elf on the *shade*

We have started our Elf on the Shelf tradition this week and I think it's going to be great! As we read the book for the first time, I watched the girls' eyes get bigger and bigger. I was pretty impressed with how well they followed along. 

When it came time to name our Elf, "Tinkerbell" was excitedly suggested. I suggested we modify it to "Tinker" since the Elf is a boy. We read the story again before bed, and Rob and I reminded the girls that Tinker would be watching them all the next day to see if they were good or bad. They both just *knew* they would be good.

They came downstairs the next morning to find Tinker sitting atop their dollhouse. They knew not to touch him and at first they played kind of nervously around him. 

I had to make a few reminders about what Tinker's presence was all about, but behavior was quickly modified after the reminders.

And then I looked up from whatever I was doing in the kitchen to find the girls holding the family room lamp, shade all smashed. How they managed to get it off the table and smash the shade without making a loud noise is beyond me. 

I (as well as Tinker!) was SO MAD! 

So this morning Tinker was found sitting on top of the bent shade (I can't get it reshaped, in fact, I made it much worse).

No little hands even attempted to approach this lamp today!

an arizona thanksgiving

We broke from tradition and spent the entire week of Thanksgiving out of the cold and bluster and in the sun and warmth of Arizona. We stayed with Gramma and Grandpa at their beautiful house and had a terrific time.

The girls are great airplane riders and we had no problems with the 3.5 hour flight. Both girls even used the potty on the airplane like they were old pros. 

They were pretty impressed that "sunny" was out when we arrived in AZ and they very quickly spotted the saguaros. (last year they had much difficulty pronouncing saguaro so we allowed them to say cactus. This time they were very good about trying to say the difficult word.)

The girls had a blast running around Gramma's house and basically taking over the place. They quickly found their room that had their own twin beds. (We pushed them up against the wall and put a dining room chair and pillow on the other side. They slept perfectly!). They also determined which chair they would sit in for meals and they used the big potty the entire week without any complaints (or accidents!). They played in the living room in the cool mornings and then quickly moved out onto the patio after sunny had warmed it up. 

Unfortunately the girls got sick with those icky coughs they seem to get. We had one rough night of sleeplessness, but after that the girls really "powered through" their colds, not wanting to give up playing.

I think the girls' favorite activity at Gramma's was driving around in Grandpa's golf cart. Little Bird was convinced she was actually driving and the girls practiced identifying left and right turns. The "little car" was a huge hit!

Since the girls were sick, we didn't take them out to do too many activities. We did, however, take them to the really fun train park in Scottsdale that we visited last year. This time it was no different; Little Bird was really excited about the train ride and merry-go-round and Little Pie could do without it. Thankfully she did get on the train with us and ended up loving it but we couldn't convince her to get on the merry-go-round. Little Bird offered to go on the merry-go-round a second time because she thought Daddy should have a chance to go.

In addition to the train ride and merry-go-round, the place has a huge playground and the girls had been dying to play at a park for days. Even though they were still sniffling and coughing, they went crazy at the park, showing Daddy how they can climb up anything and slide down anything. We had no complaints being outside on a sunny and warm (80 degrees!) day in November.

We also took the girls to the White Tank Mountains regional park for some hiking and exploring. They have a GREAT trail that anyone (young or old) can hike and at the end of the mile long trail is a beautiful (dried up) waterfall. The girls thought they were so big going out for a hike with us, and they stopped at every sign along the way to "read". We saw petroglyphs and all types of cactus. We looked around for other types of plants and talked about what kind of animals live out in the mountains. The girls were wondering if Frank and Larry (the coyotes in a book Uncle Drew gave them) lived up in these particular "high desert ledges". We decided that they must! We were so proud of the girls for hiking almost the entire 2 miles. They were very good about staying on the trail and maneuvering their way through some of the rocks they had to climb. I can't wait to hike with them some more!

Thanksgiving day was the only day that sunny didn't make an appearance, but that was OK. We spent the day as a family and eating a yummy Thanksgiving meal. Why these girls don't like mashed potatoes is big wonder to us all, but why the devoured the pumpkin pie is of no question. Football was on the (new!) TV and we had fun hanging out. 

It was a wonderful week and we are so proud of the girls for being such good travelers. They adjusted well to everything and we are so glad that it was a breeze to be on vacation with them. We are looking forward to going back to AZ in February. 

And now, it's time for Christmas! I'm so excited to be back home and getting ready for the best time of the year! I think it's going to be so much more fun this year because the girls now seem to "get it". We are going to have so much fun setting up new traditions!

3 year old pictures

As you can see from the new blog header, the girls had their three year pictures taken. Actually, they were taken the Friday I left for NYC. Nana and Papa had to take the girls there, and while I wish I could have been there so I could have "control", the shoot went very well and I'm happy with the results.

The images are by honeybeeandpeony.com.

jumping through hoops

The girls have been asking for hula hoops for some time now. I haven't gotten them any because I didn't know what we would do with them. Surely they are too little to actually hula the hoop. 

But last week at gymnastics, I learned a great new game to play with a hula hoop so, because today is surely going to be the last nice day to play outside, I went to get them one.

First we tested them out by literally jumping in and out of them and jumping back and forth between them.

Then we dragged our hoops to the park so we had could use the soccer field as a nice big open space for our "hoop game".

The game is really simple. I roll the hoop out into the field and the girls chase after it to try and catch it At gymnastics it's really fun and very doable. The girls had so much fun and were so impressed with themselves. Today, it seemed harder to run in the grass to chase them, especially while wearing hats, mittens and big warm vests. But they had so much fun. Little Bird said, "I'm screaming because I love my hoop!". Little Pie tried to get me to chase the hoop as well, but soon realized she couldn't push it as far as I could so she told me to push it and then chase it!

Check out the action! (Note: the game went much better when I wasn't trying to video tape at the same time!)

3 years, 3 days - Happy Birthday Girls!

Today is my beautiful girls 3rd birthday. THREE! I can't believe how the time flies. They have been waiting for weeks for this day to come. Now that they are this old, they get so excited to turn another year older. Remember when it was so exciting to say you were the next year older? I forget when that excitement changes...

Somehow this year, as the girls turned three, we managed to celebrate their birthday for three days. 

On Sunday, our family came over to celebrate with a chili lunch, football on the TV and enthusiastic play of joy from the girls. Nana, Papa, Uncle Drew, Gramcracker, Magrandma, Boompa, Brenda, Erin, Cody, Gramma, Grandpa, Uncle Rye, Kelly and Taylor all came to celebrate with us. The girls couldn't believe everyone was there for them and they had so much fun opening presents, goofing off with everyone and singing happy birthday (they sang to themselves). (Let me just say that I was proud of my girls, for at three years old, they are already quite polite, opening cards first and thanking gift givers with the best eye contact they can manage.)

The princess dress up dresses were a HUGE hit and Little Bird was really happy when people called her Belle. The dollhouse was also a super big hit (and I think Erin and I might like it just as much since we had too much fun designing the master 'spa' bath.)

Some people are serious about their cupcakes.

We are so happy to have so much family that come to celebrate the girls.

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On Monday, we had a little lunch party for some of the girls' friends. We typically do a playdate on Monday mornings, so it worked out really well. Since it was a Mickey/Minnie Mouse theme, I made some Mickey/Minnie ears for the kids, we colored some big Mickey Clubhouse pictures, played "Pin the Bow on Minnie" and did some Mickey/Minnie bowling.

The kids had a blast with the pin the bow on Minnie. Although a lot of them wanted to cheat! (See Little Bird in the bottom right!).

Bowling was pretty fun too. We do need to work on rolling the ball instead of throwing it!

After games, we enjoyed some gifts, pizza, fruit and veggies, and cake!

**Special thanks to the moms: Rob was supposed to be at the party but at the last minute went to work. Needless to say this mama got really stressed, but as moms do, they stepped right in to help.

The girls thought it was really special that their friends came to celebrate their birthday with them.

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Today (the 8th) is the girls actual birthday. When they woke up, I said "Happy Birthday, today is November 8!". I think it was only at that point that they finally realized they were three. They were pretty excited! 

We had pancakes for breakfast and then we looked at pictures from when they were born. They liked hearing the stories I would tell about the pictures and seeing their family members holding them when they were babies. It was so adorable to hear them ooh and aah over their cute baby pictures.

We called Gramma (who is still in town) and went with her to the park. How awesome is it that the girls got to play at a park outside on their birthday!?! They were SO EXCITED!

When Little Pie got too cold (note her dramatic face!), we headed to lunch at 3 Squares (how perfect for three year olds!). The girls behaved very well and we enjoyed a very yummy meal together. 

A very rare picture of me with my little ladies. (I love how Little Pie puts her glasses on her head like me.)

I ended their special third birthday by reading "On the Night You Were Born" and singing Happy Birthday to them. When I started tearing up while singing, they looked at me with concern, but I just snuggled them closer. They both gave me sweet kisses and I knew that each year that passes, their birthday will be more and more special.

These girls are just so special that I really want to thank all the friends and family that love them and want to celebrate them. I especially want to thank the two grandmas who have really helped over the last few weeks. With Rob gone and missing almost all of the celebrations, I really appreciate their help and the fact that they are always here for me and the girls. The girls REALLY love their grandmas!

trick or treat!

Finally...Halloween came! The girls have been and wondering when we actually would get to do this trick or treating thing I keep talking about. 

First we had to carve our pumpkins. (Sadly, Rob wasn't here this year as he has been in IL since last Monday. He won't be home until Friday so needless to say, we are very sad. There was a chance he might fly home for Halloween, but that didn't work out. We will be very excited to see him when he gets home.) I almost didn't carve pumpkins because I didn't want to "deal" with it by myself, but then I thought that I was just being lazy. The girls loved it even though they didn't really want to touch the guts too much. 

Little Bird pulled out one seed at a time. I had to get the ball rolling a little bit with her.

Little Pie really didn't want to pull the guts out but I made her do some so I could get a picture.

Little Pie was proud of her "E" pumpkin.

Little Bird thought that the S I carved out of her pumpkin should go back in. She didn't quite get the idea of carving.

Like last year, we had friends over for pizza, fun and trick or treating.

The kids had a blast going out trick or treating and we were very fortunate that this year was nice! They really got the hang of it and were so excited to say trick or treat to people. When we returned home, they each had fun passing out candy to kids that came to our door. Little Pie was hilarious because she was so formal, saying "here you go." "you're welcome." "bye see you later." to all the kids that came to our door.

It was another successful Halloween! Can't wait until next year!

Little Bird LOVES to hold Ms E's hand. Any chance she gets, she holds her hand!