Christmas 2010

Mother nature allowed us to spend our 1st Christmas Eve at Great-Grandma Ollie's, which was very special to Mama being she has spent all of her Christmas Eve's there and we weren't able to be there last year because of the snow storm. We were going on high following a fun lunch with Grandpa Kip and Ms. Julie and had only had a 1/2 hour nap when we arrived...but bring on the festivities!







This was a last ditch effort at a family photo prior to heading to church and Mama loves this picture because in retrospect it forecasts our behavior at church (E already with her pacifier and M glaring at Mama with the same look Mama probably has given to her parents in her lifetime). Can you guess how long we lasted at church? Maybe 10 minutes at the most!

We were whisked away, changed into our PJs, hit the road, and were out for the hour ride home before being on the outskirts of town. And we didn't wake up until the morning! Santa was nice and treated us to our own play kitchen and we started playing with it immediately and haven't stopped!

Overall we were much more interested in opening gifts this year as compared to last and provided Papa and Mama with a lot of "oh cute" and "oh yeah" which was very entertaining.

Following fun at our house, we headed out to Grandpa and Grandma's for more Christmas morning fun and exciting gifts such as Elmo and friend panties (and cute deer skin slippers). This picture was just too cute to not share!

Christmas Day afternoon took us to Grandma Dee Dee's where we again enjoyed more of the same...fun, food, and gifts!

It definitely was a busy 2 days but we wouldn't trade the good times we shared with our family for anything! Merry Christmas 2010! Love, ME

Happy 23-months to ME!

Hello all! We do not know where this month is going but do know we have a lot to put into this post being Christmas is upon us and before you know we will need to write about that, and another big event...our 2nd birthday! We are very much into imaginary play at the moment and are lucky to have an instant playmate (most of the time). We continue to love playing with our babies and also take turns ourselves pretending to be babies. You can often catch us pretending to feed one another, change one another (so far no messes so Mama feels lucky), and pat or rub one another on the back.

We also continue to expand our vocabulary with a frequent 3-word sentence out of our mouths being "I do it" when it comes to just about anything these days. We are working on counting to five, learning our abc's, and also learning our colors. Our favorite colors right now are green followed by purple.

We have had the opportunity to see Santa twice thus far and still have one more opportunity at the mall. On our first visit, we got about this close...

On our second visit, we first saw Santa be rescued by a fire truck from the top of Rochester City Hall,


followed by a horse and sleigh ride to the Galleria where we happily came about this close...

So, maybe the third try will be the charm?!?!
We finally got some snow and now have large piles all over the place! We've been out once and lasted about 30 minutes, which is likely less time than it took for us to get all bundled up, but we still had fun and enjoyed hot chocolate with marshmallows when we came in.


We also insist upon being in the kitchen now if anyone is making something and would prefer to help if allowed. We recently tried our hands at making sugar cookies...lets just say the end result tasted good to us and we are ready for round #2 anytime!

We enjoy all the Christmas decorations this year and are the first to turn on any Christmas lights when we come downstairs in the morning. We helped put on a few ornaments and watched Mama set out some other things, but we mostly just had fun doing what we do best...run around and be silly!

Hoping everyone is having a bright and merry holiday season thus far!

Love, ME

Countless Blessings

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. John Milton

Papa and Mama's top 3 most thankful list (though they could go on and on)!

We dedicate this post in memory of our dear friend Rich who passed away the week before Thanksgiving and whose favorite poet was John Milton. Though our hearts were heavy as we thought of his family and their loss, we celebrated his life as a wonderful father, friend, and English Professor.

Drum roll please!!!

We are excited! Love, Cris, Stephanie, and M and E.

Happy 22-months to ME!

We have had a busy month and know the next 2 months leading up to our birthday are going to be just as busy and fly by way too fast! We were lucky to take 2 trips to the apple orchard. One with Papa and Mama and the other with our cousins Breydin and Leela, and the rest of the family.








We had our 2nd stay in a hotel, but the first one we can really remember. Our favorite attraction in the room was to color and eat snacks at the desk and of course we loved, loved our time in the pool.

We continue to work on potty time and are each other's biggest cheerleaders. One of us has had success with both #1 and #2 (M) while the other does best with #1 (E) and gets really excited when she can help "dump" things into the toilet! It is an exciting learning process all in all and Papa and Mama are very proud of us!

We continue our dance class 1x/week and are improving each time in our ability to learn the actions and follow directions. We also enjoy singing/dancing to these songs outside of dance time and basically enjoy any song which involves hand movements, etc. or playing on the piano. Still no white stuff on the ground yet but likely to happen sooner versus later!
Hugs, ME

Halloween 2010!

Experiencing our first cleaning of the inside of a pumpkin...




We decided to be Cowgirls this year being we continue to love the horses out at Grandpa and Grandma's. We didn't keep our outfits on the entire evening, nor allow Mama to capture a picture of us by our pumpkins, but as you can imagine we had fun! We again had a little get-together at our house and were busy handing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters and enjoying our company!




Enjoying a game of pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern with cousin Breydin...




Showing much more interest in the candy in our hands versus the attempt at a family photo...

Thanks everyone for making our 2nd Halloween a blast! Love, ME

Our secret no longer!

HINT #1:

HINT #2:

Hoping you are getting warm...

HINT #3:

Surprise, we are going to be BIG SISTERS!!!!

Mama is 15-weeks along and things are going well. We (Papa and Mama especially) are feeling extremely blessed and excited for this addition to our family in mid-April 2011!

Much love from all of us!