Happy New Year!

May your year be merry and bright (and full of bird-watching or polka dots, if that's your thing)!!

 The little guy was actually looking at an osprey here. Pretty cool!

Back Home

We spent the past several days in Florida visiting my family-- although it is nice to be home again. We did a little sightseeing in Savannah on the way home. The little guy said that it wasn't very pretty there, because there are too many buildings in the way. I've always thought the buildings are the beautiful part! Oh well. Different strokes, I guess. The kids did enjoy the view outside our hotel room this morning, though.

I'll post some of our Christmas pictures over the next few days.

Cooperation

The kids play nicely together on occasion-- it's always nice to capture it for posterity. Here they are assembling legos together.

Merry Christmas!

The little dude has been singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas all month. The other day I chimed in with the so bring us some figgy pudding verse and he just looked at me and said "What are you singing?" with complete disbelief in his voice.

Bus Ride!

The little guy and I got to ride a city bus a few weeks ago. He was SO EXCITED!! Here we are at the bus stop.

He wore my gloves on the walk to the bus stop and on the bus. After we got off the bus, he looked at me and said "YOUR GLOVES!!" with a horrified look on his face. Luckily the bus hadn't left yet, and we were able to get back on and get them. As a chronic loser-of-things, I am SO proud of him for remembering (eventually)!

Great Ideas

What could possible go wrong here?

Injured Role Model

The little guy hit his mouth pretty hard this evening. He and the baby were crawling around under the table playing and then he started crying and there was blood coming out of his mouth. After he calmed down a bit, the baby quietly crawled under the table, came out the other side, stood up, and announced that she had hurt her mouth, too.

It made the little guy laugh, which was a nice improvement.

Jingle Bells

Our family performed a lovely rendition of Jingle Bells this evening. Eric played the jingle bells, the baby played the drums, and the little guy is off-camera playing the kazoo.

Nutella!

The baby and I both like a thick layer of Nutella on our biscuits. It's so, so, so good. I sure hope my face is cleaner than hers when I'm finished eating, though.

She's such a mess.

Movie Night (again)

The kids have had a lot of special-occasion-type events lately, and they are pretty beat by the time dinner is over. We've been watching a lot of Christmas shows in the evening instead of playing since they are so tired.

It's nice to have the quiet time together.

Tired Teddybear

The baby was a tired little teddybear tonight. We let the kids watch a Mickey Mouse Christmas movie this evening so they could calm down a bit after the holiday celebration at Eric's office (which was very kid-friendly!).

She's sound asleep now... if only the little dude could follow in her footsteps!

Hair Clips

Thanks to a genius friend of mine (you rock, Courtney!), the baby and I picked up some miniature hair clips over the weekend.

Victory!

Christmas Cooking!

The little guy and I made three batches of cookies today: m&m, thumbprint, and vanilla kipfel (thanks for the recipe, Gram!). His special job was to make all the thumbprints!

He's getting to be so big!

Xtreme Selfies?

The little guy got ahold of the camera again on Friday, and there were about 10 pictures that looked like this:

Those were followed by about 15 pictures that looked like this:

I only saved one of each.

Somebody's Feeling Better

The poor little guy was home sick with a fever for three days this week. He's finally feeling more like himself.

Hooray?

Failure

I'm trying to grow out the baby's bangs. They are exactly eyeball-lenght right now, so I keep pulling them back into a ponytail. This is how she came home tonight.

I am a complete failure at styling her beautiful, beautiful hair. Could it look worse?

Dress for Success!

This is how the little dude dresses for pretty much anything:

We don't let him wear the baseball pants to school, but he's definitely worn them everywhere he can. What a goofball.

Candyland?

The kids got out Candyland tonight. They dumped all the pieces out and promptly started playing with their plastic food instead.

Look at her striped tights! Squee!!

Your Beard Is Good

The baby likes to sit on Eric's lap and absentmindedly rub his face. It always makes me think of Flight of the Conchords. Anyway, here she is in one of her Christmas outfits, watching a Christmas movie, rubbing Eric's beard.

Hey, Eric-- your beard is good.

Makin' Bacon

We had pancakes and bacon for dinner last night. The kids both helped stir the pancake batter. Eric took this great picture of them helping, but I had just realized that all the bacon wouldn't fit on the griddle and am making a TERRIBLE face. Yikes!

Oh well. The food was delicious!

Before and After

I've been doing the 21 Day Fix workouts (which are awesome), and they encourage you to take pictures to document your progress. The little guy saw Eric taking my picture the other morning, and he posed for some, too. Here he is-- not sure if this is a before or an after.

Every Vote Counts...

... but some count more than others. The little dude has been creating ballots so we can vote on things. If his side is losing, he'll pencil in votes from his grandparents. For some reason they always vote for what he wants!

Today we voted on whether we should buy more Legos (More Legos vs. No Legos).

It was unanimous in favor of more Legos!

Up in the Air

I took the kids to Grandview National Park a week ago. It was the windiest day ever, but they had a great time. The baby insisted on sitting in a big swing-- but no pushing!

The little guy did his own thing.

Mom of the Year

That's me! The kids had their picture taken at a Christmas tree farm today, so we brought changes of clothes so they could help pick out a tree without ruining their nice Christmas outfits.

Somehow, though, I managed to forget the baby's pants and socks. Thankfully it was in the mid-60s, so she didn't freeze to death.

It was pretty embarrassing.

Snow Bunnies?

It snowed at Nana and Pop's house over Thanksgiving. The kids got to play in it-- the little guy had a blast, but the baby didn't seem to enjoy herself too much.

These two.

Weird Faces

The kids sometimes make the weirdest faces. Here's the little guy watching tv, all relaxed or whatever. (Seriously, how is this comfortable?)

And here's what the baby's been doing every time we get out the camera.

Goobers.

Woooooo-OOOOOO-ooooo!!

The kids still love playing with our hand-me-down giant, collapsible firetruck. It's, um, really loud when they play with it because they spend most of the time making siren noises.

The baby actually managed to carry the entire thing all the way across the house-- through three rooms and a couple of doorways! It was pretty impressive...

Class in Session?

My brother and his wife bought the baby an amazing shirt for her birthday. Here she is rocking it and teaching us something with chalk!

Watch and learn is right!

Brrrrr!

Sorry for the lack of posting last night. The car Jeep battery died and we had quite the adventure getting home!

Anyway, it's been really cold (for North Carolina) this week, so I snapped this picture of the kiddos all bundled up and ready to go to school. This was the funny face version.

Look at all those layers!

Books, Books, Books!

For their birthdays, one of my uncles sent the kids nearly one thousand books. I think they read every single one with their Nana last weekend.

How sweet!

So Happy Together!

The play table is the best thing we've ever bought. The kids use it all the time, and there's enough room for them to use it without bickering. Hooray!

Miss Independent!

The baby's favorite phrase is "MY do it MYself!" and she says it all the time. She put her own shoes on this afternoon. Can you tell that they are on the wrong feet? She refuses to change them.

What a stinker!

Birthday Girl!

The baby turned two today!

Her Nana and Pops came in to town and brought her a shopping cart full of plastic food. She was thrilled!

The little guy already has a cash register with a scale and play money. The two of them played grocery store until half an hour past their bedtime.

Guitar

My daddy bought me a guitar many years ago so I could learn to play... and I never have. It's nice to have the guitar, though, because he can play it when he visits. He let the kids help him play and sing a few songs the other night!

Cake!

The baby is not-quite-two, and since my parents have been in town we celebrated her birthday tonight! (We'll have another celebration this weekend with Eric's parents.) We got her a stuffed Daniel Tiger, and I have to say we hit it out of the park with this one.

Can you believe that two years ago I looked like this?

And now my baby is moving to the two-year-old room at school!

Marbles!

We went to Marbles Museum this morning with Grandma and Gramps. The kids had a BLAST. The adults did, too! Look Gramps and the kids built out of giant legos!

Playground!

The little guy 'rode' his big-boy bike to the playground today. Then he and his sister had a blast on the slide.

Here he is leaving on his bike. Up ahead you can see the baby zooming along with Gramps. Hooray family!

Bedtime Stories!

Eric does a fabulous job reading the kids' new book Telephone. He does such a good job, in fact, that they've requested he take over bedtime reading (WHAT!??!).

A lot of nights I'll sit and listen to him, too. He does the best voices.

Early mornings and late evenings

As Emily has mentioned before, she's been dragging my sorry behind out of bed to work out with her in the mornings. Our wonderful son usually comes down and joins in on the "fun" by either doing some exercising or critiquing our form. The other day he had the camera out while we were working out and he snapped this awesome picture.

I really am just about as dead as I look. What you don't realize is that we were just doing crunches and we have to be off centered a little because I have stolen half of Em's yoga mat. Add the fact that you have a 5 year old aspiring paparazzo (singular of paparazzi?) flashing photos from very close range and it's a little crowded.

Last night the toddler (she's not a baby anymore, sigh) wanted to listen to some "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift so we played it 5 times for her and the boy. They are so funny when they dance and sing!

That boy is such a goof!

Captain America, Jr.

The little dude put his Captain America mask and shield on the baby tonight.

She was not amused.