Christmas 2010

What a busy and exciting Christmas we had this year!

With Allie being 2.5 years, she really began to understand Christmas this year…..the Elf on the Shelf (Francis is his name), Santa, Rudolph, the North Pole, etc. We had a great month leading up to the big celebrations with family. And for Will, well, he mostly just enjoyed the paper and bows!

It all began at our “Pennsylvania house”, as Allie calls it. We decorated both our “Atlanta house” and “Pennsylvania house” so that we could enjoy the season in both locations.

We celebrated at our Pennsylvania house a few days early, as we were scheduled to fly to Atlanta on 12/22. The Sunday morning before Christmas we enjoyed a pancake breakfast, and then got busy opening presents! Granny sent up a HUGE present for Allie and Will to share, and boy did they enjoy their new motorized jeep!

David and I also gave Allie and Will a few presents from us, and exchanged some great presents of our own. Allie seemed to really enjoy her new baby doll, complete with playpen, high chair and stroller, while Will got his first bike! We’ve even been out for our first bike ride on it already!

It was soon time to head south to Atlanta to celebrate with our families. We were lucky enough this year to have all of David’s brothers and some of his other relatives together not only to celebrate Christmas, but also to celebrate Grandma and PaPa’s 60^th wedding anniversary!

Uncle Steve even managed to put on a Santa hat and play Santa for Allie and Will….fortunately for us, we were able to catch this quick photo of Will on “Santa’s” lap. Turns out that this is the only photos I have of either child with Santa this year, as my valiant effort a few weeks earlier to get them all dressed up in their cute Christmas clothes that I purchased just for photos with Santa and lugging them to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap was a complete failure! Will screamed from across the room when he saw the big bearded man in the red suit and Allie wouldn’t get closer than three feet from him! Oh well, so much for valiant efforts….guess we’ll just try again next year.

After a Christmas Eve lunch to celebrate the big wedding anniversary, we came back to the house to open presents with Granny, Honey, and Chris, and prepare for Santa’s visit. Allie loved all her presents from Granny, Honey, and Chris, but was especially fond of her pillow pet and hopscotch mat. Will, once again, was just happy to play with the paper and bows, but he did make an attempt at playing hopscotch with his big sister, and he finally got the hang of opening the presents.

We got the babies all decked out in their Christmas PJs and got busy baking cookies for Santa. We put out Santa’s cookies and milk and a banana and pear for the reindeer, and off to bed they went.

Christmas morning after a quick breakfast for Baby Will, we woke Allie up to see what all Santa had delivered.

And of course, the babies were thrilled with all that Santa brought. Allie was really happy about her vacuum cleaner, and she still tells everyone that it’s her favorite toy that Santa brought to her…..seems that it’s Will’s favorite too as he plays with it everyday! And of course she loved her new Minnie Mouse panties that Santa left in her stocking!

After spending all of Christmas Day playing with new toys, we packed up and headed to Auburn for yet another found of presents! Allie and Will had so much fun playing with all of their cousins and visiting with Ommie, Auntie, and the whole crew. And, I finally got to put them in those cute outfits that I bought for them to wear in their Santa pictures! After a long day of hard play, we retired for the night and then headed back to Atlanta the next day. We only had a couple more days at “Atlanta house” before packing up and boarding the plane back to Pennsylvania.

It was truly a fantastic Christmas and it’s so much fun to see Allie’s eyes glow with the beautiful innocence that’s present only in children during this season…..I can’t wait until next year when Will’s eyes light up as well!

Nikki

First Pennsylvania snow!

Ok...I know, all right, I know. I know that I haven't posted anything on this blog in over a month, but come on, we've been super busy! Finally got moved in to the new house in Pennsylvania (and not without a few hiccups here and there, but I won't bore you with those lovely details), got the kids settled into school, and even made a trip back to Atlanta for Thanksgiving (and no, I don't have any pictures of the kids' first day of school here in Pennsylvania or Thanksgiving because my camera was still in a box somewhere!).

Finally, this past weekend, we unpacked the last box....it only took us a month! The camera made it's first appearance in Pennsylvania just in time to capture an image of our newly erected Christmas tree....which Will seems to adore.




And thankfully, the camera reappeared just in time to capture our first real snowfall of the season! (I may sound excited about this now, but I can assure you that after a couple more weeks of this snow stuff and my excitement will subside substantially). Now, we've had snow falling every day for the past week, but today is the first day with any accumulation on the ground. It's been snowing for about 2 hours now, and I'd say we've got 2 inches on the ground with plenty more rapidly falling. It's like a blizzard out there!

Here are a couple of shots of Allie just after the snow started falling...


(throwing a snowball)...


And here's a shot from our kitchen window about an hour later...


I wish you could see it now! Everything's covered! Winter....here we come!

Nikki

"Happy Halloween Day!!!"

Yea Halloween! We had a great Halloween this year! Many months ago Allie decided that she would be "Baby Bop". For those of you that are not familiar, Baby Bop is a little green dinosaur character from the kids show "Barney" (you all know Barney, right? That giant, annoying purple dinosaur?).

So, since she was consistent for a couple of months that she wanted to be Baby Bop for Halloween, I found this really cute costume for her. She might just be the cutest Baby Bop ever!



And poor Baby Will, of course, was left being a monkey....which is what Allie was last year. Hand me downs.....

And no, I promise I won't make him be Baby Bop next year....

We started our festivities with the Halloween parade and party at their school. Allie did a great job in the parade marching around the room and then jumping up on stage yelling "Happy Halloween Day!" to everybody.


Will wasn't into the parade so much, but he was super happy to get his costume off and go to his classroom to play with pumpkins and eat cupcakes!


Sunday night we ventured out for our first trick-or-treating adventure. Allie was SOOOO excited all weekend and she practiced her "trick-or-treat" for several days leading up to the big event. We first attended a little neighborhood party when all the kids paraded around in their costumes, and then we turned them loose!



Here's Allie's hesitant approach to her first house.


Daddy went to most houses with her....


....and it didn't take her long to realize that she had a bag full of goodies!


Will spent most of his time in the stroller, but he was a happy camper for more than an hour and then he decided it was time for us to all head home.


Check out Allie in action!


We had a GREAT first trick-or-treating adventure!!!


Nikki

Will and his doors.....

He would do this all day if you let him......



There's just something about this little man and doors!

Nikki

Allie's first haircut!

Yes....at 29 months old, Allie got her first haircut today! Because she has such curly hair, there really has been no need to get it cut before now. Actually, her hair is really quite long, but it curls up so much that you'd have no idea how long it truly is. Her hair has been getting a little too wild and crazy lately, so we decided today would be the day for her first cut!

Now, it is unfortunate that we happened to pick a day when Allie is being "2" to get her hair cut. Most of you that are around her often know that she typically acts more like a 3-4 year old, but for the past two days she really has been a "2 year old".....thus the reason that she is sitting in my lap instead of sitting by herself, and the reason that she is whining and crying instead of being "big girl". Oh well, this too shall pass.....

In the end, she ended up doing a great job....







Oh, and the stylist, Ms. Debee, wanted us to be sure and let everyone know that she doesn't typically dress as a cowgirl.....it is Halloween weekend, however. :-)

Nikki