Christmas

For Christmas this year, my Mom and Andrew came out to join us, Kenny, and Ginny. Logan had not seen his Uncle Andrew since May, and was thrilled.  I think he thoroughly tired Andrew out in the 5 days he was here.  I figured it was only right, as Logan is just like Andrew at this age, and its only right that Andrew should get to experience what that was like for everyone else:).

Andrew around 3 years old.  (He's naked in this picture, but I have graciously edited that out.  You're welcome Andrew.)

Logan had a pretty great week.  Kenny and Andrew took him on trips to the airport, Children's Museum, and Zoo, and then of course there was Christmas. 

Decorating the tree house with Daddy

Amelie

Walking/biking/swinging around the lake

Amelie & Uncle Andrew

Amelie

We had Christmas Eve at our house, and carried on our Christmas Eve tradition of meatballs, eggplant, and ravioli.  Mark said he was going to make grilled cheese (his tradition, because he refused to eat his family's traditional clam chowder growing up), but I think he ate the meatballs in the end.
 

Christmas Eve- Amelie and Auntie Kenny

Amelie and Ginny

Kenny & Ginny (I think we have now completed all permutations of those 3)

Cooking the ravioli

And the eggplant

Ayla and Logan decorating Christmas cookies

Amelie and me

Andrew and Logan, trying on hockey gear

Kenny, Amelie, and Andrew (thank you Grandma Z for the Christmas outfit!)

Kenny & Andrew had been driven to drink at this point by all that family time

Logan at Christmas Eve Dinner

Mark & Amelie

Stockings hung by the chimney with care

Family picture.  Amelie was not too happy about it.

Grandpa Z reading us the Night Before Christmas

On Christmas morning, I was expecting to get woken up at 5am by Logan wanting to rush out and open his presents.  Instead, I had to go wake him up and drag him out of bed around 8.  He was kind of scared about the fact that we might have let some strange man come into our house in the middle of the night (quite sensible, I suppose).  Once we had convinced him that Santa was no longer there, he did cautiously go out to the family room and was quite happy to discover his lego pirate ship.   Logan didn't get through too many presents last year, but this year he was quite efficient at ripping through them all. 

On Christmas morning, Logan found a Jake and the Neverland Pirates lego pirate ship waiting for him

And Santa brought Amelie a doll

We went down to the lake for ice skating and then headed over to Kenny's for Christmas dinner.  We tried a new meal this year, fondue, but we did not execute it perfectly (we had the ingredients but not the recipes).  By that point in the week, the raw meat and thick cheese seemed pretty funny to some of us... others had had about enough of all this family time and were not so pleased. We did manage to do the chocolate fondue perfectly, which is really the important part.

My grandmother  is a classy lady and is none too pleased to have  a paper crown on her head

Kenny, on the other hand, thought her crown was pretty awesome

I think they might be drinking again

Time to join them

The day after Christmas, we met my godmother Janie for lunch.  She brought us all beautiful presents, including a very stylish hat for Amelie... I will have to take a picture. 

Mom, Janie, and Ginny at lunch the day after Christmas

And then everyone headed home, and we set off for a climbing trip in St. George.  Merry Christmas!

Amelie- 6 months

At 6 months, Amelie is sweet and easygoing and mellow.  She’s never needed the activity that Logan did—the swing, the jumperoo, the bouncing and singing.  She’s happy to lay on her playmat or sit in the pod chair and is pretty content as long as we’re in the room (preferably in a spot where she can watch Daddy).  She’s talking more and more and can carry on a babbling conversation for a while.  Her big goal this month seems to be increasing the number of fingers she can get in her mouth at once, and she continues to set new personal bests.  She’s not really into tick lists, and is in no particular rush to check off all the accomplishments that mark babyhood.  She rolls once in a while, can sit for about 5 seconds before she falls over, is not very interested in eating food.  I think she’ll get there when she gets there. 

Amelie loves her brother.  She watches every move he makes, and laughs at his silly superhero moves and Lazytown dances.  She likes being naked, and thinks undressing is the funniest thing ever.  She’s ticklish at the top of her chest, just under her chin. She likes singing and dancing—there’s nothing like some silly dancing to make her laugh.  Her favorite is a good boogie to “ah ha, hush that fuss, everybody move to the back of the bus”. Her nickname is sweet pea.

Christmas Card 2013

Happy birthday to me

The big 35!

Ice skating

Mark's mom sent us a picture of some "skate buddies" that Christina's kids used at an ice rink in Germany.  They looked like little penguins, and the kids could hold on to them to help them stay standing as they skated. We looked online but couldn't find anything like it, so Mark made his own out of PVC pipe. It worked pretty well-- we still had to push Logan around the rink most of the time, but at least we had something to rest our arms on. 

Mark & Logan skating

Logan & the skate buddy

Chasing the puck

Ginny

Ginny has always seemed to enjoy kids. I remember when I was little, she used to let me take all of her shoes out of her closet and set them up on the stairs to play shoestore, she would make up elaborate bedtime stories featuring little girls named Kate when we had sleepovers, and she always kept my drawer at her house stocked with stickers or coloring books or some special treat. 

Despite being 95, Ginny still loves playing with my kids.  She has long conversations with Amelie, plays hide and seek with Logan, and always keeps a good stock of cookies to keep him (and me!) happy. 

Ginny & Amelie in matching sweaters

Roughhousing with Logan

Cuddles

Amelie's first food

Amelie is not a big fan of food. She gets this sort of disgusted look on her face and spits it out every time we try.  I can't really blame her, rice cereal doesn't look too tasty to me either.

Daycare Pics

 Here are a few pictures of how the kids spend their days at Tammy's.

Learning to sit in the high chair

Exersaucer

Gooball wears a bib all day

Practicing spelling

Practicing sitting skills

Tori and Amelie

Santa

We went to see Santa at the bookstore in town. This Santa is good, in theory, because he spends tons of time with each kid.  There are long discussions about Christmas gifts, reading of books, coloring. The problem is, Logan wants nothing to do with Santa.  Therefore, we spent an hour waiting for all the other kids to have their quality time with Santa, and then when it was our turn, it took about one minute to bribe Logan to get near Santa long enough for a picture, and then we were out of there.  Logan asked for an apple airplane with sprinkles and chocolate (we're still not quite sure how to make that happen) and a train engineer puzzle. 

Amelie was mildly interested.  She liked pulling on his beard at least.