Well I did a little better at taking pictures at Christmas than I did at Thanksgiving, but not by much. I guess I just got too caught up in all of the fun we were having to be bothered to find the camera. I did manage to take a few movies though that are kind of funny if you happen to be interested in Molly.
Granny and Maggie on Christmas Eve
Gran and Maggie, also Christmas Eve
Little Christmas Cheese Log
The Lucia Bread...tasty!
The beginnings of the mess.
So we had a little bit of a rough start Christmas morning. For the record I didn't go in and wake her up, she was talking in the monitor before I went in there.
It took her a little bit to figure out what day it was. I think having her daily question of "Santa's here?" turned down so consistently had finally broken her down.
The Stocking!!! Lots of fun!
Another year in the books! Who knows what fun is to come...
So, what have we been up to? It's been two weeks since my last post and the only reason I can think of for not getting it done is that my biggest blog fan is here visiting us, so what reason do I have to post? Things are starting to look festive around here. This has little to do with me, and almost everything to do with my mom who has been scurrying about the compound decking the halls, doors, fences...I'm pretty sure the HOA is going to come down hard on me for not decorating my exterior at all (my house is the dark spot on the map) but you can be sure I'm going to come down hard on them if their shit isn't down by the 2nd of January. Actually I love looking out at all the little white lights my mom has everywhere (colored lights are apparently against our CCRs) and Molly and Maggie are definitely on board as well. Big thanks to Gran for making spirits bright around here.
Baking with a two year old is super fun. If you haven't tried it before, you can come and borrow mine. You should know that she's a fantastic listener and never eats all the dough. Wait...
Here she is all decked out with her fancy apron and her baking boots.
A week or so ago, Jonny took Molly to the light parade they have downtown. She loved it. So much so that she passed out on Jonny's shoulder on the walk home. We were actually able to put her PJs on her and tuck her in without her waking up.
Here's our picture from our Christmas card. If you're not in AZ, sorry for ruining the surprise. Also, if you're not in AZ, sorry, you might not get the card until after Christmas since I was late getting them.
Surprise!
A couple days last week it almost felt like winter. It rained and then the next day it was foggy. Looked kind of pretty.
Molly's ready for dutch Christmas. She got up on the counter, took the bag of "cuties" and stuffed her shoes. Just a side note to anyone who is judging me for letting my kid wear Crocs, this is why I love them. ME: "Molly put on your shoes" MOLLY: "Okay". End of interaction.
We're all very excited to have Chris and Stephanie here for a whole week! Molly and Maggie both love having them around and the rest of us think they're alright too! Can't wait to share an awesome Christmas with them.
I'm the worst elf on the shelf mom. I have hardly moved him at all this past elf season. I think this is his 5th and probably last place. I'm going to have to up my game next year. I'm pretty sure she's going to hold me accountable then.
O plastic tree, o plastic tree. I really f@#$ing hate you! Next year my desire to not vacuum everyday might be outweighed by my hatred of this tree. Actually now that it's up, it doesn't seem so bad, but when it was being put up and I was reminded of all it's shortcomings...a portion of lights with a short or something, various holes that I could excuse in nature, but seem unnecessary in a man made tree, a top that doesn't work with our star, and instead of smelling like pine, it smells like dust. I admit, I was filled with a frustration that can only be brought on by a major holiday.
I started decorating the tree Sunday evening after everyone was asleep, but I thought it would be fun to let Molly help me a little, so I saved some special ornaments for her to help me with in the morning. I'm not going to say that I regret this, but I will say it made things more difficult. For every ornament that went up, 3 came down. No one can accuse me of taking the "Christ out of Christmas" for as many times as I said "Jesus Christ Molly". Whoops. Can't wait to hear that one fired back at me. Why is it that all of the things you say that they repeat back to you have to sound so hilariously adorable for better or worse?
One for the tree
Three for me
It only took 24 hours to complete the masterpiece, ha!
Can you spot the dead lights? Should have taken this picture 1 minute later.
Other festivities include:
Maggie's outfit
and Santa!
It's also been kind of cold (those of you from places colder than Yuma-everyone-can laugh) so it's starting to feel Christmasy!
Here she is, making it happen! She's also been going from back to belly when she's in her crib, although I think she's been cheating and pulling herself over by grabbing onto the little mirror toy we have in there.
Here's Maggie in her crib, almost having completed a back to belly roll, but as you can see, she got her foot stuck in the little ring on her toy.
This past week has been full of missed photo opportunities, although when you think of the ridiculous number of photos people have of their kids nowadays, it hardly seems like the end of the world that I didn't document Thanksgiving. There's a pretty good chance that there are 0 pictures of me as a kid on Thanksgiving (there could be an errant Polaroid somewhere I suppose) and yet, here I am, still breathing.
So, I missed Thanksgiving completely, and I might as well have missed our visit with the McBurgorris clan. As an afterthought we tried to get them together for a picture, but since they're all 2-3 years old, they weren't having it. I also think that at that point Landon and Molly were finished with each other. I admit it, my kid can't share. I'm told this is typical, but it still drives me nuts.
So here are the boys, and Colbie's legs.
And here is Molly...sharing is hard.
Regardless, we had a good time hanging out...even Molly.
The next day, we went to the park, and since it was a bit windy, we took a kite. I thought maybe I'd get a nice picture of Molly helping us fly the kite. I was of course being ridiculous to think that could actually happen. Molly was mostly interested in conquering all of the slides and running away from us in that huge dark maze of a castle they have at the playground. This was the best I could do.
I thought today, that she was actually going to wear the headband. She was so excited about it, talking about how it matched, and how it was her crown, but fast forward 5 minutes, it's in the sandbox.
This was pretty funny. Maggie's scalp is always getting dry so I'm always having to oil it up and brush it. She liked it so much this time, that she passed out while I was brushing.
So, Christmas is the next holiday, I'm hoping I'll do better, especially since these are Maggie's firsts.
That's the sound of 3 months passing by like lightning. Maggie's still doing awesome. Still sleeps pretty good, eats pretty good, and is as content and happy as one could ask for. I didn't think she was even close to rolling over, but just last week she made some big improvements in that area and I think it won't be too much longer before she accomplishes it.
Check out that head control!
You may notice from this picture that she's wearing a g diaper. Bring on the home school Annette, I'm doing cloth diapers :-) It's actually not that bad. The g diapers have a disposable insert you can use also, which works well at night and during the day I use the cloth inserts. So far, no leaking, no rashes and they clean up nicely. I wasn't crazy about the orange and green, which were the only sets available right now, (you can buy other colors individually) but it turned out I had at least one shirt that went with the orange and most of the time they're covered anyhow. I love that we're not going to be at Target every week buying diapers, since just being in the parking lot of that store costs a person at least 100 bucks every time.
Molly's had a big week too:
She fed her baby.
She hung out with her friend Grayson, Landon and Colbie (not pictured). It was cute how animated she was about them coming over "I can't wait to see my friends!"
So much fun that she just passed out on the couch. Just 30 minutes and it ruined her going to bed by herself streak. Oh-well.
This video was from a few weeks ago, but I just managed to get it up. In case you can't understand her she's saying that she wants to play with Maggie, but she has to wait until she gets bigger...she'll grow and grow, just like a flower...like the flower on Maggie's shirt. I thought it was cute.
For awhile now, we've been trying to figure out how to get Molly to go to sleep by herself. Starting at the beginning of the month, I tired to convince her to do it by giving her rewards. First we told her that if she could go to bed by herself 5 days (5 stickers) she would get a special treat or gift. 5 days proved to be too abstract a concept for a 2 year old, even when represented by stickers. So of course we piled even more incentives on top of the 5 day incentive so that she would get a small treat every morning after a night she had gone to bed solo, this has mostly been chocolate milk with breakfast. But what really, truly has made all this possible is getting rid of naps. The one day last week that she took a nap (which I made her take because she was driving me crazy) was the night that she just couldn't do it. In the end, she did get her 5th sticker and I gave her the choice between a book, a toy or going out for ice cream, but she told me what she really wanted was a lollipop. So that's what she got.
She of course had to rub off all the dates on her calendar. Not sure why "November" wasn't touched.
Enjoying her breakfast lollipop.
Today my mom and dad had a little helper with their painting project. She later told Mere that she had a GREAT day! I'm pretty sure that this was why.
Maggie is starting to out grow her bassinet. I debated on where I should put her, there wasn't any way I would be able to put her in her room yet, but her crib wouldn't fit in our room. Mere has a porta-crib at her house that I thought I could bring over, but in the end I got out the Amby baby. I didn't want to at first since she does pretty good all on her own, but since we've been seeing her head get flatter and flatter, we thought we'd give her a fighting chance at a normal looking head. The crazy baby hammocks are supposed to be good for preventing that from happening. So far she's done really well in it. The trick is going to be keeping Molly out of it. I think she's feeling the sibling rivalry a little stronger lately. Luckily most of her rage is directed at me and not Maggie. The worst day so far was yesterday when we were at Sam's Club and she couldn't get over not being able to ride in Maggie's stroller. We had her "helping" push it for awhile, but that eventually wasn't going to be good enough for her, and it all ended with me carrying her out (while pushing the stroller) while she screamed...awesome. I was THAT person. Despite it all, I do feel bad for her, I know her world has completely changed and that has to be hard. Seriously though, I may loose my mind.
I'm starting to worry that Maggie is going to have a flat spot on one side of her head. She's such a good sleeper, but it's coming at a cost since she almost always lays with her head looking to her right. I try to move her, but she usually ends up looking to her right again...I guess she's just broken in that side too well to give it up. It's starting to become noticeable, I hope she doesn't end up having to wear a special helmet or anything.
Some people might think I'm crazy for even thinking about it, and others might think I'm crazy for not just doing it, but I'm thinking of switching to cloth diapers. I bought one diaper (gDiapers) and 6 cloth inserts just to give it a try. So far so good I guess, but the more I read about it, the more terrified I am of it. Rashes, infections, how to clean them properly, not to mention there are like 3 billion different choices of diapers and they ALL claim to be the best. Starting to think I'm in over my head. If I do decide that it won't kill me, I have my cart filled and ready to order a full set of supplies. We'll see.
