Just the little things

The little things are what light up my life:

Abrielle--

This girl is the funniest thing in the world, and it's quite clear where she gets it from... her "Dotch" (aka Faith). There's so many things that she does that she even tells us "I do it from Dotch," and she exaggerates them by about 10x. The faces. The funny noises. She is a riot!

Her voice is just adorable. I am in love with it. These are the 'Abrie-isms' of recent months:

She uses 'y' instead of 'l' ... 'yights' for lights, 'Bug's Yife' for 'Bug's Life,' 'yeggies' for leggies, etc.

She adds a 'd' after an 'n' if it's in the middle of the word... 'Minndie' for Minnie, 'Undo Moo' for Uno Moo (a game that she absolutely LOVES!), 'dinder time' for dinner time, 'I'm runnding' for I'm running, etc.

Some of her famous Abrie phrases that she says a lot to make us laugh are "ding dong, you're wrong" or "oh, hunkey dorey!" She also thinks she's funny and pretends not to hear us, and then she'll look at us and say "what?? what you said?"

Faith--

Oh my Faith-y and her beloved cowgirl Jessie. She is just too much with her Jessie doll. Nene got her a Hawaiian Jessie for Christmas, and she just adores her. She pulled the string so often that now it doesn't work, but she says "it's to prove that she's magic and that really does come to life." Faith doesn't go anywhere without her Jessie. Jessie sits at our table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Faith takes a bite of something, and then Jessie gets force fed a bite of whatever it is that Faith just ate. Faith takes a sip from her cup, and then Jessie gets a straw in her mouth. Jessie gets pajamas at night, and gets tucked into the crib in their cottage. This is a step up from what Faith was doing as Jessie's bedtime ritual: she insisted that Jessie liked to sleep "cozy" and would wrap her up in an Air Force flag and then put her in a backpack that she would then place next to her pillow.

My Faith-y.

Maddie--

Maddie has her 1st ever "big" project for school.. a diorama. She chose to do her diorama about Siamese cats (the girl so desperately wants a cat!) and we worked on it quite a bit tonight.

Whereas Faith is the big spender in our family, Maddie is the saver. These girls have quite a bit saved up in their Disney envelope, and now Maddie made them a new one called "Calico Critters fund." She makes lists all the time of things that she wants to save her money for, and she hates to spend even $1. She even came up with her plan of starting a pet care business, and made some signs with their information. It was quite cute. She asked me to make 30 copies at work, and so far I think they've only put about 8 in local mailboxes.

Magic of Christmas

Had such a wonderful Christmas/ New Year's break. It literally broke my heart that it had to end. There's nothing better in the world than having my family all together, the way it should be.

Girlies were so excited for Christmas, and spent a wonderful Christmas Eve with everyone in Lancaster. They had a ball! Their excitement to give OUT their presents to everyone this year was what I thought was the coolest thing.

Santa's big gift this year was a dollhouse for all 3 to share. This is going to be something that will last them years and years; I can see it already. They haven't stopped playing with it. They bring everyone to visit the dollhouse-- Calico Critters, princess dolls, little figures, etc etc. And, they use their little houses as hotels! They come up with the coolest things.

We visited Kitchen Kettle Village on New Year's Eve, and had so much fun. All 3 were so ready to "stay up to see the bomb drop" (as Faith puts it!), and didn't make it past 9:30-- which I still thought was a respectable hour considering they were all quite sick by that day. Maddie developed pneumonia and croup for Abrielle, but I've never seen them complain less about being sick. They amaze me.

There's a lot more to write, but I am happy in knowing that I have all the little details of this Christmas 2011 in my memory forever.