A Visit with Santa

A tale to remember.....

On the morning I was taking the girls to see Santa, Marea and I started asking Evie "What are you going to ask Santa for for Christmas?" and Evie's response was, over and over again in her sassy big voice "A BIG ONE!" Of course Marea and I laughed and laughed.

And then we get there...and wait in line for almost an hour....and when we get up there, Evie was 'a little bit scared' (as she will now say when we talk about it). She barely grinned for the camera, gave me her 'help me mommy' face, and feverishly picked her nails until the photo shoot was over (which lasted about 10 seconds, I wouldn't torture them that long!) And then, Santa turned to Evie and asked her..."What would you like for Christmas?" And Evie, in a very quiet, small voice said, "a little one".

Marea asked for an 'art spin'. I hope she's been good!

Holiday Time!

A list of all the things we're doing to celebrate the season....some will hopefully become family traditions:

-Decorated a gingerbread house. Evie just wanted to eat the candy. Marea was pretty excited to make it 'exactly right'. (We did our best, it turned out good!)

-Setting up the santa's village. Marea really enjoys playing with all the little figurines around the village.

-Christmas shows. Marea's favorite one this year is 'Silly Elf' (which is just elf). Thank goodness, cuz Gary and I really like this one too! But other favorites are the Grinch and Charlie Brown Christmas. They both think snoopy is really funny.

-Decorating the tree. Marea loves all the special ornaments (not the balls, although she likes the sparkly balls) and Evie loves to break the balls. And Ick loves climbing the tree and batting at the balls to knock them off.

-Cookie baking and decorating. This isn't going so well this year. Evie just likes to eat the toppings as she makes a huge mess, and Marea has now become an expert at over-topping the cookies. This will be more fun when they get a little bigger.

-Boat Parade. We are heading down tomorrow to watch the boat parade. I remember how much I loved doing this as a kid, and now I hope we will be doing it with our kids for many years to come.

Utah-Fall edition

Monsters Vs. Aliens and the new Tinkerbell movie; water balloon fights; marea's solo dance performance followed by one with grandpa; our night hike, the froggie pool and big slide with auntie sam (and a doodie!); carving a pumpkin with grandpa and using veggies to garnish it; making caramel apple chunks. And making memories without a camera ever coming out.

Boogers and such

Marea: Eew, i'm not eating this booger, it's bloody.

Me: Marea, do you normally eat your boogers?

Marea: Yes

Me: That's gross.

Marea: But they're so slobbery and sweet!

Me, to Evie: Come on Honey!

Evie: I not honey, I wee-wee!

Ha!!!

Evie is also going through a "my tooth is loose" thing. She loves the little bear episode where he loses a tooth, and now tells us every day, that her tooth is loose.

Happy Birthday Miss E!

Today we celebrate you, Little Miss E, on your second birthday!

My heart still melts each day when I see you and we cuddle for some nail picking closeness. You still smell so sweet and baby-like to me. All your little parts, curled up on me-you still fit perfectly. Except now, you can get away-and run, and JUMP (a new favorite), and talk ('daddy smells!!" Ha!) . You can play with your sister, too. You will sit and play so nicely by yourself, always exploring a toy to the fullest. You know your colors already, you can count, and you LOVE to sing (CAW!). You make the coolest artwork, using the whole paper and all the colors. And you are still free of the complications that come with older toddlers who need more independence and power struggles. For now :)

You are perfect.

XOXO,

Mommy

Love Languages

Marea's most important love language is that of gifts. And i'm not saying that she knows she feels loved when we give her gifts-she's the lover, giving the gift. The sweet girl will gather up some of her stuff, when she knows someone is coming over, or she is going over to the house of someone she cares about, to give to the cherished person. Mostly lately it's been seashells; some for Grethe when we had them over for dinner, and some for Grandma Carole when she was having a sleepover (She also included a quarter for Grandma Carole). She's gathered things for Grandma Susan, Jackie, Emily.....seems to be when she's excited about seeing someone or something coming up. She's got a whole 'treasure box' now, filled with seashells, rocks, old jewelry, marbles, beads, etc., and these are most often her gifts to others. She's not especially social or friendly in group situations, but the girl simply ADORES the few that she has chosen as part of her tribe. Another thing Marea loves doing lately is going through Grandma Susan's junk. (Not the junk food...although calling her the "junk lady" regarding the junk food seriously cracks us up!) Marea loves looking at all the stuff I have deemed to be 'crap' that my mom has collected over the years. She thinks it is all so beautiful. After a recent sleepover, she returned home with a flowery cross-stitch circle thingie, an wierd looking old doll, a metal bun holder with pearls, and old seashells that I had collected long ago in Catalina. Today they went through all of her old junk jewelry and beads. Marea was in heaven. And Grandma was too; they spent a few hours just looking through everything. Grandma Susan said she is now going to give Marea all her junk in her will. Sounds good to me, as long as I don't have to go through all of it!

Evie has somehow managed to learn most of her colors. I have no idea how this happened as I was quite discouraged after how long and hard it was to teach them to Marea. Of course, Marea was mature in other ways that Evie isn't yet. Marea was very socially mature and could easily put puzzles together. Evie can't figure out a puzzle at all. But she can count a little and knows the colors. I love how everything just happens when it happens. Evie also has quite the musical ability. Ever since Marea took the Music Together class at Hilltop, we've been listening to that CD a lot in the car. Evie can make all the funny sounds at the right times, and has the melody and tune down. It's pretty amazing. I used to despise those songs, but seeing how can I when she's so joyful and happy when she's singing them? She knows the song after just a few notes, and will belt out the chorus. CAW!!!!!

July 2010 updates

So much to do, so little time. These girls keep me oh so busy in such a great way.

So we've been up to a lot. There have been sleepovers...Marea, Evie, Jackie and Emily all had their first sleepover at Grandma Susan's, complete with night swimming and drumsticks at 9:30 p.m. And Marea had a nice, long 24 hour stay with Grandma Carole and Grandpa Bill at their new house. And we had a sleepover here, our first one having Jackie and Emily over for the night. It went well, up to the point that it was 10 p.m. and Marea and Emily were STILL getting up, asking for water. But I suppose that was easy, compared to the sleepovers to come. I like sleepovers. I remember loving them as a kid and Marea loves them too. She's always talking about them, and who she would invite. Harper is often on the list, and Jackie and Emily are always on the list. She loves having people over. For such a quiet, 'shy' girl, she's surprisingly social. Evie is right there now, running and screaming with the girls.

We also had our first outing to the Aquarium with all the girls. Thankfully I had Lauren to help me. Taking all four of them was a lot of work. They like to scatter in different directions. It was hard to keep track of all of them. But we still had fun. Marea likes feeding the birds now. Evie would also like to feed them, but she's a bit too anxious and they just bite her.

We've had several birthday parties, Lauren's annual going back to college party, and lots of days hanging with our 'baby' friends. Summer is busy as usual and going well. We love taking the wagon for a walk, hanging in the garden, playing in the pool, we went to the fair (first ferris wheel ride for Marea! ), summer concerts in the park (and Evie laying on the dance floor), sun dresses all day every day with several changes, babysitting the turtles, baking from the princess and the frog cookbook, breakfast at the yacht club, watermelon eating parties...we keep busy and we have fun. We haven't done too many beach days since it's been the 'bummer summer', but yesterday we spontaneously drove down there for a sea shell gathering morning. Marea loves that kind of stuff. She is perfectly happy just strolling down the beach, checking out all the different shells. And when we got home, we washed them all off in the back yard and then she picked out the ones she wanted to share with her cousins. She's always doing that...choosing things she wants to give to others. She's one generous girl. She's been so wonderful lately.

Evie is talking SO much. She can put 4 word sentences together. Like the other night, when she was up with her fever, and I took her in Marea's bed to sleep with me, and she said, excitedly, "I sleep yea-ya's room!". It was cute, unfortunately it was at about 3 a.m. Her second birthday is creeping up on us, and I am not happy about that. She would prefer to be a big girl, though. She gets mad about sitting in her car seat or high chair, and demands to sit in "yea-ya's' seat. However, I am enjoying her exactly how she is right now. Running, jumping, playing with her sister...just an all around happy all the time kind of girl that is still a baby, for now. And if something goes wrong, 5 minutes on my lap, with her thumb in her mouth, picking at my fingernails, can fix anything.