It's a Wonderful Life!

The girls got a special visit at the town home party where they were able to let Santa in on what they wanted for Christmas.

 (Leila's a hard person to give gifts too....even SHE doesn't know what she wants.)

 (Molly LOVES Santa though she doesn't smile around him.  But she knows he has candy.)

Christmas morning was full of fun.

Tyson and my present to the family, a TV and Blu Ray player.

And on the shelf, my gift to Tyson of a painting of Christ ("Every Knee Shall Bow" by J. Kirk Richards).

 Molly actually had a little fever.  Not too bad, but bad enough that she spent most of the day cuddling with mom.

 Santa's family gift was a kitchen set with some play food, cookware, and dishes.

 Nana and Papa Finlinson gave us a Playmobil castle.

 But I actually don't have pictures of some of the girls ALL TIME favorite gifts....OK, they actually seem to rotate through their toys quite nicely and love them all.  But their other major favorite gifts are the Rainbow Loom from Grandma Sakamoto, Leila's stuffed animal panda bear (that she named Bamboo) from mom, and Santa's gift of $5 gift cards to Wendy's (which they were DYING to use tonight but Molly was still feeling sick).

Overall, it was a wonderful Christmas and the girls had a lot of fun.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I thought I'd post (before Christmas) our Christmas decor.  It has been a lot of fun decorating this year (I admit that I'm usually pretty "Bah-Humbug"y about Christmas decor because it costs money for something you put up once a year to then take down and find storage space for it for the rest of the year).  But with the girls getting older (especially Eden who ADORES any time a special occasion arises to decorate) and a basement with extra storage to keep decor during the off season, I've enjoyed decorating this year.

And it helps that Tyson and I decided to get ourselves an early Christmas gift of a new shelf to hang and place some decor that we've been really wanting to get for a while now.

 Mind you, this is no ordinary shelf.  We found it (for cheap) at an antique store that just a few random pieces of wood.  It is old and warn and absolutely beautiful.  A part of us felt bad that it couldn't be fully enjoyed when being used as a shelf.  We also got relatively cheap but incredibly awesome brackets to go with it.  They don't look like much in the picture, but the plainness of it all makes me sigh with joy.

Tyson and I made this sign last year, and we still love it.

 We had quite a rough go at the store trying to decide how we wanted to decorate our tree.  Tyson and I all all sorts of "I don't know!  You tell me!" kind of talk filled with "no, no...I don't like that."  We finally decided to be creative and created our own ornaments.  We really like it.

My burlap bows.

 The only ornaments that we not handmade, REALLY glad we have these to add some glam.

 Tyson's moss balls.

 Tyson's candy balls.

 My twine balls.

We have a few other little decorations here and there, but those are the biggest things.  And we also bought ourselves a few Christmas candles that make the house smell like Christmas.

Our little family (I say that but the more I ponder "four kids" the more I think "four is a big number"...in fact, when hanging our stocking on our shelf we measured our five spots, forgetting that we had a stocking for the little one even when she's not born...and we had to re-measure where to hang the stockings)...as I was saying, our little family is spending Christmas only as a little family this year.  No travelling to be with our parents this year.  It makes us a little sad, but it is still going to be exciting.

Two Years Old

Little Miss Molly is two years old.  We celebrated her birthday in Texas (though technically her actually birthday was spent driving home from Texas).

She's thrilled and STILL thinks its her birthday and will get upset at anyone who tries to say otherwise.  It was a great day for her.

She wanted a "Happy Snowman birthday" or in other words an "Olaf birthday".  All my pictures of our (not so exciting) Olaf cupcakes are on Tyson's phone and I haven't gotten them from him.  But its really nothing too exciting.  But she loved it, which is all that really mattered.

Things Molly Says:

• "No.  I'm not a _____.  I'm a puppy."  Usually this response is after someone says calls her "Molly" or "cute" or "nice" or pretty much anything other than a puppy.
• "Sheesh Sheesh."  This is her common comeback to anything.  Mom: "Molly, can you put this in the trash for me?"  Molly:  "I can put it in the SHEESH SHEESH."  Mom: "It's time for bed."  Molly: "It's time for SHEESH SHEESH.", etc.
• "Good morning!"  Almost every morning I am greeted with a smile and a little sunshine!
• "Read this one." or "Now this one"...book after book after book after book.  She enjoys most any book but she does have a particular love for Arthur books and Curious George...but really, most any books she loves.
• "No, I do it."  She's very independent....
• "I want to play with Playmobils."  She has an undying love for playing with the Playmobils.  I hear this phrase many times a day and it keeps her busy for quite a long time.

Other Quirks about Molly:

• I can probably list off her favorite to least favorite people.  Mom is her ultimate favorite, then Eden, then dad, then Leila.  Outside the family she has a special love for her cousin, Millie, Nana, our neighbor and daughter Kirsten and Addie, and a friend from gymnastics, Paige.
• The girls love to sit in their carseats and hold hands during long car rides.
• She loves to dance.  She can swing those hips pretty good!
• She's very selective about her hugs and kisses.  Almost always she'll let me kiss her, even smother her with hugs and kisses, and she'll often let Eden smother her as well.  But most anyone else she'll get really upset and protest getting hugs and kisses unless she decides its OK first.
• She loves animals, especially dogs.
• She loves movies, especially Baby Signing Time.
• She doesn't eat much.  It's hard to get her to eat unless its treats or candy.  Although she does love vegetables, fruit, rice, noodles, beans (like black and garbanzo and kidney), peanut butter and honey sandwiches, quesadillas, oatmeal, muffins, and she's sometimes OK with chicken.  But they need to be separate, she doesn't do dinner and casseroles much.  But even things she loves she doesn't often eat a lot.
• She loves "naked time".  It's quite important to give her this time.
• She also loves dresses.  The only times I don't need to highly persuade her to wear clothes is when a dress is available for her to wear.  She has her favorites ones of course...and she pretty much wears them over and over again.

Thanksgiving in Texas

Tyson was able to get the week of Thanksgiving off...so we drove ourselves down to Texas to visit Tyson's sister and family.  Macie, KJ, Eva, Millie...you guys are a party!

The girls just LOVED having cousins as full time playmates.

And the weather was AMAZING.

We played at the park.

We put together our very first (and rockin' awesome) Thanksgiving feast.

We had a mini "gift exchange" since we won't see each other Christmas.

We relaxed.

We had a great time.

I took a surprising lack of pictures.

 Molly and Millie deserve a post all on their own about how cute they were together.  Occasionally it was a sad time with sharing and caring...but generally they were fun buddies.  It was just so much fun to hear them interact with one another and play with one another.  Two year olds are funny.

Gymnastics

The girls have been taking gymnastics for a few months and its been a lot of fun.  The girls have really enjoyed it.  They definitely don't seem to be on their way to becoming professional gymnasts by any means...but I definitely appreciate the exercise they are getting.

The class is an hour long and then they get an hour of free play after, which is awesome.  There is even a little kids area that they let Molly play in during class and free time.  She is loving it just as much as Eden and Leila!

The girls are JUST BARELY become a bit better at hand stands and cartwheels.  But in the end, its not a competition but simply a fun way for them to strengthen their muscles, get out of the house, socialize, exercise and have fun.

Beds...er...at Least Mattresses..

Since we moved in the girls have slept in "blankie beds".

Granted, they never complained.

Actually, we did have ONE toddler bed set up, they switched sometimes who would sleep it in.  Eventually they both wanted to be on the floor...so we moved the toddler bed out.

But we decided it was wise to get them AT LEAST mattresses.

The girls are THRILLED to have "new beds".

Even if they are just mattresses on the floor.

Some day we'll get real beds, but for now the girls don't seem to mind at all.

Especially Molly who was upgraded from a pack n play to the toddler mattress.

I admit it does make nap time harder for Molly but overall she's pretty good about going to bed at night...and sometimes during the day.  Its OK, I admit that we never had a real "set nap time" each day anyway.

Family Walk...Back When It Was Nice Out...

A while back, we had a fun family outing.

It was a lot of fun...not gonna lie.

We biked.

We had a picnic.

We played in the water.

The kids collected shells and rocks.

Good times.

Dad even showed us how to collect, smash, and dry walnuts that fell from walnut trees to eat.  The girls thought that was pretty awesome in and of itself.

 (Side note:  Molly will often "pop" her hip when posing for a picture.  You should see her dance...those hips have a mind of their own!)

Unfortunately, it feels a little more like THIS outside now a days...

Goodbye warm weather.

Winter's a-comin'.