Good Night Owl

Tired of early morning wake-up calls, I finally broke down and bought Amelia a "toddler alarm clock."  They have a built-in clock that you can set to turn green when it is ok for the child to get up. They are a bit pricey, so I had put off buying one for a long time. However I found the owl clock on sale, so I bought it. At the set time, the owl will light up in a green color. If the child wakes up, he or she can squeeze the belly and it will say "It's not time to get up yet, go back to sleep" and play soothing music - well not so soothing when you here it go off over and over again at 6 am.  I thought that might be a good feature for Amelia.

Amelia was very excited to get a new toy, which is the problem.  To her, it is a toy just like her glow sea horse; she could care less about staying in bed until it turns green.  We have some days she will proudly come into our room and show us the owl turned green, but most days she still arrives in our room at 6:30 am with all her "friends" in tow (she brings in about five stuffed animals and blankets.). Part of the problem is that we didn't think this through before we gave it to her and have not been strict about having her go back to her bed until it is time to get up. I think we are going to incorporate a sticker chart along with the owl. She seemed excited about that.

Outtakes 2011

Crazy demon child

After listening to Allison's excessive whining, Amelia's head is about to explode.

Why taking pictures after getting back from swiming and before I have had time
to change them and brush their hair is not a good idea.



Nothing like a sugar crash.

 

Amelia, I told you before, stay out of my room. You can't come through this door.  

Unintended shot.

Monkey See, Monkey Do.

Happy New Year

 

We started off our New Year's Eve party with a trip to the community center to go swimming. Allison and Amelia love it there and always have a great time playing in the pool. We came home afterward to make some of our favorite munchies and appetizers for dinner. While we prepped dinner, the girls decorated the toothbrushes they received in their stockings. They received a kit with an electronic toothbrush and several sheets of stickers. I was amazed at how long this kept them busy. We concluded the evening's festivities (around 8 pm) with the annual throwing of confetti (ripped up newspaper) and blowing noise makers. 

 

Even More Christmas Celebration

The day after Christmas we celebrated with Brian's side of the family. His brother is a police officer and had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas, so we postponed our celebration a day. 

The girls had fun playing with their cousin, Faith, and opening even more presents. The girls were hyper from all the activity, so we drove around to look at Christmas lights so they could settle down before bedtime. We had to look at Clark Griswold's house, a house we had discovered earlier that week while driving around, one more time.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning started with excitement and some tears. Allison came into our room with a big grin on her face and asked if Santa had come. Amelia had a meltdown because she didn't get to make her own chocolate milk like she normally does (I brought their milks upstairs so they could have it before we started the day off).  After calming Amelia down, we headed to the living room to see what, if anything, Santa had left for us under the tree.  Allison was very excited to see all the presents, while Amelia was still trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

The girls had fun opening their presents and were especially excited to give the gifts they had picked out for each other. Allison bought Amelia a special spinning sucker, a coloring book, a pair of Christmas socks, and a Laffy Taffy ornament. Amelia picked out a ball, a candy cane filled with candy, and a craft project for Allison.

From Santa (and Mom and Dad), Allison received a remote controlled car, a puzzle, an Eye Spy game, and Cootie. Amelia received a Little People fire house and truck, a Barbie cash register and jewelry, and some games and puzzles. Both girls together received the movie "Rio", a hopscotch game rug, a Wii game, and their "big" present, which was a LeapFrog LeapPad tablet and some games.  

After opening the big presents, we took a break for some breakfast and returned to the living room to open our stocking stuffers. We received the best reaction from the girls during this time. Allison was most excited about opening her box of Disney Princess "boo-boo band-aids" and her box of Jelly Belly jelly beans.

Later that night, Brian's parents and sister came over for dinner. This was the first time I hosted a Christmas dinner and was excited to do so - I made a very nice ham dinner with all the trimmings. It was a nice way to end a beautiful Christmas day - presents, family & good food!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Christmas Eve started off bright and early. I knew the girls would be excited about going to Nana and Papa's house later than evening, so I had stocked up on craft projects for them to work on during the day. This kept them busy for about an hour and then we let them open a present. It was their annual Christmas PJs. Luckily monkeys on PJs are still cool to a three and four year old, so they weren't disappointed by a "lame gift."

Before we left the house, the girls put out cookies and letters to Santa.

Allison and I had plans to go to Christmas Eve mass with my family, while Mia and Brian were going to stay at my parent's house. We didn't think Amelia would sit still long enough to make it through the whole mass. However, Allison decided that day that she didn't want to go. We have been having issues recently with Allison getting really frustrated if she feels like she is not being taken seriously or being listened to, so I wasn't going to push the issue. Amelia spoke up and said she wanted to go to church with me. So, I dressed her up and brought her along.  She was a perfect angel! She sat still the whole time and took everything in and liked "following" along with the hymnal. Allison, on the other hand, was content with hanging out at Nana's house reading books and doing puzzles.

After mass, we all went back to my parents' house for a big dinner and presents. The girls loved hanging out with their cousins as they are completely spoiled with attention by them.

Allison took her job as garbage collector very seriously.

I took the girls to the dollar store to pick out presents. They were so excited to give Nana and Papa their gifts. Amelia bought my mom a Mickey Mouse watch and my dad a tape measure. Allison picked out a candy bar for my mom (which she told Nana that her tummy was really going to like the present) and she picked out a dust wand for my dad to clean his car's interior.

At the end of the night, my dad read "The Night Before Christmas" to all the grandkids. To me, this is what Christmas Eve is all about. It was a tradition that was started when my oldest sister was a baby 29 years ago (right Jodi?) and has continued ever since.  Thanks dad for the memories!

A Visit With Santa...Times Four

As I previously mentioned, Allison loves visiting with Santa, or rather Allison loves getting candy canes from Santa. This season we made four visits with Santa. The first trip was to the Gardens and then we had an unplanned visit when I took the girls to a smaller mall in the area to see their train exhibit. Santa was on duty that night and it didn't take Amelia long to spot him. She told me she wanted to go visit him, however as we got closer she suddenly became shy and backed off. She told Allison to go first, which caused Allison to suddenly question whether she should be so willing to go up to him. So Allison replied back, "no, you go" and this "you go first" continued back and forth with each girl nudging each other a little closer until they both broke out into tears and hid behind my legs. I stood there dumbfounded as visiting Santa has never been an issue, other than when Allison was 18 months old. Luckily Santa was an old pro at this and quickly made them feel comfortable. Before we left the mall, we had to make a return visit (twice the amount of candy canes that way). 

Our third trip was to the mall that we go to every year for the "professional" picture. Once again, the worker stood there watching the girls smile, all the while saying "Smile, smile" and then taking the picture when they didn't have their natural smiles. However, I'm a sucker and will continue to go back there year after year, so we can get our annual picture with Santa.

The girls were able to visit Santa one last time when he stopped off at their daycare party. This time, the girls hit the jackpot; in addition to receiving a candy cane, they also received a small bag with treats and a very nice holiday book.