Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Will's a sneaky little boy!

So lately Will has been climbing on everything that he should not be climbing on.  Here are a few of the places that I have caught him when I've had the camera close at hand.





These do not include the few times that I have not had the camera close by to snap a few shots. For example, climbing on the window sill in the playroom and onto the dining room table to swing the chandelier back and forth with Reese! Do I dare say, "Boys will be boys?" 

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas '08


Olivia sang in her very first Christmas Eve service at church this year.  She is in the Cherub Choir and they sang 2 songs at the family service.  She did such a good job. She sang real loud and almost had all the words right!  Here she is in her Christmas dress before going to church.


The kids had a fantastic Christmas spending time with family and opening presents! (Reese loved the idea of opening gifts and said all day long, "More presents peas!". They were able to spend the day with both sets of grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  It really was a fantastic day.  

Santa brought Reese a trampoline since she is obsessed with jumping.  She LOVES it! Eventually it will go in the basement, but for now it is still upstairs so she can jump anytime she wants.  (The picture is a little blurry - will try to post a video soon.)

Santa brought Will several Geo Trax sets.  He loves playing with the trains and using the remote controls.  It was perfect for him since we took down our train under the tree - he'll still have his own train to play with.


Santa brought Olivia her own digital camera!  She loved taking her very own pictures all day. Unfortunately I forgot to put in the memory card and she could only take a couple of pictures on the internal memory!! Oh well.  She's already looking forward to taking pictures and putting them in her very own photo album.  Santa also brought her an Easy Bake Oven.  She received lots of mixes for cakes, cookies, and brownies-all of which she is making for daddy!  

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your families!  

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Reese Did It!


Hmmm, what did she do you ask??  

She went to the potty for the FIRST time tonight!  

Oh, how excited I was when she said, "I go potty mom mom" (yes for some strange reason she calls me mom mom!) and proceeded to walk into the bathroom like a big girl.  

This is not all though. After she went, I began to put on her diaper and she informed me that she had to go number 2 as well.  And low and behold, we went back to the potty and she did!  

I have no idea where this all came from.  Lately she has been dry at naps and I have asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty, but she always said no. After going through potty training already with Olivia, I am not about to push it with Reese and Will.  Deep down I also know that this is probably a fluke and she won't go on the potty again for a while.  

Oh, but did we do the potty dance afterwards.  We also celebrated with M & M's!!  I was such a proud mommy!  **smile**

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Waaay Back When-esday!

As Christmas draws near I try to think back at Olivia, Reese, and Will's first Christmases.  It's funny how most of Reese and Will's first months are blocked out of my mind, until I see a picture! Enjoy these blasts from the past. 


Date: December 2004
Olivia's age: 5 months

(For some reason, Reese is in the blue seat and Will is in the purple seat!)

Date: December 2006
Olivia's age: 2 years 5 months
Reese and Will's age: 2 months

Head on over to Twinfatuation to check out more Way Back When-esday posts!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Creating the perfect Gingerbread House

2 great friends + lots of icing and candy = the creation of the perfect Gingerbread house!




Saturday, December 13, 2008

Tis the season for parties


2 Christmas parties in one week! 

The first was the Twins Club annual Christmas party.  It was such a fun evening hanging out, eating great food, and having a "Yankee swap" gift exchange.  It was crazy with gifts being stolen left and right. I lucked out and ended up with a Starbucks gift card.  How perfect for me! :)  Here I am with my good friend Renee.

The second was the hubby's work Christmas party. Again, we had great food and drinks!  Here we are before leaving the house.  

Friday, December 12, 2008

The Polar Express

My friend and I took our kids to the local train station for a Polar Express train ride. To prepare Olivia for the event, we watched the movie and read the book.  She was very much in to the story and couldn't wait for us to go to the train station.  When we arrived, we went into the program room and listened to the story.  After the story a special guest appeared in the middle of singing Jingle Bells.  It was Santa and Mrs. Claus.  He lead us to the train outside where we listened to the conductor yell, "All Aboard", and we boarded the train.  On the train we had snacks and took a ride - almost all the way to the North Pole.  Mrs. Claus let us know that we couldn't go all the way because the elves were getting our presents ready and if we saw them, we wouldn't be able to get them on Christmas.  Good thing we didn't see anything!!  Olivia really had a good time and thought the train ride was super cool. :)




Bumper Car Fun


We really have found the perfect toy for the winter to keep in our basement.  When Olivia was little, we bought her a bumper car.  She LOVED it.  Her favorite thing to do in it was to spin around in circles until she was dizzy.  When Reese and Will were old enough to understand how to navigate the bumper car, we bought another one so they would each have one.  The funny thing is, they also love to spin around until they are completely dizzy.  (It must be a kid thing!) Here is a short video of them in the bumper cars.





Who's that girl?

Olivia loves to dress up Reese.  Today's outfit was cute because Olivia wanted Reese to wear her Fancy Nancy outfit to match her Fancy Nancy doll.  Here they are together.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Noooo, Not Santa

This morning we decided to take the kids to see Santa at the Children's Museum.  I was preparing for the absolute worst scenario with Reese kicking and screaming with complete fear paralyzing her face.  But to be honest, it wasn't that bad.  Olivia and I worked on her letter to Santa yesterday.  She told me the majority of what to write and she wrote in the items that she wanted. I didn't sway her decisions with what she might want from Santa, I let her come up with ideas on her own.  She put the following on her list:

1.  toy dog
2.  games
3.  toy horse
4.  dolls
5.  picture frame (no idea where this came from??)
6. rocking chair
7. camera

When we got there, all of the kids were really excited.  They all had smiles on their faces and were jumping up and down.  As we got closer and closer though, Reese seemed to be getting a little stressed out. When it was our turn, we put Olivia on a stool in front of Santa and Will on one leg.  When Reese saw what was happening she started saying real loud, "NOOOO" as she turned her body into rubber. I couldn't pick her up off the floor to save my life! I told her that I was going to sit next to Santa and she could sit on my lap.  She didn't realize though that I was sitting her on Santa's lap and I quickly got out of the way.  Here is our picture.  


The funny thing is how scared Will looks!  He was so quiet that I thought he was fine. I focused on Reese making sure she wasn't going to try to slide off Santa's lap.  Poor Will - hopefully he won't be haunted from the experience!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Random Thoughts Tuesday

**Olivia was evaluated in gymnastics to see if she could join the Hot Shots class and she made it!!  I was so excited for her. We do need to practice a lot at home, but she should really enjoy this harder class.  (It is an invitation only class.)  The girls get matching leotards to wear and they do mini competitions.  

**Reese is getting better at talking.  She said the other day (very dramatic and with hand motions to boot), "I play church, throw ball!"

**Will LOVES our train under the Christmas tree.  He could sit for hours watching it go around and around. We just added another circle track and a new engine that has the conductors talking to each other - pretty cool.

**Olivia sang for the first time in church this past Sunday.  The Cherub Choir sang 2 songs.  It was so cute.  They even wear mini robes!  Here she is before her performance.  


**Olivia and I went to see The Nutcracker this past weekend.  We had such a good time.  We went for the first time last year and both times she loved the entire show.  She really liked that there was a story to follow along with and the fact that the girls wore pretty costumes and danced really neat!

**We took our Christmas card picture.  We decided to duplicate last years photo by having the kids wear Santa hats.  This year, we put them in their jammies and had them sit in front of the tree.  


**Going to visit Santa in a couple of days.  I am thinking that this year's Santa picture will be full of tears.  Reese will probably freak out and scream - we'll see.  I am sure I'll be posting the picture for all to view!

Enough rambling for now - 
Happy Tuesday!