nursery rhymes

Alison reaps the benefits of Grandma Suzie and learns all sort of nursery rhymes when we visit. This is one she learned yesterday.

Christmas Morning

Nick gave me a new little point and shoot that fits right into my pocket, which is great! Plus it takes videos. So I realized that I didn't really take that many pictures on Christmas but I have some fun videos. I'll have to see if any of them are short enough to put up here.

Now that Alison is going on her 3rd Christmas, she is a pro. Here she is sporting her new apron and playing Santa's helper, passing out the presents.

Andrew is getting a head start on his oral hygiene, that Santa knows just what to put in a stocking!

Alison is posing here with two presents. The red kitchen in the background - I'll have to take a better picture of it with them in it - and the ball popper, which was actually Andrew's present. I think that's why she has this look on her face. Like she's getting caught playing with someone else's toys or something.

What?? More dress up stuff? The shoes are my favorites.

Pre-Christmas Activities

A lot of smiling.

A lot of Andrew eating. He fed himself here, can you tell?

And some delicious sugar cookie eating.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Decemeber recaps

to bring you a Public Service Announcement on tooth brushing.

A birthday weekend for our 3 year old!

As is to be expected with a birthday so near Christmas, Alison's birthday weekend was filled with parties, parties and more parties.

She got her face-painted and our neighbor Maddie's birthday party. They are just one day apart!

Then we were off to the Slater's annual Christmas party with Santa.

When we were on our way to see Santa Alison kept saying, "I don't need to cry when I see Santa, he's nice!" When we actually got there, she looked a little apprehensive. Luckily, Andrew broke the ice, and didn't cry. But definitely looked inquistively at the man in the red suit.

Then Alison climbed up. Just about the time Andrew was done.

And since it wasn't busy, she got to sit on Santa's lap and cuddle for about 5 mintues! Lucky girl. She asked for a red kitchen (upon my suggestion, wink, wink).

On Sunday night we got together with Grandma and Uncle David and we sang happy birthday and blew out candles,

ate some delicious PINK cake and ice cream.

and opened some presents. 2 favorite books from my childhood, Richard Scarry's Busy World and Madeline.

Then on Monday, her actual birthday, she started by "making" cupcakes,

Blowing out candles with her friends,

Opened MORE presents!,

played the role of the Birthday Princess (furry pink backpack NOT optional),

And managed to decorate and eat a few gingerbread men.

Phew! That was a busy weekend. And that was only the 15th of Dec.! No wonder I'm still tired.

So busy!

I can't believe I haven't posted here since the beginning of the month. Well, we had Alison's birthday, Christmas, my birthday and lots of holiday cheer in between. I'll get some of that stuff up but for tonight I will leave you with Andrew's latest. (the video of him walking was too big - I'll have to take another.)

A liitle peekaboo:

someone got a haircut!

It was Andrew's turn. Don't you think?

It was hard to decide to do it, but it was one of those things you just had to do before you thought about it too much.

Looking on.

His turn!

The suckers helped keep him still. He went through about 5 of them because he kept dropping them and then they would have hair all over them. Gross!

She was trimming his bangs straight across his forehead. That's a worried look on my face because. . .

this was the only image coming to my mind!!

She let him check the clippers out before she started using them. He kept touching them to feel them buzz.

And, he almost made it the whole way. Then the meltdown begins...

Make it stop!!!

But what a handsome boy. And not a Jim Carrey look-a-like in sight.

someone's in a big girl bed and experiments in cloth diapers

I love this girl.

But she's trying my patience. It could be that I took the rail off this week after she figured out she could crawl in and out of her crib with the rail up.

It could be that today is the first nap she's taken in a long time. It could be that she's just bored around here and I need to be more creative with her.

At any rate. She was SUPER excited to get the rail off and have a big girl bed. She's only fallen out a handful of times. Last night I went in to check on her and she was off the bed and had turned around on the floor. Oops!

Andrew was sick this week and that included a really bad diaper rash that needed to be aired out. In lieu of a bare bottomed baby and wet carpet I fashioned this cloth diaper for him out of one of his burp cloths. Which really is a diaper! - go figure. I just don't have a clue how to pin it on. The only reason I had diaper pins is from when I had to pin Alison's pj's on her so she wouldn't take them off in the morning - remember that?

Recent events

We took a little road trip on Friday down to Richmond to see Mike and Jenny, partly so I could give Jenny her new bag. I thought it would be fun to take pictures of everyone in the car.

Andrew was sitting right behind me, so it was hard to actually take a picture of him since I'm not a contortionist.

Alison looks thrilled doesn't she? Gone are the days of spontaneous naps in the car.

Nick was making all sorts of faces for me - but I caught this one while he was being normal. Except I just noticed, why is he looking down and not forward with his EYES ON THE ROAD?

That is Jenny's sweet mother-in-law holding Andrew. And of course cute Jenny and cute Aaron on the right.

And on an unrelated note. . .

After bath snuggling with Daddy. This has become a ritual and Alison, in particular, gets upset when we threaten to skip it.

You have to be careful about lying on the floor. The minute you do Andrew is on you and crawling all over. I think he likes seeing us at his level, instead of staring at our kneecaps all day. Speaking of eye-level, he's also standing on his own. AND, I have reports from daddy and grandma Jan that he's taken a step. Oh boy!

l-r 1. scrumptious 2.kissable 3. terminally cute

I especially like #2, because this is how I see him most - pulling up on my legs and smiling up at me. Awwwhh.