Christmas Pictures

The girls were really disappointed that Steve had to go to work today. He'd been home 14 of the last 15 days, so they were pretty set on the dad as a permanent playmate routine. So it made for a long morning of "I want my daddy" whining. But we survived it and both girls took naps this afternoon (of course it had to be at different times). Olivia had a great time during Abby's nap playing with all the toys Abby never lets her touch. She was really fascinated with Abby's new "real talking" Woody and Jessie dolls. She kept pulling the string and smiling when the dolls talked to her.

Abby has had a major growth spurt in the last couple weeks and went from being comfortably in size 3t to comfortably in size 4t. We have been back to checking the stores for good deals since most of her wardrobe in now in a box to be saved for Olivia. Today we scored 3 Disney Princess outfits and 2 dresses half off at K-Mart. Abby was really excited about the dresses because they each came with a matching dress for a doll. We had to take them right out when we got home and dress the dolls. Abby ended up wearing one of the dresses over her clothes for most of the morning.

I undecorated the Christmas tree today, but we left it standing. It still looks and smells great, so I didn't see the point in removing it altogether, but I wanted it to be ready to haul out to the curb when the city picks up trees. Last year we missed the pick up and ended up with a skeleton of the Christmas tree in the backyard until sometime in September. I'm aiming to avoid that.

Olivia got another tooth today - that' s 2 teeth in 10 days for those of you keeping track. She now has both bottom central incisors, the top right central incisor and the top left lateral incisor (weird... she had the outside tooth before the center tooth came in). She's really close to having the other two upper incisors and I don't think the lower incisors are too far behind. She's been really mastering real food. Tonight she had a 6 ounce jar of baby food beef and veggies and then downed a whole slice of pizza. She would have probably eaten more, but I cut her off. Yesterday at lunch both girls had the same thing and Olivia ended up eating every bite of her lunch just like Abby. She has quite the appetite!

O Christmas Tree

In retrospect, I should have listened to Steve when he warned me that the tree I was picking was a little on the large side. I swear didn't look nearly as big outdoors as it did once we got it into the house. I think we have about 2 inches between the tree top and our 9 or 10 foot ceilings. But it does smell wonderful and Abby enjoyed watching the tree get lit up and decorated.

So we would have posted yesterday, but it took basically all night for us to get the tree in the house, wired to the wall so it wouldn't fall down and then decorated. It was a monumental task, but Steve is pretty good at figuring things out, so it went off pretty well. And then Steve helped Abby come up with some great poses to practice in front of the tree, including the "gun show," "touchdown," and the 80's glamor shot pose. They had a pretty good time :-)

More Birthday Fun

Here are a few more pictures of Abby and her Daddy having a great time on his birthday! And we now have a beautiful, soft Douglas Fir Christmas Tree in our dining room. Abby really loves checking out the ornaments that we put on the lower branches. We made sure they were all Abby safe since they have already been chewed, grabbed, and thrown.

Abby also got her first lick of candy cane, but her dad quickly told her she couldn't have any more. She liked what she tasted though and tried to steal mine later on. Apparently starburst strawberry candy canes are on Abby's wishlist for Christmas :-)

Happy Birthday Mohawks

Abby tried to talk her dad into getting a birthday mohawk when he went to get his haircut, but he went for the traditional style instead. That didn't stop Abby from sporting her own mohawk. We tried to get the picture, but her hair is a little too fine for it to capture well on the camera.

Here's another picture that didn't make the Christmas card cut. We are still waiting on the ones that made the cut to come back from being printed, so we aren't going to get the Christmas cards out for at least a few days. By tomorrow I'm sure we will have a few lovely photos by the Christmas tree, which Steve is picking out while I type.

And speaking of Steve, he loved the birthday presents Abby and I picked out for him. He's got two great warm sets of pajamas, a new sweater, and a new video game. Plus there is college football and he didn't have to work. I think that adds up to a great birthday in his book!

I Want Candy!

Abby has discovered candy canes and would really like to figure out how to get the wrapper off them. Today we babysat Bailey and Katelyn again and Abby was really enthralled with them. She loves watching bigger kids.

We decided to wait until Saturday to go and get a tree the old fashioned way - cutting it down at the tree farm. Now we just have to hope that the 12 to 24 inches of snow that are forecasted for tonight and tomorrow doesn't bury all the trees!