Finally...A Christmas Post!

How nice to be able to spend Christmas at home! I'm equal parts sad to be missing out on extended family fun and thrilled to be in our own house lounging around.
Maggie and me baking cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Maggie is appropriately attired in her dance recital costume because what else would one wear for baking??

Fresh out of the bath and setting out the cookies for Santa. Maggie did a fantastic job of getting Caroline to scream "Santa's Coming!". And every night for weeks Caroline would say night-night to the Christmas tree.

The kids were really fun this year on Christmas morning. Both Maggie and Caroline were engaged, excited, and having a fantastic time. I was so happy to see them enjoying all the fun--way better than being a kid myself!

Santa is KICKING herself for buying the Barbie Glitterizer which was nothing more than a glitter disseminator and that darn glitter was everywhere for weeks!

Mom and Dad gave Maggie a jewelry box. The traditional little girl gift. It had the little ballerina that spins and plays music and everything. I don't know if she liked it nearly as much as I liked giving it to her! Here she is checking out her lovely clip-on Little Mermaid earrings.

Caroline received several different forms of Dora (dolls, backpacks, bath paints, jammies, etc). She loved the backpack and wore it around most of the day.

Maggie gave Caroline a pillow pet and Caroline loved it. Here she is "loving" it.

Utah Trip December 2010

We decided to hit Utah between Thanksgiving and Christmas (mostly so we could attend my brother Brian's b-day celebration). Caroline had the stomach flu most of the time and the Provo Tabernacle burned to the ground....but otherwise we had a LOVELY time!
We met the Matesen clan in Salt Lake City for a little dinner before heading down to Provo.

After some pretty nasty traffic we arrive at our hotel only to find they had given away our room. After a huge hassle we ended up taking two rooms and splitting up for the night. The following nights we managed to get our regular set-up.

We hit La Dolce Vita with the family the next day. My dad and his wife Rosa taking the leftovers home to their rabbits. Seriously.

Caroline playing with Meredith. Little did we know she was probably infecting her with the flu bug that would eventually take her down for too many days. I still feel terrible about it!

We had the cousins over to the hotel for swimming:

We visited Brian's grave site and left a wreath. His birthday party was worth the trip. We had a really nice family visit. We shared favorite Brian memories. We watched the picture slide show we had made for his funeral. I was so glad we came for that rather than the holiday's before or after.

Maggie left a snow angel:

As we were leaving the Matesens one day Maggie reminded us of the promise to play in the snow. They quickly set about "playing" in the front yard and even managed a snowman. Mags was more than pleased.

Not my favorite picture of either Patrick or myself but we have so few pics of just us:

My kids love Utah. Maggie regularly asks to move there. It goes by so quickly each and every time we're there. One of these visits I'm gonna make it an extended stay just so I can see everyone I want to see and do everything I want to do....one of these visits.

Pre Christmas Fun

Pretty much the month of December:

Caroline finds the drawer in our coffee table the perfect lounging location.

Patrick finished framing, electrical, and HVAC in the basement--hooray! Time for drywall. We hired this part out. One morning a big...thing (crane?) came to drop off the supplies. We (and all the neighbors) got a big kick out of that.

Maggie has taken to decorating Caroline:

She's big into art of all kinds I guess:

We took a trip to Utah for my brother's birthday (I'll do a separate post on this). One day in and Caroline was throwing up. Super. After two days of puking we make the journey home. This is how she looked the whole way. At least she managed NOT to vomit the entire drive--phew!

I felt just awful for her! A day or so later we find out that cousin Meredith came down with it too (oh the massive guilt!). Sorry Mer!!

We thought Maggie had escaped. Wrong. Although she didn't vomit nearly as much as Caroline she basically slept for 3 days straight and had me pretty worried.

Both kids miraculously felt great for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Then came something else...

Things I Want Recorded

This post has been in the works for months. Literally. Months. Ugh. So when you're reading what my kids are up to, remember the first half of this post is what they were up to in, like, early fall...yup.

Some artwork by miss Maggie My:

Maggie got all dressed up. New dress from cousins, fancy shoes with flowers on the toe, princess crown, and of course her stuffed unicorn. "Mommy, I'm pretty and you and Caroline are handsome. I'm the only one in pretty things".

Caroline over the past couple of weeks has mastered the stairs. Going up them at least. She's managed to make it all the way up our stairs and into her Daddy's office before I know what has happened. I've become waaaay too complacent with her immobility and have not adjusted quickly enough to it's sudden demise. **She now rocks at both going up and coming down the stairs. She's still very good about going down backwards never even attempts to "walk" down.**

Maggie is so full of funny sayings I can't even keep up. It makes me sad because she is hilarious:

Maggie says, "Mommy, what is this wrinkle?" Bacon honey. It's bacon.

Maggie says, "Mommy, you need to shave your spikes."

Maggie says, "But...I'm not done with time out!"

Maggie asks for a spray of my perfume. Later that day she approaches me for more and says, "Mommy, I don't smell like heaven anymore."

Sept 9th. First true walk from Caroline. Soooooo proud. That girl is all about lazy and learning to walk is a whole lot of effort!

We've decided Caroline is much more interested in increasing her intellectual abilities than learning to do that silly walking stuff. She has learned most of the alphabet and can even recognize some basic words. Yes, I know she's just memorizing certain words and not actually, truly reading them but its super cool! We went to Borders the other day and from the car she emphatically pointed at the big Borders sign and named each letter in order: "B! O! R!...etc. I was pretty stunned. She can also recognize the following words. She can barely SAY them but she does know them: smiling, point, keys, eyes, mouth, diaper, wave, tongue, and rattle. Those are the words from the level one Your Baby Can Read program DVDs. I was using them as pure entertainment (my chance to shower, etc). Who the heck knew she was actually picking up on the stuff?? Once we pulled the flashcards out and she started saying the words we were just laughing it seemed so unbelievable! **She is still amazing us with what she's remembering, retaining, learning. Like...whoah...**

Caroline is pretty good at asking for "hup" (help). If she wants a book or toy she can't reach or gets stuck in a precarious spot she can't climb down from she yells, "hup...hup...HUP!!" Occasionally she also yells, "STUCK!"

**ACTUAL CURRENT STUFF:**

Caroline in the doctor's office (diagnosis: croup). Weight 20 lbs. Just 20 small pounds at 20 months!

Caroline is a singing FOOL! She remembers and sings along to an astounding number of songs. She even makes up variations to songs. One of her favorites is Once There Was A Snowman. She regularly substitutes Snowman for any other thing and thinks it makes the song hilarious. She makes other pretty funny substitutions in other songs and we always get a big kick out of what she comes up with.


She also loves to count. She counts everything. First she counts in English then immediately starts over and counts the items again in Spanish. Thanks Dora! I regularly get people commenting on how verbal she is.


Caroline has started nursery at church and loves it--as long as I stay in the room. Bummer. She completely freaks out if I try to leave. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. She's scared of everyone and refuses to let anyone get too close to her.


Hungry Hippos is the girl's favorite game.


For the past few months I've been in charge of the Activity Days at church. It's been an adventure and Maggie has loved being with the 8 and 9 year old girls every other week for an activity. I swear she thinks I'm setting these up as little play dates just for her. I was released of the Activity Days calling recently and now I'm the Primary secretary. I told Maggie and she was so bummed!


Maggie is a little-big person these days and is starting to sound like one too. It's not uncommon to hear her say, "...and I was like....and she was like...".


She is still obsessed with all things girl. Barbie, princesses, etc. but her favorite thing in the world is playing any sort of game at all with her Dad.


Over the winter break Maggie got to have two special dates with her Dad. First, the happy couple skipped off to Red Robin for lunch and then it a movie. Apparently Tangled is the greatest movie of all time because we've been playing Rapunzel games ever since. Here's a pic of the two of them in the theater:


Their second date was to the Rec Center for some swimming! Patrick told me that after 3(maybe 3.5) minutes she decided she was too cold and had him bundle her up in towels. They spent the next 45 minutes on the plastic deck chairs while Maggie babbled...and babbled...and babbled away to her favorite guy.

Maggie's Christmas Dance Recital

Maggie had her Christmas dance recital and oh was it cute!

The tap routine was a little soldier song. It was her favorite.

She had a great time! Again, Patrick and I were more freaked out about the performance than she was. Caroline attended since she won't go to a babysitter yet.

I need to remember Maggie is a teensy tiny girl and doesn't need a bouquet of flowers bigger than she is.