Merry Christmas!

This was, without a doubt, our most fun Christmas! The girls both had such a great time with a special breakfast (cinnamon rolls, bacon, eggs, and orange juice!) and especially playing with their presents. Abby had trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve - she was pretty excited that Santa was coming to leave us some presents - and was up until at least 10:30 or 11:00. She was a little worried about leaving him a cookie, though. She wanted to make sure that he wouldn't take all the cookies, but just the one that we left out for him. And first thing on Christmas morning, when she came downstairs, she wanted to check that the rest of the cookies were still here. (They were!)

We got the girls a sled, and since it was too big to wrap it was the first present Abby saw when she came down. She immediately sat down in it, and then gave Gingham a ride. It was one of Nora's favorites, too. She spent the whole morning climbing in and out of it, and spent a lot of time just sitting in it and bouncing up and down. Since we got about 5 inches of snow on Christmas Eve into Christmas, after we finished opening presents we went outside to try it out. Abby had a great time getting pulled around the yard - and poor Adam discovered that he does not have a future as a sled dog. Poor Nora fell facefirst out of the sled into the snow almost immediately, so she didn't have much fun with it after that. She's never going to trust Adam in the snow again!




Adam and I both had cinnamon rolls Christmas morning when we were growing up, so that's one tradition we're definitely going to continue with our family. And (I know it's a surprise) our girls are pretty big fans of cinnamon rolls, too.



Abby had a lot of fun digging into her stocking. Nora wasn't too interested - she was too busy climbing in and out of the sled to care much about what else might be going on.



Santa was good to the girls - lots of toys and candy in their stockings. And of course, he didn't forget Gingham, either. He had a little stocking with some candy in it too.


One of Abby's first presents that she opened was this tub of play food. She immediately emptied it out on the couch and had no interest in opening any other presents after that.


Nora didn't care too much about opening presents, but she had a great time playing with all the bows on the presents.


Eventually, we did convince Abby to open up the rest of her presents. One of her favorites was a tutu that I made for her since she's been talking about being a ballerina and pretending that everything she can put around her waist is a tutu. She opened the little one I made for Gingham first, so she was pretty excited to see one for her, too.


Highlights for Adam and me included a Kindle for him and an iPad for me. Adam's deciding which "real" newspaper he'd like a subscription to, and I'm having a great time playing with my iPad. And of course I'm basking in the jealousy of everyone who wants one!

Adam convinced me to make a nontraditional Christmas dinner this year, but I still wanted the traditional sides, so it was a bit of an odd combination. We ended up with steak, twice baked potatoes, cheesy biscuits, green bean casserole, and noodles. And given my love of making pies, we've decided to make a pie for dessert be one of our traditions (or I have, anyway!) so we had a chocolate cream pie. I think that was Abby's favorite part of the day - she sang songs about chocolate pie all evening. By dessert time, though, Nora was too tired to enjoy her pie and refused to even try it. Poor little girl - she doesn't know what she's missing!

Our White Christmas


Christmas Tree - Christmas Morning

Happy 1st Birthday!

This past year has just flown by, and last Saturday it was already time to celebrate Nora's first birthday. We had the whole family over for a cake-and-ice cream party and plenty of little girl antics.

Nora spent most of the morning sitting on this box.


We decorated the dining room in pink and green while Nora took her nap.


Nora's #1 cake - I had so much trouble with it! Lesson learned: if you're going to try to ice the cut sides of a cake, a super-fresh cake is NOT the way to go. Her little cake kept crumbling, too, so I ended up holding it together with A LOT of icing. She enjoyed that!




As is only right for a 1st birthday, Nora made a massive mess out of her cake.




Then it was time for presents! Nora was pretty excited about the hammer Abby picked out for her.


Adam and I got Nora a doll and doll stroller. Abby REALLY liked the stroller - you can see how she threw Nora's doll on the floor to give Gingham a ride in the stroller.


I like this picture because you can see how Abby likes to line things up - she organized Nora's presents for her. The tub of bath toys in the middle of the line (thanks Uncle Alex!) is probably Nora's favorite present - she carries at least one of them around with her all day long.

A Gingersnap for Our Gingersnap

In honor of Nora, we made gingersnaps for Christmas this year. Here she is eating her first one.

No One's As Funny As My Big Sister

The Princess and the Pumpkin

Happy Halloween!



We've had a great Halloween this year. Abby helped me make Halloween sugar cookies last week, but they didn't quite last until Halloween. So we made another batch on Friday and Saturday, and this time we introduced her to Adam's family tradition of using frosting to decorate cookies.


All set up and waiting for Abby.


Getting started


Tasting all the different colored frostings was definitely her favorite part.



Nora didn't get to decorate any cookies this time, but she enjoyed eating our handiwork! If you have a good imagination, you can pretend that you can see her new little tooth starting to poke through her gum in this picture.


This morning after church, we carved our pumpkin. Adam wanted to make it look like Gingham, but after he drew on the Gingham face we couldn't quite figure out how to carve it out, so we just drew a happy face on the other side (Abby's original request.) So we decided it's a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Gingham" pumpkin.


Adam can never resist the opportunity to use the largest knife possible.


Abby helped pull out the goop, but then she didn't like how messy it made her hands. She gets that from her dad, so the de-gooping fell to me.




Finally, it was all cleaned out and ready to carve.





After naps this afternoon, it was time to go trick-or-treating! Abby wore her princess dress, Nora was a pumpkin, and I was a cowgirl. Adam told Abby he was dressing up as a dad, which she didn't particularly approve of (he was supposed to be a pirate.) But then she decided that Gingham could be a pirate, so the afternoon was saved.




All ready to go trick-or-treating! Abby's licking her lips in anticipation of all that candy.

Before we got very far, a man from the local news stopped us and asked if he could interview us as local trick-or-treaters. It'll be on at 10:00 tonight - Abby and Nora's TV debut!



In other news, we got a new couch this week. It's pretty exciting for a few reasons - it's red, it's a sectional (so we get a lot more seating in the living room) and it's new! New things are always kind of exciting!


The day it was delivered, both of the girls spent all day playing on it. They really like the new couch!

The Stair Climbing Baby

Nora's discovered the stairs and the magical world they lead to:

Curtis Orchard

This morning, we took our third annual family trip to Curtis Orchard. Adam took the day off to work on the living room ceiling, so we decided to take our trip on a weekday morning instead of a Saturday to avoid some of the crowds. It was a good plan - we had a great time and didn't have nearly the crowds of last year's trip.



When we got to the Orchard, Abby wanted to go see the goats right away. She brought Baby Bear with her instead of Gingham, and she told him that we'd see real bears, but we had to settle for goats.



She did a good job feeding the goats. It took awhile for her to walk up close enough that the goats could reach the food in her hand, but once she got it figured out she had a grand time letting them eat from her hand. When she ran out of food, she wanted to pet all of the goats, too. When did she get so brave?



Nora stayed in the stroller and practiced her yoga.



After a brief stop at the playground, we headed out to the pumpkin patch.



Abby rode in the wagon; Nora stayed in her stroller, still practicing that yoga.





After a long trek out to the pumpkin patch, Abby and I walked through the patch, looking for the perfect pumpkin to bring home.



We carried back to show Dad and Nora.



Nora likes it!



And Dad likes it too!



Baby Bear likes it, too. We're all happy!



Nora didn't spend the whole trip practicing yoga in her stroller. She hopped out to play in a bin of pumpkins for awhile.



We stopped in the store on our way out (since we had to buy our pumpkin) and picked up some apple cider and apple doughnuts. Abby was a big fan of the apple cider - she had it instead of Kool-Aid at lunch and instead of chocolate milk at dinner. And we all enjoyed the apple doughnuts with our lunch. It was a great trip!