11 months old

Yikes! It's been two months since I last posted. :(

I hate "catch-up" posts for several reasons... it's overwhelming, I never know where to begin and I always leave something out. So, I am just going to ramble a bit...

Let's start with Miss Emma, shall we? She is almost ONE!  I can not believe an entire year has passed since she was born. She is finally cruising around on the furniture. (I say "finally" because it took her a lot longer then it did Lea....but that's ok.) Emma is very cautious and careful. She is not a big fan of thrills or lots of action (the opposite of Lea). Actually, Emma is pretty much the opposite of Lea in almost all aspects! She keeps us on our toes.

Emma's first time pulling up to standing - 10 months old

Although Emma is pretty quiet, she babbles a lot, quietly. It's adorable! She points at everything and says, what sounds like, "That?" as if to ask "what is that?" She knows who Mama, Dada, Lea and Bailey are but hasn't really tried calling any of us by name yet. She nods and shakes her head all the time. Just recently, she has started doing it at appropriate times. For example, when I ask her if she is hungry, she always nods!

Emma is still very petite. I am guessing she weighs less than 20 pounds. She can still fit in some 9 month size clothes but is mostly wearing 12 month. Her feet seem small...she wears size 2 and/or 3 in baby shoes. I think she might have an "outie" belly button! When she stands or stretches out when laying down, it pops out ever so slightly. I love it!! She looks more and more like Kevin every day. I think the only thing she got from me is my large ears. :)

Emma LOVES books!

Miss Lea is an independent, strong willed and sometimes bossy 3 1/2 year old. She is so energetic. She loves action and can not stay in one place long. One of her favorite things to do is to run in circles through our kitchen and living room after dinner... every single night.

Sassy

Lea is still in preschool two days a week. She loves her class and her teacher! It's usually hard to get her to actually talk about school and what she does, but I love getting her little works of art each week... everything from finger paintings and drawings to a homemade candle and the life cycle of a frog collage. :) She has made several new friends, most of them all boys since she is one of three girls in the entire weekly class! Her best friend, Jackson, is in her class, too.

Emma's first Easter was a lot of fun. Like all holidays, we got to have three "celebrations"; once at our house, once at my in-laws and once at my parent's house. Lea went on several Easter egg hunts...and Emma enjoyed playing with the plastic eggs. I made a large, crocheted bunny for Emma just like the one I made Lea a couple years ago.

 

We recently took a nice, long trip to the zoo with my brother and sister-in-law. We were there from 10:30am until almost 5:30pm. What a looong day! We had a blast, though, and both of the girls were such troopers. There was a special, animatronic dinosaur exhibit there that Lea really enjoyed. (As much as Lea loves princesses and jewelry, she equally loves dinosaurs and Spiderman!)

Lea was serious about reading the map!

The highlight of our zoo trip was definitely the gorilla and chimp babies. We spent a lot of time watching them. The two gorilla babies were being slung around by there moms while the HUGE, silver-backed dad stayed close by. The chimp baby slept safely in his mother's arms while she rested her chin on his little head. I think she purposely sat right at the window so she could show off her baby!

 

Exhausted family!

Christmas Crafting

I was pretty busy over the holiday break but I did manage to get a few crafts done. Here are some of the things we did...

I added the girl's names to their stockings.

We made salt dough hand print ornaments.

 

We made reindeer pancakes (and donuts and cookies!).

 

I made two large, hooded towels for the girls.
(the other one is purple)

 

Most of these ideas/tutorials were found on Pinterest.

• This is the video tutorial I used for the stockings.
• I made up the awesome reindeer pancake but we also made these donuts, these donuts and these cookies!
• And, here's the tutorial for the cool hooded towels.

A Very Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year with our two girls! I still don't think Lea completely understands the whole Santa thing but she had a blast, none the less.

Like always, we started on Christmas eve at my in-law's. We watched the five children open their gifts and we snacked on yummy food. Then we headed to a small, local church for a pot-luck dinner with Kevin's dad's side of the family.

The girls with their cousins.

It was a nice, low key Christmas morning at home. We set our alarm to be sure we would be awake & ready before Lea woke up. She came out of her room, looked over the balcony and was so happy to see the train table and train set Santa left her! We took out time opening presents until my parents and grandmother came over for breakfast. The rest of the day was spent hanging around the house, watching our girls play with their new toys.

My beautiful girls, first thing in the morning!

Watching Lea play a new Mobigo game.

My grandma and her great-grand daughters.

Four generations.

Christmas day was so gorgeous and mild outside... Lea got to try out her new ride!

A few days later we headed down to my parent's house for Christmas there. (My brother works in the tv news industry and didn't have Christmas day off, so we gathered when he was able to.) Again, we opened presents and ate a lot of food!

My dad has his OLD Lionel train set (an extensive set) from when he was a little boy. They set it up around their tree every Christmas. When I was growing up, Santa brought it and set it up under our tree for Christmas morning. Since this is such an extensive set, it took "Santa" awhile to put it all together. Luckily, our tree was always in the basement. So, coincidentally, my dad decided to paint the steps leading to the basement every year RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. lol Looking back on it now, it amazes me that we never caught on!

Anyway... my dad got out the trains and set up half of it for Lea to play with this year. She loved it!

We enjoyed our vacation and I really liked having Kevin home for two weeks. :)

I helped Emma stand up at the train table.
She loved watching Lea play and Lea pretended
Emma was the "monster" trying to grab the train!

Preschool Holiday Party

Today Lea's preschool had a little holiday party. The parents and siblings gathered in the little gym while the 3 year olds sang some holiday songs. It was adorable! And, as you can imagine, pretty funny, too. Most kids didn't sing... a few were really into it... and a couple were just totally doing there own thing. Lea was somewhere in between all of that. ;)

Watching their teacher, Ms. Keisha.

Singing!

Not happy with the boy beside her. lol

Lea was the only one who took a bow at the end.

After the performance we gathered in their class room for a little pot-luck lunch. We had cheese, crackers, veggies, fruit, ham and pepperoni (which Lea couldn't get enough of!). Oh... and don't forget the cookies!

Me and my girl!

Lea and Jackson playing with his Rudolph nose.

This is Lea's self-proclaimed favorite thing at school. )

Lea's teacher, Ms. Keisha, is pretty special. From the very moment that I met her, I knew my baby girl would be safe in her care. That says a lot because we visited several preschools & spoke with many teachers before making a decision where Lea would go. Lea loves Ms. Keisha, too.

Sharing a laugh.

Ms. Keisha and Lea

"Gingerbread" Houses and Salt Dough Ornaments

I've spent the past couple of days just hanging out with my girls. The house is a mess and I haven't really cooked dinner in awhile... but none of that seems to matter recently.

We made salt dough ornaments a couple of days ago and painted them today. I was pretty impressed with Lea's painting skills. Believe it or not, she isn't really into arts & crafts (Gasp!). Her preschool teacher said she is always the first to finish a project and run off to play when they do crafts. She didn't get that from me! Anyhow... like I said, she actually took her time and painted the ornaments very well. I was so proud!!

Cutting out the ornaments.

Concentrating on our paintings (while Emma watches!).

Painting

I also assembled two "gingerbread" houses for us to decorate. I used graham crackers and homemade royal icing. I made them the night before so they would be hardened and ready to decorate the next day. Lea LOVED all the candy I had gotten. She wasn't that into decorating her house, though... she just wanted to eat the candy! We still had a good time. I had Teddy Grahams, too. She thought it was hilarious to make her house look like bears were climbing all over it. ;)

"I'm going to pretend to take a bite, mom!"
(I am pretty sure she actually did take a bite.)

Tasting her work.

I also managed to make peppermint bark today and actually, I got a couple loads of laundry done, too. :)

New Wreath

Since we painted our front door bright green, I have been wanting to find the perfect red wreath for Christmas. I just couldn't find something I liked, though (and anything of good quality is so expensive). I like simple... nothing too big or fancy. So, I decided to make one...

 

I LOVE it! And, I have to admit... I think my bow turned out pretty darn good.

 

The entire project cost me less than $12. I got one of those straw wreaths (it was wrapped in plastic) for $2.50. The red ribbon is like a burlap material (wired) and it was $7.99. Then, I already had the bow ribbon. Just a little hot glue and a few minutes later... Ta-da! :)

Thanksgiving Crafts

I am terrible at remembering to take pictures of crafts as we go... so I apologize. I only have pictures of the finished products. These are two super easy crafts, though, so you should be able to figure it out! lol

I saw this one on Pinterest and had to try it. And, I have to say, I think mine turned out better!

I simply traced each family members hand then cut them out (each on a different color paper). I drew the turkey body free-hand and cut that out, then added a beak and a waddle. The hands were then layered and glued onto a pretty piece of craft paper. The turkey body was glued on last. Finally, I wanted to have the year on there, so I used some self-stick scrapbook numbers. I framed it in an 8x10 matted frame that was on sale at AC Moore for $10! :)

 

 

I got the idea for the next craft from Lea's preschool. I saw these hanging in the window of the older kids room and wanted to try them. Again, I drew the corn cob and husk free-hand, then cut them out on yellow and green craft paper. I gave Lea some finger paint and told her to make "dots" on each corn cob. I think she did pretty good! We strung them together with yellow yarn (I punched holes in the tops of each cob) and we hung them from the fireplace mantle. :)