Monday, January 23, 2012

january in our house

I thought I'd give a little update on the girls for the relatives who requested it. :) There's not a lot of exciting news to report, but that's probably a good thing.

Meg is almost 4 1/2 and is growing like a weed. (The picture below is her attempt to show how big she is.) She officially looks like a little girl to me instead of a toddler. Her arms and legs and feet and hands seem like they grew long overnight. I think Meg's favorite thing to do is talk. From the minute she wakes up to the time she goes to bed, she talks. Allllll day she is telling jokes (knock-knock jokes, which she hasn't gotten the hang of yet), singing songs, asking questions, telling stories, and sometimes just talking just to hear herself talk. Most of the time it's fun and entertaining, but sometimes I have to tell her, "I'm turning off my ears now." For the most part she's pretty happy and funny and loves to be silly.


Katie is 2 1/2 and is a sweetheart. Her favorite thing to do is ask us to read her a book. She has a lot to say but has trouble getting it out, which is a constant source of entertainment for us. She comes out with stuff all the time that makes us smile. She asked Mark the other day, "is your heart full?" Katie follows her own grammar rules (example: if it's past tense, just stick the word "did" in front of the verb. "I did eat my lunch." "I did push Claire down on the ground.") Thankfully, the tantrum phase seem to be waning and we are left with just simple bouts of frustrated screaming here and there. I am fine with that. I see improvement.


Claire is finally walking more than crawling and seems like she is in constant motion all day. She entertains herself by wandering around from room to room, finding one thing to look at and then getting distracted by the next thing. I have to be constantly aware of where she is, though, because she often gets herself in tricky situations.


Claire loves to climb, get into things (literally), and put things that are not food into her mouth, which keeps me on my toes.

I bet you just looked at what's in my refrigerator! :)

Sunday, January 8, 2012

fancy nancies

With our girls, dress-up is by far their favorite pasttime. They will use almost anything to adorn themselves, each other, dolls, and inanimate objects.

I let Meg play with a sticker book during her quiet time and I found her asleep with stickers on her earlobes like they were her earrings. Next to her was a pillow elaborately swaddled with a blanket that looked like a dress. After she got up she found another target for her sticker earrings...

...and did you notice her stuffed dolphin "Dolphie" is wearing a dress??

Someone else (who finally REALLY started walking this week!!) likes to dress up, too. With Meg and Katie as her stylists, I never know what Claire is going to toddle into the room looking like.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

christmas recap

We had a great Christmas! My standards were low, since last year we were very sick with the stomach bug, so when Claire had a cold this year it felt like no big deal.

We got two Christmases this year - one in Atlanta and then my parents came the next week and we had a mini-2nd Christmas with them. The more the merrier! It was fun watching the girls examine and shake and squeeze the presents.


Katie sort of "got it" this year.


Meg really "got it" this year and asked about Christmas almost every day this month. She was so happy to get the scooter she wanted! (with marker on her chin...)


Claire was happy playing with the wrapping paper and watching other people open their presents!

Friday, December 16, 2011

holiday season recap

We are only halfway through December but we've been busy! A couple of weekends ago we got our Christmas tree. Katie was sick that day and so was I, and as you can see she was pretty grouchy. (I was too, so thankfully I am not in the picture).


Last weekend Katie, Meg and I made Christmas cookies. They had so much fun! They were totally silent and engrossed in this for a long time.




It's been a long time since I've cut out cookies with cutters so I forgot the important step of making sure the dough is cold so it will keep its shape! These looked bad -verging on gross- but thankfully these weren't really meant for giving away.


Yesterday Meg and Katie's preschool had their Christmas program. I spent most of my time getting it on video so I just have a few lousy pictures. I thought it was funny how everyone in this picture is doing a different hand motion. The girls were precious and we loved watching them.


Yesterday Mark's office had a children's Christmas party and Santa came to visit! Meg told Santa she wanted princess shoes, a princess dress and a princess crown.


Katie told Santa she wanted a lollipop.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

first steps

Claire took her first steps last night! Mark and I were tag-teaming the girls' bath/bedtime and I was helping Meg in the bath when I heard Mark in the next room sounding excited and saying, "One step! Two steps!" - and finally it dawned on me what was happening and I ran in to see her take her third step.


She walked back and forth between us 3 or 4 times, taking about 5 tiny, tentative steps each time.


We were all so excited for Claire and I think she was pretty proud of herself!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

visitors

We got to spend the past few days with Mark's mom Nancy and our 8-year-old niece Leah. We were especially excited that Leah was coming since we have very few chances to hang out with her by herself. This is what I learned about Leah this weekend: she loves purple, soccer, Michael Jackson (especially "I Want You Back" and can sing it spot-on), Uno, Gymboree, pretty much any food out there (I was seriously impressed with this), and kills any opponent in balloon volleyball. She is fearless, sweet, funny, and mature. I love that my girls have her as a cousin to look up to. (Christie, can we keep her next time?)