More Grandma & Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa had such fun playing on the floor with Lizzie and Lizzie actually let Grandpa hold her for long periods of time! She liked him a lot!

Ali discovers a new love...FOOTBALL! (at least when accompanied by Grandpa AND carmel corn!!)

First SNOW Day

Even Lizzie bundled up to walk around outside. The snow had mostly melted on the ground but it was fun to see snow falling for the first time since we moved here!

When we were outside we saw our neighbors and we all walked around in the snow together! The girls are so cute together.

Early Merry Christmas

Grandpa and Grandma come to visit and we have an early Christmas. We are so lucky!!! Ali gets to choose 2 gifts to open and she receives......DRESS UP dresses and shoes!!! Just what she asked for! She played ALL day with this beautiful dress that reverses from Snow White to Sleeping Beauty! I love the pretend play but the only bad thing is she says, "Mommy, you're the evil one!"

We went to look at lights in Santa's Magical Kingdom and then Ali got to choose an ornament from the Christmas store...thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

We love when Grandma and Grandpa come to visit! The girls get SO excited! We had such a nice weekend and they got to play a lot with the girls! Thank you for everything!!!

Holiday House Tour Part II

Stockings on the banister...we are told that Santa is bringing one for Elizabeth this year!!

The view from our kitchen...I just love all the fun colors of Christmas. It is such a special time especially with kids...they just get so excited about everything. It makes it so much fun!

Our beautiful Christmas rug from my friend Melanie and Brad :) And look on the door is a needlepoint from Oma!! :)

Our entry way by the front door. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season!!

Welcome to the Holiday Tour of Our House

Welcome to our Living Room...Ali just happened to be watching Rudolf on tv when I was taking these pictures!!

Here are our shadow boxes filled with Christmas things. Chris' mom helped me to decorate this year...I like the new touches! The stacking dolls are Alexandra's...one from Poland from Uncle Colin and one from Nana from Alaska. We also have a tradition of giving Ali a new Christmas book every year. I put them away with the decorations so that they are exciting to look at during this time of year...one book is on display on the shelf. The book she chose this year was a Dora Christmas book!! :)

I put the girls Christmas pictures in frames...they turned out so cute. I almost like the ones I took better than the professional ones just because they show the girls personalities. Lizzie waving her arms, Ali putting her arm around Lizzie...so cute.

The mantel...Look at the wooden snowmen and Santa hand made by Oma!! The stocking were knit by my Aunt Lynn!

Chris always loved a real tree...but this year we thought we'd save some money (in the long run) and buy a fake one. Ali took some cues from him and said, "I don't want a tree from a box!!" but it looks nice and I don't have to remember to water it!! :) Alexandra has chosen her favorite ornaments and likes to organize them by year. She doesn't want them on the tree...just in the lines she has put them in on the table! She loves having her OWN ornaments...we have kept the tradition from my mom and given her an ornament each year representing something from that year. It's so much fun to look at all the ones I have from almost my whole life and I'm so glad that Ali likes having her own also!

Thanksgiving 2

We went for a drive through Tilles Park where there are thousands of Christmas lights. It was so beautiful and Ali loved sitting on Opa's lap and looking at the different scenes. It was a great intro to the Christmas season!

Oma and Opa get ready to feast!!

Look at all of the gorgeous dishes...Chris said he was impressed that we actually had all of the dishes and serving pieces to put on our first big holiday at our house!

Oma had a great idea and had Ali color name tags for everyone. She wrote some of the letters for each name...good writing Alexandra!! :) They turned out so cute!!

The first time we used our new dining room table!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was such a beautiful day on Thanksgiving...we all went to the park and the girls got to swing!

The girls in the double stroller going for a walk. We had to get outside before eating SO much!

Putting all of the dishes together! We had lots of help!

We are so thankful that Oma & Opa could be with us to celebrate the day! We've been with them for lots of years on Thanksgiving and we were so happy to hear that they could drive out to be with us again! (plus we needed all of Oma's expert cooking advice!!)

Uncles x 2

Ali is THREE and a half today!! Our big girl loves her sister, loves counting, putting the ABC's in order, anything princess, matching clothes with her sister, and she's so happy when any of our family comes for a visit!

Uncle Colin (from Portland, Maine) and Uncle Pete (from North Carolina) come to visit! We get to spend the day with them at the playground and then they went with Chris on their annual football weekend to watch a big game (this year in Kansas).

My girls!! :)

Beautiful sunset while we were grilling pizzas for our visitors!!

Pete and Colin dropped off Ali at preschool in the morning so they could see her room. What a lucky girl to have such doting uncles!

Newest happenings

Elizabeth is NINE months old now! She loves saying "Ma, ma, ma, ma!!" (I love it too!) She is waving, feeding herself her food (she won't eat that yucky baby food anymore), and of course STILL waking up lots at night. Hmmm...we're still working on that one.

Ali was writing all of the numbers on the calendar I had from my school stuff. She also pointed to all the numbers 1-100 on a number chart and said them all!! We set up a school corner in our unfinished basement and put the play house and tricycles down there...Ali loves playing down there now that it's cold!

Playing with shaving cream is so much fun!!

I love pizza now and Cheerios and spaghetti and quesadillas!!

I like to practice standing too!! Getting so big!

Happy Halloween!

Have I said that I love our neighborhood? We had 10 families over for pizza and pictures before trick-or-treating started. It was so fun to see all the kids dressed up! The weather was so nice that they all jumped on the trampoline and we got to eat pizza outside!

So many cute girls!! Ali is holding hands with her friend Lillian!

Ohhh...the cute lil punkin just woke up from her late nap! She was just watching everyone all night!

Chris had to show his mullet-sporting side to the neighbors!!

So, she was going to be a bunny...then a few days before Halloween she saw her friends' sparkly shoes and decided she wanted to be a princess so that she could have glittery shoes! We are so proud of her...she bought her shoes with her own money from her piggy bank. I said, "Are you sure you want to spend $10? You'll only have $10 left." And she said, "Then, can I go to the store and get more money??" Ahhh....if only!!! :)

Get Ready for Halloween!!

The Bunny and the pumpkin!!

Alexandra and her neighborhood friends carving pumpkins.

Daddy is so good at carving our pumpkins! Our neighbors invited us over for pizza, pumpkin carving, and roasting marshmellows over the grill!! So much Fall Fun! We love our neighbors and all of the traditions we are starting with our kids!!

Ali's preschool Halloween party...it was so much fun to be in her class and help out! We made spider treats with chocolate donuts!