I'm a Big Girl NOW!

"I'm A Big Girl Now" is from a pull-ups commercial, I think. Even though my baby ain't potty trained or wearing pull-ups yet, she sure is growing! She constantly pushes her shopping cart around our house filling it with whatever she finds. Today there was a law pamphlet called, "Now That You Are Publicly Owned...," Sammy's jacket, Alex's sippee cup, knee pads, and select pieces of our tea set in her little cart. Charles fears that we are turning her into a little shopper. She tries to get our attention by getting the cart "stuck," but its not stuck she just pretends it is so we come over and help her.

Here she is with her cart amazingly empty except for a doll she stole from Sammy.

Alexandra is obsessed with her tooth brush. She has the cleanest teeth around if you can get past the fact that it has been dropped in the diaper pail one too many times...

More shopping....

She loves getting into the pantry and pulling out anything she can get her hands on. One day she found a bag of chocolate chips that was open and accidentally spilled them all over. Don't worry, she cleaned up her mess so well, I didn't even know it happened until after the girls reported her and I found the empty bag.




Here she is giving Abby and Sammy a few pointers on how to play hang man. They were playing and she was not satisfied until she got to take a turn.

The ballerina girl loves to play with our leapfrog three letter spell toy. She doesn't spell much instead she throws the letters all over the kitchen floor. What a joy! This crazy girl certainly keeps us all entertained!

Book Recommendation

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born. With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003.

The Holidays

This is New Year's day morning. We were all in our pajamas most of the day recovering from the night before. We all went to a New Year's gathering at a friend's house and everyone stayed up for midnight celebrations including Alexandra! We made these hats and some shakers. We watched the countdown and blew our noisemakers, shook our shakers, banged on pots and pans, let off some small firework/streamers and danced around. We had chocolate fondue and lots of junk to eat all night. It was a lot of fun. Abby and Sammy were so proud of themselves for staying up.

Ok so the Utes lost and were pretty pathetic in their bowl game but Alex still looked way cute in her shirt!

Alex is very close to walking now. She holds our fingers and cruises along the furniture. She had a recent doctor's appointment where she had xrays done of her hips. The femur on the right side (the problem side) is now the size of the other one. All her little hip bits and pieces seem to be developing nicely (I say it this way because I don't really understand all that the doctor told me but it seemed positive and she is definitely making progress). She is right where she should be. There is still no guarentee that she will not have to have future surgery but she is on the right track and there is nothing we can do but wait.

Here are the girls and all their loot on Christmas.

We got a bunch of new hair accessories recently. These "feather boas" are some of my favorite. They remind me of flamenco dancers or something. The girls love the way the feathers move when they move.

There you go, there is a short summary of our holidays. Now bring on the New Year.

It's a Marshmellow World

This year we have been doing an advent calendar that suggests things to do each day leading up to Christmas. The other day the calendar said to draw a nativity. Well, we took that suggestion to a whole new level and made a nativity out of tooth picks, kabob sticks and marshmellows. It was a different but truly unique art form. I think it turned out really cute and we had a lot of fun creating it. Here is marshmellow Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and some kind of animals. Don't they look so happy?

Close-up of Mary, Joseph and the baby. The manger was created by Sammy.

Here is the stable complete with star on top. (Sammy added a chimney later but I guess I didn't get a picture of that - too bad, it was good.)

And here are the artists, Sammy and her friend Kevin. Good job guys!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We recently discovered how fun it is to play with shaving cream. We just squirt a bunch on the counter and let the girls go crazy! They drew pictures in it and we even had a spelling test where they wrote the words in the cream. I think I may keep a spare can of shaving cream around the house all the time to bring out when they are looking for something to do.

We got our first snow this past weekend and the girls were so excited to build a snowman. We used potatoes for his eyes, a baby carrot (I didn't have any big carrots) for the nose and a bent stick for the mouth. Now when they look out the window they comment that the snowman is probably lonely so it looks like the next snow storm we get, we'll be out making him a family.

Alex wanted to go out so bad but she had a cold. Poor girl!

Catching snowflakes on the tongue; apparently snow tastes like sugar... who knew!

Hippy Chicks and Leaf Jumping

Abby and Sammy realized one night that the baby's chain links make great earrings. They wore them for days. They felt very grown up with their earrings, pajamas, sunglasses and my high heels. You never know what these two will come up with. In fact, today they tied multiple pajama pant bottoms around their chests and waists as fashionable outfits. They are creative, I will give them that much...

Don't mess with us!

Grrrrrrrrr!

Charles raked up the leaves in the front yard and put them out by the curb. The girls were so excited to jump in them that they didn't even care they were partly in the road. I guess we are lucky we live in a cul de sac. Alexandra even had to join in the fun. She tries to do EVERYTHING Abby and Sammy do these days and she gets very frustrated when she can't. I am sure it will only get worse. I was the third girl after all, so I understand how she feels.

Oh, this is the life! Can I sleep here tonight Mom?

Here is Abby just after school pickup. She hadn't even gone in the house yet. She just insisted on playing in the leaves for an hour.

Leaf swimming is quite a competitive sport around here. I must say, we have certainly enjoyed fall this year. The weather has been absolutely perfect. I wish it could stay like this all year. However, I eat way too much this time of year because I crave pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies and anything else that reminds me of fall. Of course, let's not forget all the Halloween candy that is lying around the house. I NEVER crave candy bars unless I know those little fun size bars are on top of the fridge in the pumpkin bucket, then for some reason I can't stay away! Anyway, I guess there is no point in worrying about it now because Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here in no time and I will be horking down all that junk too. Oh well, life is too short!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!