So, this is Christmas...

We hope you have enjoyed your Christmas and holiday moments with your families. We certainly did and we have some pictures (and a movie) to prove it.

B borrowed a Santa suit from our neighbors

He also tried eating C's fancy new slippers that Aunt Adrienne sent her

He smashed our breakfast muffins on the floor and swiftly ate them up

Santa brought a lot of presents. One of the most fun is a new sled (besides C's new Dr. Barbie)...

Both kids loved to ride around. Doesn't B remind you of the kids in A Christmas Carol? They had so many layers on they couldn't move!

There were several wipe-outs

But, when they weren't falling, they were both really cute

Our big present was a new video camera. We've been getting a lot of great video and here are 3 fun clips that we got over Christmas:

So, J's running has forced him to run outside in the cold and snow. To fight the weather, he's had to find new cold weather running clothes. This is a picture of him in his new cold weather running tights (which are actually great for the cold). He says that he never imagined he'd actually wear running tights in his life, but he likes them a lot. On Christmas, the only thing he could think of to describe the new pants comes from the classic Christmas song, Deck the Halls:

don we now our "gay" apparel...

(Don't worry, he normally wears shorts or pants over the tights. This was taken more for effect...)

Merry Christ-mas

Happy Birthday C!

Here are some fun photos from our little girl's birthday celebrations. After changing her mind many a time, I was able to convince her that it would be fun to do a 'Fancy' party, in the style of Fancy Nancy (cute little girl from recent children's books). We made our own 'fancy' invitations...

Our own 'fancy' cake - Nancy loves butterflies because they are so 'fancy'...

Decorated our own 'fancy' princess crowns...

Played 'fancy' dress-up games...

and had a regular ol' 'fancy' time.

It's been so fun to have this cute little girl in our family. She is very caring, observant, and creative!

Little B

Today we would like to feature our son. Unfortunately, as the second child, it's pretty likely that he has been denied photo and video opportunities which our daughter has had. Now to rectify the situation, we produced a video that we were never able to produce of our little girl.

Enjoy little B!

Feliz Navidad!

In honor of our daughter and the previous blog post, she wanted to post a video of her singing (a much shortened version) of Feliz Navidad!

Enjoy!

Highly Cultured Child

Tonight, I asked the nina what she wanted me to sing to her for her good night song. I suggested maybe she would like a Christmas song, thinking I would sing "Silent Night," or, "Away in a Manger."

My dear daughter had something else in mind-

In the sweetest, most sincere voice, she said:"Yeah mom, will you sing, 'Feliz Navidad'?"

Good thing the lights were already off,( as I struggled to get started, and finish, the never-meant-to-be-a-lullaby version of Feliz Navidad,) or else she would have been saddened by my lack of taking the moment at all seriously.

Holiday Time

With the holidays upon us, we have started to decorate our home, and our little girl is loving it! So much that is sparkly and bright- what not for a girl to love?!

My favorite moments of all of this so far, have been each time she says,
"Mom, can we hand the beanstalks now?"
And so today, we hung up our beanstalks!

Besides that, I've got too many photos to share in linear fashion. Here are a few from Thanksgiving weekend. We had a great time with Ya- Ya and Grandpa here to visit.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

A's parents are visiting us and we are having a good time catching up. C kept saying that she was so excited for our "feast."

This morning, J, who has been running and training a lot ran his first 5K - The Ann Arbor Turkey Trot. He beat his best personal time by almost a minute and finished as number 425 out of 1250.

Fall walk

One of our most favorite things about where we live is Fall! It is wonderful to actually have a Fall season. The trees look beautiful and the weather is nice (for the most part). We took advantage of one of the last sunny days of the year with a family walk.

C has been hijacking one of the neighborhood bikes and has been riding it around our neighborhood. She is actually really good.

B enjoyed getting pushed around, although he'd rather be riding a bike. He was sick this past week, but as you can see from the smile on his face, he's feeling better now.

Also, our little C is very dramatic, as you may know. She loves to pretend to be a pretty princess and likes to walk around saying that she's "sooo pretty." Here is a funny recent quote from our little princess:

Dad: C, are you happy with your name? Do you like it?

C: No.

Dad: You're not? You don't like it?

C: No, Dad. I'm a princess, you know. You can just call me Dora-bo-bora. (Refering to Dora, The Explorer. Who is also Princess Dora to little C).

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Ariel the Mermaid and a dragon/dinasaur!

Family photos gone funny

The following are some of my favorite 'oops' moments and why, when we have more money some day, I will pay someone professional to take our family pics! That, or after practicing for the next few years I'll get better at doing self-timer photos!

These make me laugh, and I hope the same is true for you!

Our little Mariah Carey using the tripod as her mic stand!

Aren't we the cutest all fuzzy!

Stealing some more personal camera time

One of two that looks somewhat okay

Here is to trying again another day when we are all better rested and know what to anticipate!

Camera Woman

Our family Christmas present last year was a new Digital SLR camera. A has begun to further develop her photograhy talents recently and here are some new Fall Pictures that she took this afternoon. Enjoy!

Pretty good, eh?

Just when I thought....

Just when I thought I would tag myself as a reader, which I love to do in my quiet moments at home, I went and surprised myself!

After reading a children's book, Mermaids on Parade, with the little miss, she discovered that the last page of the book included directions on how to make your own mermaid tail (out of fabric, no growing scaly tails on petri dishes).

Of course this was too great a temptation to pass up, so, as we were out running errand today, we stopped into Joanne's, and found this super-fun material for all of $2.48! While the little guy was napping we went to town (read:I went crazy with ideas of how to make a full blown costume). Good thing that little bits of fabric go a long way on little bodies!

Here is the final project! Watch out Ariel!
Don't look too closely, or you will see why I consider myself more of a reader than a seamstress- but, for a cute little girl, this did the trick!

Our other recent adventures include:

Our 2 year old feeding the baby- I figured he is already going to be messy- why not?

My attempts in remembering how to use manual settings on a SLR camera- Thanks go to Rachel for the refresher course. We'll see what comes next!

The little miss playing with a neighbor friend in our other steal of the summer- brand new whale pool at Target for $4.98. That is less than it costs for our family to go to the local pool even once! It got plenty of use for the last 2 weeks of summer.

Enjoy our life updates and accomplishments!

So Big

There are days like these that I realize, that ever so slowly, my cute kids are getting so big!

Photos to prove it:

Heading out the door to one of her first days of preschool
She loves that she gets to go all by herself, and makes sure to remind me that I can stay home!

My smiley boy!

What he discovers while I'm preparing lunch or helping his sister.
The other day it was how to get stuck behind our old recliner!

Here he was working on choosing (and 'chew'sing) some books

A Texas Wedding

One more wedding down!
Here are some of my favorite pics from this weekend in Texas where J's brother got married.
(Look at my new pink boots! I loved being a flower dirl!
(I know that's spelled wrong, but pronounced as directly from the babe's mouth)

Hanging out with cousins.

Being a flower girl-
She had told anyone she saw, including strangers, for the past 2 weeks,
that she was going to be a flower dirl in J's wedding

The ceremony at the farmhouse

The Groom's Cake- delicious!

Who me? Yes, I only ate cake all day long!

Cute pic with Grandma

My new sister-in-law- Congrats!