) She has come a long way in these last months.



She and her sister are best buddies and typical siblings. They scream, fight, hit, push and knock each other over. But they can't wait to see each other in the morning. Or after naps. And her sister simply adores her.


And that's where we are, 9 months later. Wow.

why I've been a bad blogger

SEW I have this little hobby... (Inspired by my 2 cuties, of course!) I've talked about it before, but last Saturday, I officially participated in my first craft bazaar! I made little things like this:


and this:


and (my favorite!) this:


I have some of the cutest little models, whom I pay in chocolate. One of them was sleeping, but check out the other!


How cute are you?


Getting ready for the show was SEW much work. (No time for blogging!)

But it was fun!

I've set up a little page to showcase my creations, in case you'd like to see more.


And now I'm taking a little break from the machines. Sort-of.

the pre-holidays

Halloween and Thanksgiving. Let's wrap this up.

This halloween, we took the girls to the local college (that both Brendan and I attended) for their annual Funfest. When I was a student, I used to run some of the games for the kids, so it was fun to take my own kids to the event this year. The girls loved dressing up. They were so excited about their costumes! SO excited! (And of course as soon as we got them in costume and loaded in the van, car seats buckled, someone had to go potty.)

We got a couple "before shots" of the girls. Here's Cora:


And since Brendan doesn't look at this blog, I can totally throw him under the bus. He got a couple really cute pictures of Olivia while someone was going potty, but they were so dark, they couldn't even be saved with editing software. So here she is in action.


They played games and "won" candy. Olivia liked the mini snickers. Picked them out each time.




And here we are!



Cora's First Thanksgiving

Her first meal:






I think she really did enjoy it. I still think it's funny to post pouty pictures of her. She was really excited about dessert.

Now wait.... Where's Olivia??? Yeah, good question. I barely saw her, she was so busy playing with her buddies. That girl loves her cousins. Anyway, by the time I remembered to pull my camera out at dinner, she was long-gone.

Since all the families were in town, we took advantage of this twice-a-year opportunity to get pictures of the cousins together.

Pretty successful, don't you think?

No wait, this one's better.

Oh well.

AND we all got to go swimming together at the local pool! My girls loved it! Olivia did cling to us pretty fearfully while Cora jumped into the water with reckless abandon. But they still had fun and can't wait to do it again.

All right! Two holidays in one post! (I've gotten a little behind on my blogging.) The Christmas post will just have to be extra special...