Sunday, December 25, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Just one Present
We finally gave in, actually we bribed the girls to cooperate by the promise of opening just one present. It was just a preview of what tomorrow morning is going to be like...so much FUN!!
That did not keep Ava from throwing the ball around the house though!
Tomorrow is our big Christmas at home with the girls before getting ready to celebrate with our extended families! It'll be a busy busy day! Can't wait!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Christmas Art
After having Thanksgiving/Christmas with my extended family we needed to send out some thank you's to all the sweet relatives who blessed us with a wonderful day! So, it was time to make our annual hand cards!!
Carli was much more excited to participate this year! She did a wonderful job on all 18 of her hand prints!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Sweet Sisters
The girls do really well at sharing a room. Our biggest complaint is that Ava is a very early riser. We were worried that this would mess up Carli's sleeping habits, but it turns out that it just has brought the girls closer together! :) We've consistently gone to get the girls up in the mornings and found this...
Ava wakes up early and starts talking or playing. Carli in turn wakes up and promptly joins the fun in Ava's bed. I rarely wake up smiling, but to hear two giggling girls through the monitor brings a smile to my face every time!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Adventures with Santa...
We were very hopeful that this would be the year that Carli would go see Santa.
They got off to a rough start when she was 14 months old...
At 2 things were a little better, but she still wasn't so sure about things and refused talk to him...
And at 3, we just knew this would be the year! She has talked about him for quite awhile now. Our mail man actually looks like Santa, and she loves to wave to him and yell hello! We even snagged a "session" with Santa at our church thinking that he would be in a familiar place and Carli would warm up to the idea of talking to and taking a picture with Santa...
Instead, we got a family photo...
She did talk to him, but he got in trouble when he attempted to pat her arm. Ha! She told him she would be flying high up in the air to go see Naggy and Pappy, she would stay in a hotel and come home to see Grammy's snowman. Santa just smiled and nodded!
On my birthday we went to eat and decided to check out Santaland. We thought we would give Santa another shot, b/c Carli was so excited that he was going to be there. She was going to hold Ava's hand and take her to see Santa...Ava took one look at him and figured out Carli's intentions and immediately started crying. And so, I was able to capture my 30th birthday photo with Santa, just like I planned!
Maybe next year Santa...
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Rainbow Rice!
Keith and I aren't really buying the girls Christmas this year. Instead we are making most of it. I did get some clothes and a few toys from the CCC Sale, but mainly we are sticking to the homemade gifts. Pinterest has helped a lot with ideas. We figure we don't need a ton of new toys and that the girls will most likely have just as much fun opening the present as they would discovering what is in it!
So on my list of Christmas Gift to-dos, was rainbow rice. I've been wanting to get the girls a sandbox, but the Cicada Killers are very popular here and they tend to lay their eggs in the sand. I found this idea with rice and it was much cheaper and added an extra element of fun...color!
I actually let the girls help me color the rice. It was part of the fun after all! I bought a $5 bag of rice and the food coloring and we spent a good 45 minutes "making colors" as Carli liked to repeatedly say! Ave spent that 45 minutes attempting to out maneuver me and sneak up on the table. :)
Carli helped me measure out 8 bags of rice with three cups each in them. Then I added 4 tsp on rubbing alcohol, and then the food coloring to each bag. Carli's job was to "SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE!" And she took this task very seriously!
After surviving Sonic, and eating lunch in the living room on TV trays. I got the girls down for a nap and thankfully the rice was nice and dry. I put them in 4 separate plastic containers so I could wrap them and put them under the tree later. What's kind of crazy is Carli hasn't asked where the rice went! It was fun and I'm glad I got the girls involved, sanity loss and all!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Oh Christmas Tree...
We got our Christmas Tree up last weekend. So far, we've broken two Christmas balls. The girls have done really good at just looking and not touching. We hear a lot of..."AVA NO!" and peek around the corner to see Carli attempting to lecture Ava on why we don't touch the Christmas tree! So I decided to give them a little tree of their own to decorate. I thought it turned out pretty well. I like the ornaments - the tree itself has an issue of staying on the wall. My command strips aren't doing their part! Of Logan, Carli and Ava, Ava loves it the most which is good because she has heard a lot less lecturing from Carli, at least when it comes to touching the Christmas tree!
And when Ava completely empties the tree, Carli comes around and exclaims, "Oh NO!" and starts picking them all up. If only she'd do that for all the toys she throws around my house!
Friday, December 9, 2011
A thru G Memory Verses
I've made a real effort to stick to our consistency board that we started a while back. We've had a couple of weeks where I didn't hold up my end and a few more where we would do the same letter twice just to make sure we got the memory verse. We are mostly focusing on the days of the week, the weather, our address, the memory verse and our purposeful prayer. I figure the next time through we can work more on the letter writing and such. Uncle Tone took my amateur video and edited it for us so that it is much easier to follow Carli as she recites her verses. I'm very excited to be able to have this memory on video!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Painting - in the Bathtub
Yep, you read right! Last week when we picked up Logan from school, I got the notion to let them paint. And then I remembered seeing a very simple recipe for bathtub paint on Pinterest. It took me all of 3 minutes to whip up three colors - and it took the kiddos even less time to get ready to start painting!!
No worries, everyone wore their skivvies while we painted, we do have some modesty here. :)
notice my girls covered in paint and Logan had scarcely a spot on him! It was pretty entertaining to watch him try to make sure he didn't get any paint on him either by his own doing or Ava's!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
A Christmas Painting Adventure
On Wednesday of last week, I watched Kenzie and Hayden while their Momma had to visit the dentist. I was adventurous and decided to let the girls paint some Christmas Trees. Actually, my status that day on Facebook was:
Brave? Why yes I am! A 3 year old, a 2 year old and an 18 month old painting Christmas trees while a 2 month old and I supervise...yeah, stupid may be a better word for it!
But I should have had more faith in the girls. They did really well and had a lot of fun! Ava wasn't so sure about me sticking her hand in paint but she let me help her with her hand print Christmas tree and was quickly done!Both Carli and Kenzie were very serious little painters, but they take more of the abstract view of painting. I was impressed that Carli didn't freak over getting her hands in the paint! But each hand had to have it's own color!
Kenzie is much more at throwing caution to the wind and diving into projects! She painted her tree with intense concentration. At one point she even told me to stop asking her questions, she was working! She did a really good job and didn't get a lick of paint on anything but her hands, arms and paper. I was impressed!
Here is their finished artwork, maybe I'll start taking pictures of their artwork for an album rather than trying to keep up with all the originals...