Merry Christmas!!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We had a great time with our little family, but really missed being with our families in utah. I will try to update my blog with pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas, but for now you get a "sitting on santa's lap" picture.

North Conway, NH

A couple of months ago we planned a trip to NYC to go see the Christmas tree, FAO Swartz, Macy’s windows, etc. I have been looking forward to going until about the week before we were supposed to leave. We had some friends visit the week before we were supposed to go and it was crazy. I expected it to be crazy, but didn’t realize that it would most likely be more work than fun. Our girls had both been sick and Norah ended up having Bronchiolitis and had to get breathing treatments the day before we were supposed to leave….. ya not good for taking your kids to NYC and having them outside in the freezing cold!! So we cancelled our reservations and made new ones in North Conway, NH. We stayed at a hotel that had an indoor water park in it. Adeline was in HEAVEN and Norah also loved it. It was so fun just to get away and be together.

{getting all warm for a night on the town!}


{fun day at the water park}



{cute little Norah being silly}


Before we headed back home, we decided to take the girls on a Santa train ride. It was snowing a ton (the first we’ve seen this year) and the girls had so much fun. Little elves brought us hot chocolate and cookies and then Santa came and visited. Adeline got to sit on his lap and tell him what she wants for Christmas. I think that was the 4th time she has sat on his lap this year. Luckily she said she wanted the same thing again… an Ariel princess dress.

{as we were leaving the hotel, it started snowing like crazy! First snow we've seen this year :) }


{Santa's Train Ride}

Miss Independent

This is how Adeline went to school this morning...


I've decided that probably 75% of our battles with her are over clothes.... yes CLOTHES! She is very opinionated about what she wants, or doesn't want to wear. I need to go through her closet and put away anything that she simply cannot wear in this freezing weather. She refuses to wear jeans or regular pants unless they are leggings. Every day is insists on wearing a dress or skirt. Problem is that it is FREEZING outside and she DOES NOT want to wear tights. So that resorts to leggings underneath. I think to solve my problem, I need to go out any buy leggings in every possible color :) Today she ran into my room already dressed (which normally takes us about 30-40 minutes) so I don't really care. I let her go looking like this.


Last week we went to see Rapunzel with one of her little friends. I had never seen a 3D movie and thought it was so cool. Adeline refused to even try on the glasses. She sat there silently for the first 1/2 of the movie not making a move. Then at a semi scary part she crawled over to me and said she was really tired and just wanted to go home and sleep in her bed. She was really scared. She is so sensitive about that kind of stuff. It really wasn't that scary. I got her to sit through the entire thing even though she wasn't liking it. Afterwards she pretended to like it since her friend did. When we got home from the movie she told Abe she liked it in front of me. When Abe took her up to bed she said "Don't make mommy let me what that movie again!" Poor thing. However she always talks about the princess Rapunzel and how much she likes her. Funny girl.



Dinner after the movie...


Adeline Loves taking pictures. When I uploaded pictures from my little point and shoot today I found about 100 that she had taken. Here are two...

Little Climber

I turned my back on Norah for about 1 minute the other day and all of the sudden she said "eh" really loud to get my attention. I turned around and to my surprise found her here.....



Apparently she is a pretty good climber already. That same night I heard Adeline walking around at 2am. I walked out into the hallway and she was headed down the stairs. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was going downstairs to eat the cupcakes (cupcakes that really existed leftover from a RS Christmas party). I'm sure she probably would have if I didn't catch her. These cute little girlies keep me on my toes :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Yesterday we went out to get our Christmas tree. We were planning on going to a Christmas tree farm like we have the past several years, but decided not to and save the extra $40 it would have cost us. You think it would be less expensive to actually cut down your own tree... but apparently not! Plus the girls are feeling a little under the weather, so it was nice to not be in the cold too long. We just ended up going to a Christmas tree lot and Adeline still loved it. Once we got home and set the tree up, she immediately started putting all the ornaments on it. After she had put about 10 on it, I let her know that we should probably take them off and put the lights on first. She was so cute and said, "Oh, I'm sorry about that mom. Sorry about that!" She is so stinking funny. Once I put the lights on, she put just about every ornament on by herself... of course a little "placement" help from me and holding her up when she couldn't reach. I should have taken a video of her because she was shaking her hips and dancing to the Christmas music while she was hanging them up.

Sweet Girl

Norah is such a sweet girl. That is probably the best word to describe her; sweet. She is always so happy and LOVES to lean in and give you kisses. She also has quite a sense of humor and is always making us laugh. She has turned out to be just a little thing like her sister. The doctors are a little concerned because she is so small, so they are making us get labs... poor baby. If they only understood that it is normal for my kids! Norah at 10 months weighed 16.9 lbs, while Adeline barely weighed 16 lbs at a year! Some things I want to remember about Norah at 11 months old....

-Loves baby dolls. She will pat them on the back and pull them around with her. I always find her giving them kisses too
-LOVES Chloe. She is also always giving Chloe kisses and chases her around.
-makes this funny grunting sound all the time. She mostly does it to be funny and it's kind of her signature thing now. Adeline will always do it to mimic her.
-Is such a good eater!! She eats more than Adeline right now.
-Loves drinks. If you give her a sippy cup w/ anything in it, she is a happy girl (except Formula, she hates it)
-Loves cheese, drink yogurts, fruit, noodles, rice. Has refused to eat baby food for a long time. She has to feed herself or she most likely won't eat it.
-Sleeps from 8-7am
-two naps in the day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon.
-Has such a contagious smile
-LOVES daddy. When she sees him, she will reach for him and yell at him until he finally gets her... or she will crawl over to him and start climbing up her leg.
-loves Adeline and wants to be just like her.
-loves bath time
-She is still a little gecko
-Loves the stairs... it freaks me out since they are wood stairs.
-Loves splashing in Chloe's dog bowl
-Can blow kisses, clap her hands, wave
-Is close to saying "all done, up, balloon" and she consistently makes the same sounds for certain words. I feel like very soon she will start saying words that we can understand.
-Took 3 steps yesterday!!! I'm sure she will be walking in no time :)

I love this little girl so much! She is consantly making me smile and laugh. I can't imagine a sweeter girl than her. Even when she is napping I love to stare at this....

Thankful

The day before Thanksgiving Adeline's preschool had a Harvest Breakfast. I was pleased they actually did something for the Holiday, because I was quite bummed they didn't do ANYTHING to celebrate Halloween. They just did a little breakfast for the kids and the families could join them. They made cute little place mats to each their breakfast on in honor of thanksgiving. On the place mat it said "I am Thankful for....." and Adeline's said, "my doggie Chloe and that I could go to California". Kind of funny that all the other kids said mommy, daddy, my family, etc. But I'm sure she really is thankful she could go to California. She tells me just about everyday that she wants to see Jojo and that she misses her. After she ate her breakfast I painted her hand and she made a turkey out of it on paper.

{Norah playing in the preschool toys :) }



On Thanksgiving we had our friend Rob in town. We all headed over to a friends house to have dinner with them. It was pretty mellow... well for Abe & I, but probably not for our friends Sam & Heidi since they don't have kids!! Heidi and I decided that we would split up the food responsibilities. She probably won't ask us over again though because I did not do a good job at all! The sweet potatoes were really good, rolls were ok, turkey was great (Abe Fried it), but the green bean casserole and my pie were a flop. One of my friends made fun of me when I told her about the green bean casserole because she said that is just about the easiest thing you can make. Well, since I NEVER have made a green bean casserole, I really had no idea what recipe would be good or not. Apparently I picked a disgusting one. Rob was nice and said they were fine, but Norah was really the only one that would eat them. We ended up throwing away almost the entire pan full :) Now for the pie.... it was a french silk pie which turned out perfect last year. I thought up until we were about to eat it that it looked perfect. Heidi was getting the pies ready and said, "uh, Nicole, is this pie raw?" Right then it dawned on me.... I DID NOT COOK THE PIE SHELL! Really I have no idea where my brain is. It ended up being fine because I scooped the entire pie out into a bowl, cooked the shell, and then scooped it back in. It just wasn't as "set" as it was supposed to be and didn't look as pretty. Maybe next year will go better ?
I was also a really big slacker about taking pictures...so I hardly have any.






I really am so Thankful for many things this year. I have such a motivated loving husband, two beautiful healthy girls, loving families and many wonderful friends. I kind of wish that I posted about something I was Thankful for every day... but since I have been such a slacker... maybe next year!

California

I absolutely HATE being away from my family! My sisters both live about a mile away from each other and get to see each other just about every day. I wouldn't say that I would necessarily want to live in California, but I would LOVE to live right by them :) As soon as Amanda had her baby and Sierra would be having hers, I knew I needed to book tickets and get my butt out there. So that is what I did. It was actually perfect timing because Sierra had her baby about 2 weeks before I came out, so I was able to meet both the babies. We had so much fun and I feel like it was Adeline's dream trip. She was able to see her Grandparents, play with her cousins, go to the beach, Johanna's Birthday Party, YogurtLand, movie at the Theatre with Grandpa & Jojo, kid concert at the park, etc. Her and Jojo are pretty much solemates and have a blast together. They entertain each other 24/7 when they are together. Wouldn't it be nice if we lived closer... I'm glad they love each other so much. I was out there for a week, but it flew by and felt like 2 days. I was so happy that my parents were also able to be there and I could spend time with them!! I was pretty nervous to fly with both the girls across the country, but they did extremely well. I really don't know how since it was two very long flights, but I am thankful for it.

One night we ran out and took some pictures. I am SO happy we got one with all the little cousins :)





Johanna's Birthday Party






The Beach








Fountains at the mall



Special attention from Great Grandma Dofi...



Baby Dylan (Sierra's newest Addition)

Baby Claire (Amanda's)

Hanging out with my sisters and their darling kids/babies :)

Breakfast w/ Karen and meeting cute little Marissa for the first time!



Dancing at a kid concert..... so fun for me to watch. Adeline was in Heaven