Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Big News.....

 

Somehow another month has passed since my last post and I have fallen behind in the blogging world.  It has been a very busy month with Christmas and New Years.  This was our first Christmas ever spent in our own home and it was so nice!  It was very stress free and fun for us to start to create our own Holiday traditions.  Jay's parents came to visit the week of Christmas and the day they left my parents came to visit for the week of New Years.  So we were busy with company and we had a fun filled two weeks.  I will let the pictures tell the story - sorry there are so many of them in one post.  I will try to do better at keeping up next time!

 

Both girls loved their visit with Santa this year!

 

Anna with her awesome speech therapist Carol.  She happily sits and plays with Anna wherever Anna chooses.  This entire hour was spent on our hard wood floor on the landing!

Emma loved making cut out cookies with mom



 

We also hosted a fun  "Rudolph Run and Blitzen Bash" with some of our good friends.  A long time ago (this all started back with the summer Olympics) Jay kept saying that he could run 1 mile in 6 minutes and 30 seconds.  I bet him that he couldn't and before we knew it he had a couple friends and "Coach Mike" that wanted in on the action.  The day that they ran the race was freezing cold here and super windy and Jay decided all bets were off before the race because of the weather.  He ended up doing it in 6 minutes and 27 seconds despite the horrible weather!!!  I was very impressed.  Everyone then came over for a Christmas ugly sweater party - good times:)

Boys getting ready for run

Jay sprinting to the finish line with Coach Mike cheering him on

Victory dance for Jay

Victory drink with Coach Mike

Guys with their ugly sweaters

Emma trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue



On Christmas Eve we went for our second annual trip into DC to see the Capitol Christmas tree and the National Christmas tree in front of the White House.  Jay and I both love doing this.

Tree in front of Capitol

Nana and Papa with the girls

White House tree

 

Nana and Papa with the girls in front of the National Christmas tree

 

 

Emma dumping her reindeer food in the front yard getting ready for Santa

 

Writing her letter to Santa

Anna scribbled on a paper for Santa too:)

 

 

Santa sure left a lot of presents!  Feeling very blessed!

 

 

Anna surrounded by all of her gifts

 

Emma surrounded by all of her gifts

 

The Grinch Floor Puzzle she desperately wanted

Daddy even got to put lipstick on:)  Life with two girls!

Emma with her new bike from Santa.  The girls stayed in jammies all day and happily played with their toys ALL DAY LONG!

Nana helping Anna ride the scooter

 

Red rover, red rover, send Emma on over!

Playing in the small amount of snow we have gotten

 

Making a snow angel

 

Anna kept trying to make snowballs

Grandma and Grandpa at the White House

Posing with the girls in front of the reflecting pond

The girls never smile when they take a picture with mom and dad

 

We went with Grandma and Grandpa to a local walking light tour through a botanical gardens that was gorgeous!

 

 

The girls lovin on each other

We went into DC last weekend to the Air and Space Museum and this picture is proof that we finally let the girls ride the carousel on the National Mall that they beg us to ride every time we go.  They loved it of course.

 

A fun picture of the Washington Monument covered in fog so that we couldn't see the top

:(

Our last piece of big news is that we are moving again.  We have known that it would be coming, but it is sad that it is official and going to happen.  I always have a hard time moving because it is so hard to make new friends and find new doctors and figure out new schools, and the list goes on.  This move is especially hard because we really do just love Virginia.  We love the four seasons, which take us back to our Michigan roots, and there is just so much to see and do here.  The scenery is beautiful and we have made great friends that will be hard to leave.  With the purchase of our new house it will be the fourth house that Emma has lived in and she is only four and a half years old.  That simply means too much moving in my mind.

 

On the positive side of things we are ever so grateful to have had the opportunity to explore this part of the country.  We have learned the ropes a little and will definitely bring the girls back when they are older to appreciate it a little bit more.  Jay is looking forward to his new job as Area HR Manager over 4 plants in Beaumont, TX.  That's right - we are headed back to Beaumont which is where Emma was born.  We have our house hunting trip in a couple weeks and will officially move sometime in the first week or two of March - all depending on how our closing date works out.

 

I will blame some of my delay in blogging on this move.  I have been busy taking down Christmas decorations, cleaning, purging and getting the house ready for the market.  We had 5 showings yesterday and were pretty much kicked out of the house all day.  Having a house on the market with a two and four year old = NO FUN!  It is so hard to keep it clean.

 

Jay and I also recently celebrated 9 years of wedded bliss:)  Nana and Papa were here on our anniversary and we saw our first movie in ages - Argo.  It was awesome and we both highly recommend it.  I am so lucky to have my best friend as my hubby.  Hope everyone is enjoying the New Year!

"Helicopter, helicopter!"

The girls have a nightly routine.  Emma cleans up the playroom (and hollers at us to keep Anna out of the playroom so she can't mess it up), then we put our pajamas on, and when Jay is home they beg and plead for him to give them the "Helicopter! Helicopter!".  He comes upstairs and proceeds to give the girls their most favorite part of each day.  You can see what it looks like below:

Last week I decided to have the girls write a letter to Santa to tell him the one thing that they wanted most for Christmas.  Macy's is donating money for every letter mailed to Santa in their store to the Make A Wish foundation, and since my girls love Santa and love to talk about all the presents they want, it was a good opportunity to mail our wish list for a good cause. 

 Although Anna needed me to write her letter to Santa, she didn't need any help deciding what she wanted.  She is very consistent in wanting "Dora".  If you mention the word Santa she will repeatedly say, "Dora, Dora, Dora!"  I secretly wish she wanted a really cute Cabbage Patch Kid - I LOVED them as a little girl and they are still popular, but my little girl is dead set on an ugly Dora doll.

 Emma, on the other hand, wrote her letter all by herself and really wants a new bike.  This is a good thing because the girl has completely outgrown her old bike.  Mom and dad really love gifts that they actually "need". 

 Here the girls are mailing their letters:

Does it get any cuter???

So I tell you guys all the time how much the girls love each other and are always playing together.  They were watching a movie the other day and this is what I caught.  Not only holding hands, but holding BOTH hands!!  Pitter patter!!

I can't believe we actually have a picture of Jay and I to post!  Here we are all dressed up for the ExxonMobil Christmas party in DC.  We had a great time!

Here is a cute video of Anna riding her favorite horse named Crazy.  She loves him and I love how cute she is with her ponytails flying all over the place:)

The last video isn't the best but it is Emma's small song in her school's Christmas pageant.  She is the fourth person from the left:

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!  We have to go back to visit Santa again in person.  We went to see him the day that we mailed our Macy's letters, but it just happened to be a "Sign with Santa" day for the hearing impaired.  It was a really nice thing that they did for the local children that are hearing impaired but bad timing on our part.  Take number 2 for Santa was supposed to be today, but Anna got sick yesterday and is still under the weather.  She has a fever and I think some sort of sinus infection as her nose is running like a faucet.  I am just happy that she was able to get through her 103 fever last night (her first sickness since coming off from her seizure meds) without having a seizure.  Definitely some answered prayers for this momma because I was a nervous wreck and Jay is in New Jersey for work so he would not have been able to help at all.  I was up all last night checking on her and making sure the poor girl was ok.  Her fever was gone later in the day today and I feel much better about her being able to overcome this sickness.  On a side note, we took Anna to her 6 month developmental specialist appointment in DC this week and she received rave reviews!  Her speech is now up to a normal level for her age.  The specialist thought that her fine motor coordination might be a bit lacking but gave us a few ideas on how to improve upon it.  Jay and I continue to feel beyond blessed with her progress and development.  There is a lot to celebrate and be thankful for this upcoming holiday season!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Hi all!  We are still here and staying busy as ever!  The weather here has been mild and gorgeous and we have been busy trying to check things off from our Virginia bucket list (for inquiring minds there is an actual list and it is getting smaller and smaller:).  A month or so ago we went to Charlotesville to see Monticello, which was Thomas Jefferson's home, and to walk through the University of Virginia.  The girls were less than impressed with Thomas Jefferson's home.  Picture a two and a four year old being lead through an old home room by room with a tour guide and trying to keep them quiet despite their severe boredom AND no food is allowed so I couldn't even stick a sucker in their mouth to help.  It was not much fun, although it was surrounded by gorgeous scenery and mountains which Jay and I love.

Posing with Thomas Jefferson

Monticello

View from Monticello

Awesome gardens at Monticello


Grandma came to visit us for Thanksgiving while Grandpa was at deer camp and we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner.  Jay performed his normal task of taking care of the girls the next day so that we could do some shopping.  Had lots of fun and even braved a bit of shopping Thursday night at Target!  Yes the car just happened to find it's way to the parking lot and I got an awesome doorbuster that we had been wanting.  No hints yet - I think Santa might bring it Christmas morning:)  While my mom was here we also went to the Gaylord National (which is a fancy hotel) production of ICE.  It is a fantastic ice sculpture show that is made with over 2 million pounds of ice and 40 artisans from around the world are brought in to carve it.  The theme this year was Shrek the Halls.  It is kept extremely cold inside the makeshift building to preserve the sculptures so they make you wear their weird blue coats on top of yours.  At first it seems weird and a bit gross, but it is so cold inside that you are secretly happy that you have an extra coat!  They had to be really long too because there were ice slides and they want the coat to cover your legs on the slide.  Anna's coat was gigantic on her.  It touched the ground and the arms were way too long but she didn't complain at all and both girls LOVED the ice slides.  I could hear them scream with excitement the whole way down and at the bottom Anna couldn't move because her coat was just too hard to move in.  She just layed at the bottom and kept saying "more, more!"

Silly blue coats!

Shrek and donkey.  Aren't they amazing!!

 

 

Fiona and her babies

Daddy and Anna on the slide.  All smiles:)

Grammy and Anna - looking a bit cold here

The biggest news is that our sweet baby Anna is no longer in a crib!  Sniff sniff:(  I had been wanting to put her in a toddler bed for a while and finally got around to it while Grandma was here since I had an extra hand to watch the girls while I switched the railings (Yes - in our house I do all the handy fix it things.  My husband refuses or I would wait until eternity for it to actually get done.)  We really hyped up her "big girl" bed and she totally loves it!  I was scared she would be a terror and keep trying to get out, but she only tried one time and has been awesome in it ever since.  What a big girl!

She loves her big girl bed

Emma loves to play in it too!

This past weekend we took a day trip to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  It is a historic civil war battlefield grounds town with a lot of preserved buildings, cute restaurants and shops, and the Appalachian trail runs right through it.  We did a bit of hiking and saw some gorgeous scenery where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers meet.  We also went to Thomas Jefferson's rock - it is a rock with gorgeous views and Jefferson's favorite place.  He said that the view from the rock was "worth the journey across the Atlantic itself."  We also had lunch and ice cream (of course the girls favorite part of the day) and saw a bit of Civil War reenactments with a gun squad.  Anna will tell you she saw "boom boom."  The stuffed animal in the picture is Matthew Mouse who is Emma's classroom animal.  Each child gets him for a weekend and then journal's all of the fun things that they did with him.  He had to have his picture taken in Harper's Ferry!

View from our hike

We went on the Appalachian Trail

Jefferson's Rock

Daddy with the girls

View from Jefferson's Rock

Emma and Santa - see explanation below

While on a walk through the very small town, Santa himself passed us as he was driving his car.  He stopped and rolled down the window and asked Emma what she wanted for Christmas.  He saw that I had my camera and asked if he could get out to take a picture with Emma and she was thrilled.  After the picture he got back in his car and drove away.  Oh my goodness did my four year old have a million questions.  First of all why was Santa driving a car???  Where were his reindeer???  Why wasn't he at the mall where he should be???  The list went on and on.  I made up the best answers that I could and she seems ok with those answers for now.  She is very inquisitive though and I know she will be every year with Santa and all the stories that surround him.  I have to say I LOVE having children this time of year with the magic of Christmas and Santa.  It is so sweet and pure and magical!

That's all for now.  We have been busy decorating the house, fixing lights that have already gone out, enjoying the burst of warm weather, shopping, and soon I will start some holiday baking.  It's the most wonderful time of the year!