Christmas 2011

This Christmas was SUPER fun! Both girls really celebrated the season this year. We talked a lot about Jesus's birth, but we also did Santa, and a lot of Christmas light viewing! Emily is still asking every night to go and see lights. We went light on gifts, and decorations, which actually turned out to be nice. Here are a couple of pictures from Christmas.

Christmas Eve, the girls in their dresses, and getting to open one gift from Mommy and Daddy, their Christmas ornament. This is the one gift they get from us, and this year we hit the jackpot! We got Emily a Gnomeo and Juliet ornament that she hasn't stopped carrying around yet, and Sofia a dancing Nutcracker ballerina, that she plays all the time and dances to.


Sofia setting out cookies for Santa and lettuce for the reindeer. Emily didn't make it, she was too tired.


Christmas morning, Santa came!


Sofia showing Emily her new Ariel dress. Emily loved this gift, and put it on immediately. However she didn't really like opening any other gifts. She just wanted to wear her costume and hat and play.


Here Emily is modeling her new get up:)


Sofia got a Jessie costume that also got put on immediately and is getting worn A LOT! In fact the one gift Santa did right was to get two new dress up outfits for the girls:) Sofia is excited to have the whole outfit on.


Sofia also got a violin, something she REALLY wanted.


Emily got a cupcake set that you can decorate, this kept us busy for a long time!


Another big hit was Big Baby...at least that is what Emily named her. She wrapped her up, sang to her, gave her a bottle. She loves Big baby.


Here Chad caught the look of shock on my face as Emily took Sofia's beloved Blue baby out of the new highchair that they got (thank you Aunt Mary Kay) to put Big Baby in it. Sofia had just left to go get baby food for Blue baby....there were tears following this photo on both ends.


And of course the big finale, we celebrated Jesus's birthday with a birthday cake. Chad accused me of using Jesus's birthday as an excuse to get a costco cake....I think my husband might know me, but we all enjoyed a GIANT slice of cake.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I wrote this and forgot to publish it before Christmas, oops sorry:)
Both girls are into Christmas this year, which makes it that much more fun. We are trying to really keep the reason for the season in focus, and Santa a back story....which is going well, but they are still really excited about the big man. Here are a couple of pictures of our holiday happenings:

We took Santa our letters, and got to see him. Notice Emily not screaming, she figured out that he brings gifts....Sofia explained it all:)



Tree Decorating:





Going to the Holiday stroll with Daddy (Emily was sick, and I was on strict bed rest this weekend)



Emily became slightly obsessed with the wisemen from the nativity and they went every where, and I found them in the funniest spots, here is one of them:



Emily ate A LOT of Christmas cookies, candy, and basic junk. She loved it!



Sofia and my mom decorated the Christmas village. They had a great time doing it. These two always have a great time together. My mom has spent a lot of time with us lately helping, and I know we all LOVE it!



My two Christmas angels:)

I love my job!

I truly love being a stay at home mom! Yes at times I want to rip my hair out, like today when Sofia knocked herself into the Christmas tree for the second time in a week. But 99% of the time, my girls make me laugh, cry, and really appreciate every moment of everyday.
Lately they have been playing together so nicely that they barely notice me, which I think is so wonderful. I love watching their relationship grow. They love to play dress up, babies, and princesses. Sometimes Emily is the boss (more often than not) and sometimes Sofia takes the reins...literally, she had a rope around Emily's neck the other day and they were playing horses...I had to tell her around the waist not neck:)
Here are a couple of sweet picks from the last couple of weeks and some videos. I could stand and watch them play for hours!!!!!!


This first picture has to be the funniest picture I have ever taken of them!





These pictures are just them being silly and dressing up, I couldn't resist posting:)


Sofia put on a build a bear dress, and it totally cracked me up!!!!!!




Videos:

This one is a little long, but it is so funny to watch them play. I love that Sofia tells Emily that she will one day be old enough to camp out with her.


This is a talent show portion of one of their "fashion shows."

Fancy Nancy Tea

A couple of weeks ago Sofia got to meet one of her favorite illustrator Robin Glasser, and author Jane O'Connor the creators of the Fancy Nancy series. It was sooooooo fun. We went to a tea where the two of them read their newest book, Splendiferous Christmas. Not only did she get to go to a tea, and meet them, she also got to go with one of her most favorite friends Addie! They were very fancy and taught the girls all sorts of fancy stuff, it was super fun!


Sofia said this was her favorite picture of her and Addie:)

WOW!

I think that is the best way to describe our fall so far. We have had croup, a cold, another cold, Salmonella poisoning, bronchitis, followed by Emily's double ear infection last week.
Last week while Chad was out of town, and we were all sick, I started to also have complications with my pregnancy. I went into the doctor because I was experiencing things that should not have been happening. I had surgery in September to keep baby shortcake safe, and was having further complications, to explain it lightly.
They put me on bed rest for the weekend, so I had to wait until Chad came home, and then my mom also came in. We all got Emily well, and me resting. Things are doing much, much better now, but last week was complicated.
I am ready for March, with Spring weather, and no colds, flus, or such, and a beautiful healthy baby arriving! This is what I am looking forward to!

Holiday Stroll Friday, November 18, 2011

Sofia and Daddy went to the Holiday Stroll, while Mommy stayed home on bed rest with poor sick Emily.

Gymboree

Before Emily got sick I started to take her to Gymboree for some one on one time with me while Sofia was at school. She absolutely LOVES it!!!!!!!! I never have to ask her twice to get dressed or to get in the car if I mention we are headed to Gymboree. She loves the equipment, the bubbles, and gymbo. She doesn't however enjoy her classmates. Emily has never been quite a touchy feely person. When a boy tried to hug her one time, she said, "No thank you." But other than that she is having a blast. Here are some picks of her from several weeks ago.

Poor, Poor Emmy:(

Emily got very, very sick last week:( She got a temp of 103.3 on Halloween followed by diarrhea:(. We tried very hard to keep her hydrated and to comfort her especially at night. By Thursday though, she took a drastic turn for the worse. We ended up taking her to the hospital, and after A LOT of tests, they didn't know what was wrong. They wanted to admit us, however since they put us in a room with a homeless man, and then when he was released they put us in the room with someone who was very sick and a recovering drug user....I just wanted to go home. We went directly to our pediatricians office where she gave us antibiotics. She immediately started to turn around and feel much, much better. We found out when more lab results came back on Monday that she got Salmonella poisoning!!!!! We still aren't sure how she got it, but we are VERY, VERY grateful to our pediatrician for giving her antibiotics, and that God protected her from the worst. Thanks to all who prayed for her!

Halloween Fun!

We have been SUPER busy doing Halloween stuff. We went to ABQ to see my parents, and sister, and had a blast. We went to the pumkin patch, carved pumpkins, and went trick-or-treating (which Emily was not fond of until she found out that you got candy!). No pictures of that trip...too much fun, sorry:( We were all suppose to be "Super Why," characters this Halloween, but Sofia changed her mind and REALLY wanted to be a witch, so her and Emily were witches, and baby shortcake was a pumpkin:)
We went to a carnival at our church, and had a blast! Again Emily didn't want to wear her costume....well the tights part until she realized she got TANDY (candy) out of it, and then she was fine. I also took the girls to yes..Disney to see it for Halloween (yes we had already seen it for Halloween 3 times this year, but hadn't worn our costumes yet). Emily got to see her new favorite the Queen from Snow white, and was SOOOOOOOOOO excited to see her, and talked about it for the rest of the day...she's so strange! When we left she was blowing her kisses, both strange because Emily doesn't really blow kisses and, really at the Queen who wanted Snow white dead! Sofia also got to see Minnie in her witch costume, which was the highlight of her day. Mine was coming home and eating all of their candy from the night before:)


Sofia helped me decorate this year. This is her posing with the Halloween village. She didn't like that the headless horseman was headless so she put a skeleton on his shoulders, she's hilarious!

Halloween Carnival at Church:




Disney Halloween: