Thursday, January 5, 2012

Christmas and Happy New Year

Happy 2012!
We have had a lovely holiday so far. Christmas was great, especially not getting sick like last year (remember...Ben and I were throwing up?). We saw lots of family, had some lovely food, and the girls especially received many thoughtful gifts.

Santa brought them a rather large doll house. Taller than both the girls! I suppose he figures this way they can grow with it a bit.

This is the girls opening the box for the dollhouse, which had a note on it telling them to go downstairs after they opened the box. Katie refused at first, saying she'd rather play with her new stamping set.

The girls also received from Gram and Grandpa and Ben and I some Rapunzel dolls and from other friends some Strawberry Shortcake dolls, so I think this house will get lots of play time.

Santa assembled the dollhouse for us and had it ready to go downstairs. Smart guy.

The girls watching TV with the new blanket Gram Mary made for Katie. It's such a warm fleece that Ben and I love it for tv watching too!

We went to G Auntie Gail's for Xmas day dinner. Katie and Sam were a little shy (actually a bit of a theme this season...) but warmed up a bit come present time. Katie is wearing one of the headbands the girls got from auntie Alli in their advent calendar...you should all know that I steal them every chance I get because they are so adorable. And if you want to give me...ahem...I mean, my kids... more cute headbands, feel free to do so.

We've definitely enter the land of dolls but also maybe board games...we got the Candyland game as a gift and it's fun! So great to play a real game with the kids. Katie is definitely a little more into following the rules, but will still bend them when she gets bored. Sam doesn't really care about the rules much. She wanted to stay on the sticky "miss a turn" spot for about half the game.

I found time to bake (of course!) and Ben requested cinnamon buns. They were delicious, I didn't do the cream cheese icing since it's not Ben's favorite but found a simple brown sugar caramel icing instead. I only iced some of them in case the icing wasn't great, but not to worry it was good. Yum. We froze a bunch so we wouldn't eat them all at once.

Last Friday we went to a park for a sledding party with friends. The weather was pretty good (as in, not too cold) and there was some snow (which, I imagine by now might have melted some as it was 12 above zero yesterday!). The girls had lots of fun. I brought some hot chocolate and we all got some rosey cheeks. The sun started to peek out just as we were leaving to go to our friends house for lunch (Jon, Shelley and their kids L and E...it was a full house with lots of friends!).

Hope you are enjoying the few days left of holidays. This week has been great with Ben still being home and we have been doing some more relaxing and normal activites...a few small playdates and catching up on laundry etc. Sam's potty training is awesome and she hasn't worn a diaper since the Tuesday before Xmas (except at night). We don't have big messes to clean up any more but we are sure going through a ton of laundry...wet undies mostly. Usually just a bit wet and definitely making progress every day. Exciting! I can't believe how much less garbage we are making without the diapers. Big milestone for our (second) big girl! :)

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