January odds and ends

2012_01_08_01

Introduced Amelie to color wonder markers. She thought they were awesome!

2012_01_14_02

Block City by Nadia. She really worked hard on this project.

2012_01_08_03

Playdough is always fun!

2012_01_05_03

The weather has been glorious this month so the girls have spent a lot of time outside. Just chillin’ on Mr. Crabs.

2012_01_20_01

Amelie is starting to learn her letters. She has come so far in all kinds of other areas that I think she is going to do well.

2012_01_22_05

Happy Chinese New Year from our “dragons”.

Christmas Day 2011

Christmas Day 2011
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Christmas is always an exciting time for me, but this year I really felt over the top. This being Amelie’s first Christmas and her being a toddler changed everything. Unlike and infant who doesn’t really know what is happening, it’s been really fun to see the delight she has at all the new things we have done. Nadia was really sweet the whole month wanting to point stuff out to Amelie and saying, “This is your first Christmas. Do you want to see this or do that?” The first gifts they saw were the sleeping bags/pillows. Thanks Lynnea for posting about them so I could score them myself at Costco. Nadia wanted to open up the sleeping bags and try them out right away. Then it was on to the stockings.

Christmas Day 2011

Amelie was really funny because she would open a gift and then want to clean up the paper and THEN check out the gift. We kept telling her not to worry about it, but she didn’t really listen until the end of the presents. The girls each got a medical kit in their stocking and apparently Mommy needed a lot of doctoring.

Christmas Day 2011

Christmas Day 2011

Christmas Day 2011

Christmas Day 2011

Nadia with her new cookbooks and kitchen gadgets from Papa and Grandma Brooke.

Christmas Day 2011

Amelie with her Tag Jr from Papa and Grandma Brooke.

Christmas Day 2011

Nadia with Darth Maul. She was totally amazed with all the Star Wars galactic hero figures and ships she got. (These were the rest of the set that we bought at her birthday. She asked us where we got them and we told her eBay. I am now convinced she thinks eBay is a magical storehouse of Star Wars figures you can’t buy in stores)

Christmas Day 2011

Amelie loving the wand (and tutu) from Kim, Eddie and the kids.

Christmas Day 2011

Spanish Dancer pose.

Christmas Day 2011Christmas Day 2011

My sister Tahni and her husband Joseph were going to be in our area for 2 hours on Christmas Day so we told her to let us know who to invite for some coffee, appetizers and visiting. The time went too fast, but we all had fun before everyone broke off to have their meals with the other half of their families.

Christmas Day 2011

4 generations here!

Christmas Day 2011

Grammie and some of her grandkids.

Christmas Day 2011

My favorite of the day – the Prom Pose of cousins and spouses/fiancées.  I love that everyone humored me!

Once everyone was gone we put the girls down for a nap and after they woke up we went to visit with Mike’s mom at her assisted living apartment. That night for dinner I made Mexican food and the girls had a blast playing with all their new gifts. I think Amelie was totally and completely overloaded by the end of the day and we could tell by her attitude so bedtime came quick.

It was a wonderful day and we are so blessed!

Thankful Thursday

For the yearly prayer shower at our church. Each January our church honors the babies born or adopted the year before. They hand out 4×6 cards in advance and all the families of the church are encouraged to write a prayer or favorite verse for the children. Then they put them in a photo album for the children to have as a keepsake. Last weekend was the actual prayer shower with breakfast and all the women of the church are invited and any female relatives. After breakfast each mom introduces their child and one person in the room prays for the child. It’s a wonderful blessing to be a part of. At the end when everyone said amen Amelie shouted out loud and clear “AMEN!!!!”

Prayer Shower 2012

I love the tulips!

Prayer Shower 2012

Grammie, Me, Amelie and Aunt Paula – thanks for coming!

Prayer Shower 2012

The moms and babies. We missed the couple that were out due to sickness, but we still prayed for them.

Prayer Shower 2012

Amelie’s keepsake with all of her prayer cards inside.

Christmas Eve 2011

Almost done with the December 2011 posts 🙂

We spent Christmas Eve day in a relaxed way. I had a couple odds and ends to pick up and in the early evening we went to church for the Christmas Eve service. We came home and Amelie helped me bake the cookies from an earlier post. We had arranged for my mom and sister Michelle to Skype with us while my mom read the Polar Express and Michelle did sound effects. It was just as much fun as last year because they get so into the story telling.  Then we let the girls open 1 present after dinner. The girls had plenty of time to play before we sent them off to bed.

Christmas Eve 2011
Click on the photo to see album

Christmas Eve 2011

Christmas Eve 2011

Then we put the finishing touches on everything and went to sleep ourselves.

Christmas Eve 2011