Favorite Toys

I decided to wait until the dust settled before asking each of the kids which Christmas toy was their favorite. Here are the results:

Andrew- "My digital camera" He loves to take pictures and videos all day and has many arty shots to prove it. I will have to post some of them one of these days. He is working on getting the

entire face in the shot. I hope he doesn't take after me in the photography department.

Abbey- "My Dora Snow Princess magic wand"- This is a magic wand that you put little color tablets inside and wave in the bath tub to tint the water a shade of purple, pink, etc. Abbey refused to take a picture with it however and said she would take a picture on her new trampoline instead. A close second, I guess..

Allie- "My Baby Ally doll" She loves her new baby doll even though it never has any clothes on. Her name is Ally with a "Y" not an "IE" Allie is such the girly girl and it is so cute!

Gam and Jimmy

The kids just loved spending time with Gam and Jimmy! Gam made delicious tea cakes that we all enjoyed. Andrew especially enjoyed helping her. They were all bummed this morning when Gam, Jimmy, and Katherine had to leave. We hope to see them all again soon!

The case of the missing tooth

With all of the holiday excitement, I failed to notice that Andrew had lost a tooth. On Christmas day after we had opened all of the presents, I caught Andrew smiling out of the corner of my eye and something looked different. Well, upon further investigation I discovered that he had indeed lost one of his lower incisors and that another was coming in behind it. I immediately asked him all of the questions that popped into my head.."Does it hurt?, When did you notice it was missing?, Did it feel different before it fell out?, Where is it?" He said it didn't hurt, he didn't know when it fell out and had no idea where it was. My next move was to google "losing baby teeth" to make sure this was normal. Afterall, he is only four! I learned that children can begin to lose teeth as early as four. My little guy is growing up.. Oh and the tooth next to the space is also wiggly! The tooth fairy came on Christmas night even though we didn't have a real tooth to put under his pillow.

Christmas Eve

The kids each opened one present on Christmas Eve and as you can see it was matching pajamas. They were so excited. We spread "reindeer dust" (oats and glitter mixed together) on our front lawn and put santas cookies and milk out and they were off to bed. I was surprised that they all went to sleep immediately.

Aunt Katherine's Birthday

Aunt Katherine's birthday is on December 23. It was fun to celebrate her birthday while she was visiting for Christmas! Something I learned shortly after meeting James was that in his family you have to have your name on your cake. period. I sort of forgot about this and forgot to buy the little gel writers in the cake mix section of the store. I asked if we could just forgo the name but that was just not an option. So, I had to use the leftover icing tubes that I had from decorating the gingerbread people. The only problem was I couldn't find the tips. This is why her name was shortened to "Kat" and looks like a 5 year old wrote it. Oh well, I think she was ok with it and the cake still tasted yummy.

Our Christmas Card Picture

We are all so excited about Christmas. This will be our first Christmas in our new home. Gam and Catherine (James Mom and Sister) are arriving tonight, and Jimmy arrives on Christmas Eve. The kids are bursting with excitement and so am I! I have pictures to post but am not sure how to download with my new camera. Andrew and Allie sang in the big Christmas show at their school. Allie's Frog class sang "Away in a manger" and Andrews Lion class sang "Jingle Bells Jesus". It was very cute but the sanctuary was so crowded that we couldn't see too well. They did have big flat screen monitors and Andrew was easy to spot. I will post them as soon as I can figure out how to transfer them to the computer. Here is our Christmas card photo and some outtakes. Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas Parties

So I made it to Andrew and Abbey's class parties but Allie had a cold so we both missed hers. It was really special to go to Abbey's class as the public school program doesn't have many opportunities for parents to participate in the classroom. The day of the party happened to also be pajama day at school, hence the pajamas. This was a rare chance to visit her classroom and we even made marshmallow snowman snacks together. At first Abbey was a bit teritorial about me being in her class but after a few minutes she was ok with the idea and had fun making the snowman with me. Both girls went with me to Andrew's Christmas party at school. His friends enjoyed the gingerbread boys and girls I made and they had many other treats as well. I took the opportunity to grab a picture of Andrew with his teacher who he adores.

Christmas Questions

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
wrapping paper.. sometimes gift bags for last minute stuff or weird shapes.


2. Real tree or artificial?
real tree



3. When do you put up the tree?
first weekend in December

4. When do you take the tree down?
weekend after New Years

5. Do you like eggnog?
love it

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Barbie Dream House

7. Hardest person to buy for?
Abbey- not really a "toy" kid

8. Easiest person to buy for?
Andrew- loves everything!

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Yes- but it is a Fisher Price toy... does that count?

10. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards?
Mail

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?

??

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?

Home Alone

13. When do you start shopping whefor Christmas?
Black Friday.. gotta love it!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
plead the 5th

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Peppermint Bark

16. Favorite Christmas tradition?
Kids waking up and running to see what Santa brought.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
White Christmas

18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home?
stay at home although last year we went to Louisiana and Arkansas

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's?
let's see, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixon, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph..yes!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Angel.. but growing up it was always a star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
morning

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
Christmas Creep(Christmas stuff showing up in stores in September)

23. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Stuffing

24. What do you want for Christmas this year?
a fun day for the kids!

25. How many days left until Christmas?
Only 14 to go!!

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We decorated yesterday. The kids had fun pulling out all of our ornaments and asking about each one. I think it turned out pretty nice!

Geriatric magnet?

So, Andrew has been asking questions about death lately. The other night as I was tucking him in he asked me who dies. I told him everybody dies someday but that usually you live a long life and die when you are really old. He thought about that for a few seconds and then looked at me and said, "Do people die at Costco?" I was really confused and asked him what he meant. He said "Well, there are lots of old people at Costco right?" Can't argue the logic, I guess.

Gobble Gobble..

November flew by for us. Andrew and Allie had a show at preschool, everybody had the stomach flu, and we enjoyed Thanksgiving together, with just us. The kids were very interested in the turkey this year and had many questions about it. Here are my two favorite comments:

Andrew: (as we are taking the plastic off the turkey) "Can I see it's face? Where's the face"

Allie: (on the way to the store to buy a turkey- which I forgot to include on my Safeway.com order) "Mommy, are we going to buy a pet baby turkey"

On Thanksgiving, I asked the kids what they were thankful for. Here are there responses:

Abbey- "I'm thankful for when Mommy gives me a hug to make me feel better"

Allie- "I'm thankful for my cat Troy"

Andrew- "I'm thankful for my backyard"

I am thankful for too many things to list but most importantly our health and happiness. Hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Can't wait for Christmas!!

Ashburn Sport Bounce and Allie's first "shiner"

The other night I took the kids to Sport Bounce here in Ashburn. It is basically a huge indoor gym with bouncys and inflatable slides. We started out by getting a bite to eat at Fosters Grille with our neighbors. I am so glad that we have wonderful neighbors next door with kids and a stay at home Mom too! Hailey is three and Jake just turned one. Anyways, the kids just love to play with Hailey and have become great friends. After dinner, we went to the bouncy place and the kids had a ball running around to the different bouncys and slides. It was pretty empty and their wasn't really any supervision at the top of the slides so the kids tried to go down together instead of waiting and going one at a time. Anyways, one time Andrew took Hailey down on his lap and Allie decided to go down right after them. I happen to catch it on my camera. See if you notice her crashing her face right into Andrew at the bottom of the slide. Then check out her poor eye in the next picture. She cried and I thought we should go home but she wanted to stay so we did! Three days later her eye is still black and blue but is not swollen. She is a tough cookie!

And 3 days later....

Allie the Great

So Allie was particularly intrigued by the Halloween magic show that we went to. Last night, she put my sunglasses on the sofa next to me, spread her blanket over them, and said "Abra Dadabra sunglasses disappear you" Then she pulled the blanket off and said "uh oh it didn't work". She told me to watch again and did the same thing over and over again about 8 more times. Each time, she looked so surprised that she couldn't "disappear them"(her words) The last time she did it she looked at me and asked "Hey, but why doesn't it work at our house?" She had the most precious look on her face. I wish I had the camera ready!

Halloween!!

All three kids had a wonderful Halloween. Andrew was "Thomas the Train", Abbey was "Zoe" from Sesame Street, and Allie was "Abby Cadaby" from Sesame Street. We bought Andrew and Allie's costume but I had to make Abbey's costume (as you can tell, I'm embarassed!) Abbey really wanted to be Zoe but let me tell you, she must be the only one in the world because you cannot buy that costume anywhere.. not even on EBAY! We tried to get her to be something else but she was determined to be Zoe. I will say that one person knew that she was Zoe so I was happy about that. We started out by going to a magic show at our town center and then all of the kids paraded to the stores for trick or treating. My friend Cyndi came with us and then James met up with us for dinner. After dinner we headed home to light our jack o lanterns and do a little more trick or treating in our neighborhood.

Abbey's other twin

This is kind of random but the other day Abbey asked to dress up like her doll. Last Christmas Gam (her Grandmother) gave her a doll that is supposed to look exactly like Abbey. We had to send in tons of information from the shape of her face, eyes, eye color, skin color, hair color/style, as well as a picture of her for this company to craft a doll just like her. Anyways, here is Abbey with her other twin. Do they look alike? What do you think?

Pumpkin Patch on the Side of the Road

So, since Abbey didn't get to go on the farm field trip I thought we should all go to a pumpkin patch over the weekend so she would get to have some fun. Well, Abbey came down with a terrible cold and was not feeling up to a day outside. So we decided not to go and then Andrew and Allie were so disappointed. They wanted to go so bad so I ended up taking the two of them (again) to a small pumpkin patch. And when I say pumpkin patch, I mean a bunch of pumpkins displayed on hay right next to the side of the road. They did have some cool things though. They had a couple of slides attached to bails of hay and an old school bus that was painted black and was decked out with Halloween decorations. Andrew and Allie could have spent the entire day at this place. It was not very busy so they pretty much had the bus to themselves. Andrew had a ball "driving" the bus and opening and closing the door with the lever. Allie was his passenger and had fun "riding" the scary bus. They were so mad when I told them it was time to leave. Daddy and Abbey carved a pumpkin while we were gone and she was proud to show it to us when we arrived home.

Great Country Farms

A few weeks ago, Andrew and Allie's school had a field trip to Great Country Farms in Bluemont, Virginia. It was beautiful.. rolling hills, little farm houses dotting the hills, a quaint little downtown with a general store. It was freezing at the farm! The kids has fleece sweatshirts and big coats but all I brought was a light vest. Big mistake. Luckily, my friend Cyndi was coming so I called her and she brought me a warm coat. I was so happy when she arrived! Andrew and Allie had a great time on the hay ride, picking their little pumpkins, jumping on the "air pillow", feeding the animals, and just being outside at a farm. Allie was supposed to go a different day with her class, but instead of making the hour drive two days in a row, I decided she would be fine if we just went with Andrew's class. So she is in his class picture next to big brother.