Soooooooooooo let's get caught up again, shall we?

You know that Time Lapse setting for videos on the iPhone? Yeah? Well, that's what I feel our life has been like since the last time I posted. Work for both of us was busy through the fall and winter and is just now easing up. Added to that has been Tom going back to school, which doesn't add a whole lot to my plate, but it certainly does to his.

Let's go month by month...

November & December

As usual Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent at home with family. Stasa even had a Thanksgiving meal at school and lots of fun things counting down to Christmas, including special Christmas readers and visits from Santa and his elves. I'm sure I've said it before, but I really do love her school and can't wait until all of the kids are there. Stasa also sang in a Christmas pageant with her class and the whole school. The kids were all so adorable and the kindergartners sang and signed Silent Night in their Sunday best. 

January

The new year brought more snow and cold weather AND Stasa's sixth birthday. Every day I look at my Timehop app and am amazed at how quickly all of the years have flown by. We gave Stas a choice for birthday parties and she decided that she wanted to invite her whole class. Thinking that only a percentage of the 24 kids would show up we booked a party at our local bounce house for 15 or so. Well, we wound up increasing that number to 22! when nearly everyone RSVPed yes. Stasa couldn't have been more thrilled to have everyone there to celebrate with her and was a gracious host when it was time to leave, handing each of her classmates a helium balloon as a favor. That many guests means many many thank yous to write, which for a kindergartner is quite a task. She took about a week to finish them all since I insisted that she write them with a short personal note. It was actually great handwriting practice for her, too.

February

Between school and all of the events we've had with that we've also had some Girl Scout meetings, though we wound up missing both our February meeting and a February event due to snow and school closings. To say I'm excited for spring to come is an understatement. I'm so over the cold and snow and ick. February was mostly consumed with my work and preparing for a huge firm event. I spent so many hours working that month I can't even recall anything else that we did other than the usual daily routines. 

March

That brings us to this month. My birthday month that I now share with Alexia, who just turned FOUR. My birthday was pretty low key - we wound up getting a ton of snow that day and both school and daycare was closed, so I spent the day playing outside with the kids and then later that night Tom trekked out to get me Taco Bell (per my request). Lexi only had one request for her birthday: that we spend it at Chuck E Cheese with just our family. So last night we did just that. Stasa spent the day at home sick - her first all year (knock on wood) - and she and I took breaks to decorate the house and bake the cake. Tom took off a little early from work to get the smalls from daycare so we could hit up Chuck E Cheese on the early side. If I ever do lose my mind and actually plan a Chuck E Cheese birthday party I'm tempted to host it on a weekday evening. The place was practically empty. We grabbed a table, bought some tokens, for which I had a great coupon, and let the kids loose. Stas eventually got tired and rested at our table for a bit, but Lexi and Tommy couldn't be stopped. I was actually surprised by how many games Tommy was able to play. We combined all of their tickets and ordered dinner. While we waited for dinner we let Lexi pick prizes for everyone. Of course you have to have like 2000+ tickets to get anything of value and we only had about 260, so she wound up choosing candy and a few plastic bracelets. They also had a deal for walk in birthdays, so I got her a birthday crown, guitar balloon, and medallion. Once we finished dinner there we packed it up and headed home for cake and a lively game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. I forgot how much fun that game is. Tommy's favorite part was taking the balls out of everyone's goal and putting them in his own. And so now the kids are counting down to Easter and Tommy's birthday and then we'll all count down to summer and warm days spent at the pool and camping. 

Our Christmas started at 3:30 am

Yes, you read that right. 3:30 am. Stasa came running into our room and happily announced "Santa brought a MEELLION of presents!" I peeked my eyes open and realized it was still dark and I was still exhausted. Thinking it was maybe 5ish, I looked at my alarm and was shocked to find that it was only 3:30 in the morning. We finally convinced Stasa to join Lexi, who was sleeping, thank goodness. It took awhile to calm her down, but she finally fell back asleep until about 6:30, a much more reasonable hour for Christmas morning.

The kids were eager to get downstairs as fast as they could. Well, Tommy was just getting a contact high from the girls' excitement. Stasa opened her whole stocking and showed me every thing up close. Lexi focused on wrapped gifts first and was happy to sit and play with each toy before opening another present. The llama was happy with the box his toy came in.

Christmas just keeps getting more and more fun.

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

This was the first year we put colored lights on the tree. I prefer white lights for everything, but Tom and the kids like having lots of color, so color it was. Really we should have a couple more strands of lights on it, but I didn't have the energy to go out to get more so I made do with two strands. When we unpacked all of our decorations we noticed that our star was broken. We bought a new, and in my opinion much better, tree topper and the kids love it. The girls helped decorate the tree and put the majority of their ornaments on two branches. And they both helped daddy put the tree topper on and plug it in.



We never got a chance to get our outdoor lights up thanks to a string of snowy and icy and rainy days. I did manage to make and put up two giant wreaths on the front of the house, but then never plugged them in. Next year. Really I want to cover our house in lights a la Clark Griswold, but Tom's not fully into that idea. Next year. Our elf, Mr. Socks, has also been pretty busy flying back and forth to the North Pole and getting into all sorts of trouble here.

I finished all of my elfing thanks to amazon and a couple of trips to Target. Now I just need to wrap, though I'm afraid that's going to have to wait until Christmas Eve. For now I've got a ton of cookie baking to do!

Our Christmas

The girls actually slept in a bit on Christmas morning, well technically Stasa woke up around 3:00 am, but I pulled her into our bed so we could all sleep a bit longer. She finally woke us all up around 7:00 am and then I heard Lexi chirping and jumping in her bed. The girls were both so excited when they peeked downstairs and saw that Santa had brought presents.



Stasa had all of her presents open in under 20 minutes. Lexi was the opposite and opened each gift by ripping tiny pieces of paper off of each one. Then after the gift was open, she wanted to play with it. It took a lot of convincing to put the toys aside so she could finish opening her gifts. Once they tore through everything, we gave them their stockings so we could sit and open our gifts (and I could actually enjoy my coffee). I got Tom some Redskins books and Masaad Ayoob books as well as all of the Redskins Super Bowls on DVD AND something I'm sure I won't enjoy: North and South, a civil war mini-series starring Patrick Swayze. Tom surprised me with a new camera lens (18mm to 135mm), something I've been wanting for a long time to let me get wider shots of the girls playing. Plus it's super helpful with two very active girls who are always on the move - I can stay where I am and keep snapping by just zooming in or out. I still love my 50mm and that will always by my preferred lens for low light situations and portraits. But I do love the versatility the 18-135 lens offers. Tom also got me two new charms for my Pandora bracelet: a tiny baby carriage and a snowman (from Santa).

Stasa's favorite gift? The Ariel purse she's been asking for every day for the past six months. But she also loved her new Ariel underwear.




Lexi's favorite? I'm pretty sure it's this hand-me-down Raggedy Andy doll, who she calls Sandy. She carries him around everywhere now and he's a regular friend at bedtime. Mimi gave both girls new sheets with their names embroidered on the pillowcases. I so want Stasa's new microfiber sheets - they're so soft and warm. They also got little fairy figurines from Mimi. Those fairies have been "flitter-flitter-flying" all over our house since Tuesday night. And apparently they live in the Christmas tree. YiaYia gave the girls beautiful dresses for Christmas which they wore for dinner with the family.


My heart was full that day. The holidays are a million times more fun with kids. They really bring back the magic and excitement.

Merry Christmas!

Mr. Socks

Our little elf has been having a bit of fun lately. He made a mess in the kitchen with the salt shaker, then spied on the girls' rooms from the upstairs intake vent, rode Lexi's lion on top of our television, and last night grew wings and is flying in our living room.

More to come from him soon, I'm sure. ;)

Thanksgiving weekend and holiday picture outtakes

Our Thanksgiving was nice. We went to Tom's parents' house for the day and I didn't have to do a thing beyond play with the kids and take a nap. Tough life, right? I was hell bent on getting Lexi to take a nap and she just doesn't do well at other people's houses, so I put on classical music on my phone and rocked her until I thought my arms were going to fall off. At least it worked, although I'm not sure how much longer I can get away with that.




The girls didn't eat much of their Thanksgiving dinner, which isn't that surprising since they hardly ever eat a lot now-a-days. Lexi did eat all of her broccoli, some of her potatoes, and a ton of cranberry sauce ("MY PINK!", she kept calling it).

The day after Thanksgiving I attempted round two of Christmas card photos. The girls were less than cooperative, but after much bribing I finally ended up with a handful of shots I wanted to use. Here are some of the outtakes.

We had just started and already she was over it:


I would love to know who taught her this "smile"



And just when I got one of them to smile the other decided they were done:



God forbid your sister decide to lean in to cuddle:


Like I said, at least I ended up with a handful of shots. Still worth it, but now I'm thinking it's going to be next to impossible to get any of the cute sibling pictures I want once the new baby is here. I am looking forward to a subject that can't run away from the camera. Moving on...

Saturday we went over to Aunt Peggy's house to visit with everyone. The girls had way too much fun playing in the leaves in their yard. I'd forgotten just how many leaves they get before winter and how exhausting it is raking them up. Again and again and again.




It was worth it though to see how happy they were to run through them and jump in them. After awhile we got cold, so we came inside for hot chocolate, popcorn, and foot warming by the fire.


The girls are lucky to have so many family members nearby and get so excited when they get to see them. The holiday weekend was doubly special since they got to see almost everyone and were a little bit spoiled by both YiaYia and Mimi.

The rest of our holiday weekend went something like this

Matt, Loula, and the boys arrived late on Thursday before Christmas. We ended up spending most of Friday hanging out at home with the kids since all of the guys were going to the Redskins game on Christmas Eve. Sunday we hosted Christmas dinner at our house and got a TON of family pictures. We spent Monday in Winchester at Pete and Tiffany's house and then went to the Air and Space museum on Tuesday before heading over to Tom's parents' house for a birthday celebration for Alex.

Prepare yourselves for the cuteness and silliness.