Christmas '09

Christmas with our family of FIVE was wonderful this year! Our first Christmas as a family of five and Abrie's first Christmas... it was a neat feeling!

Dan had to work 3 of his 4 days off, as he was finally supposed to be off for the days surrounding Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I think he has maybe had 2 or (maybe) 3 Christmas' off in the 8 years that we've been married. But, he worked both days and the 23rd. My husband may be a goofball, but he does what he has to do for his family and I love him so much for that. It's hard on him to be away on Christmas Eve night, but he sacrificed sleep to go to Lancaster for Christmas Eve at my house and his MaMa's house and to make sure he saw their faces when they came down the stairs on Christmas morning.

They loved their easel!! We need to find a little tray at the craft store for extra storage underneath, but they still just love it. Faith got her Snow White dress she wanted and Abrie got books, books, books, and more books! She loves books, and they'll grow with her instead of the toys that she'll grow out of eventually. Big girls got lots of artsy/craftsy things too from Santa because they are all about that. Donovan and Ella got them a huge craft box which is a major hit here. The girlies had a blast with family in Lancaster also, and although it is hectic getting around to all the family in one day, I do love that it is over and done with on the 24th and we can enjoy Christmas Day by ourselves. We got to meet our new niece, Molly which was also great. Abrie is officially a big cousin and awaiting the birth of our new nephew in April also! Girlies got to spend time with their cousins which was great, and Nene got them some great stuff as always.

It was a wonderful holiday together, and especially nice as our first Christmas with Abrielle here to complete us.

My 2 B's

I caught my youngest B this morning red-handed. She is so quick these days! She was sitting and pulling out all the Disney movies within arm's reach to her heart's content. Oh, how this made her big sisters laugh! They love all of her antics these days. Abrie even climbed two stairs this morning after coming in from a cold walk outside. Maddie couldn't believe it, and kept trying to get her to climb more.

My big B is another budding artiste. She spells her name pretty clearly now, and she loves trying to draw herself and her two sisters. This picture is supposed to be Maddie. She played and played today at Maddie's dance class with two little boys. She plays so well with other kids, and had a blast counting while they would go and "hide." And, she got to do the trampoline at the end of class with Maddie which totally made her night!

Baby girl "scrunchies"

Abrie has started making this face these days, and it's adorable. Dan says it reminds him of Maddie's faces she used to make when she was a baby. It reminds me of cousin Ella and her 'smokey eyes' that she used to make! Nevertheless, this new facial expression is hilarious and she does it whenever she's so excited. It's bringing back memories of Faith's 'stinky eyes' that she used to do and little things that they both used to do. Abrie also waves 'hi' all the time and smacks her lips if she wants more food! Ha.

Baby, it's cold outside

Got our 8-or-so inches of snow, and the girls are loving it.

Philly got blanketed with about 20+ inches, so we (Dan and I-- if the girls had it their way, we'd get 3 feet every week!) are definitely thankful we didn't get nearly as much. I felt so bad though for Dan last night having to get to work. It took him about an hour to shovel himself a spot out of the alley, and then he basically had to slide out of our alley and then spend another 2 hours driving to work in what is supposed to be a 45 minute commute. Thankfully, he made it there and back home again this morning in one piece.

My baby girl absolutely DESPISES the cold weather. Actually, maybe I should retract my statement and just clarify that it is her snowsuit that she despises. And, when I say despise I mean she seriously hates being bundled with a passion. So, I took Maddie and Faith out to the field by our house to snow tube and Dan stayed here with Abrie this afternoon. And earlier in the day, I just bundled the littlest woman up and we watched her big sisters have a tea party in the snow on the deck. I don't think she quite saw the appeal in the idea as much as her big sisters, but I'm certain that she'll have a ball with them next year when it snows this much and she can join them in the fun snow activities!

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Totally unrelated, but I couldn't help but laugh tonight at a part of a book I am reading. There was a paragraph in there about being a book-a-holic, and I am so totally that woman. We went to this gently used book store last week that I've been dying to go to for the longest time. When it comes to children's books, I get weak knees. And, when you compound the existing [slight] addiction of mine for children's books with an awesome price, it gets even worse-- or, better depending on how you look at it! My girls are such avid readers, and that includes the Bay Breeze. She is totally loving any book with animals these days, and she'll squawk at all the pages. Maddie and Faith love any any every book, and they both even have the patience to listen to chapter books and love them.

My problem though is that I love collecting children's books. And, on top of that, I have a tendency to want all books in a set if there is a collection. This never bodes well for me when the little women find a new character that they like to follow, and I then realize that that certain character stars in a series of books! I was mentioning to Dan the other night when we were watching that show on A&E 'Hoarders,' that I can see why some people start losing control over their desire to collect everything. If I had enough space for books in this house, I would definitely collect as many as I could. But, anyway, the girls had a ball picking out Goldenbooks for $.75/each and some other books here and there. Maddie was beside herself because she found the American Girl book, "Meet Molly" that both she and Faith love. We even hit up the thrift store on our way back home then, and found even better deals NOT TO MENTION, a wooden easel for our little artistes. We had been looking for one for them since they spend every waking second drawing when they're not playing. Dan is excited to write a message on it in chalk and sign it from Santa!

The little echo

Can't get enough of my Flop.

Faith-y took a little bit of a nap this afternoon for once in her life, and so she was a ball of laughs tonight and wanted to stay awake longer than her Dee and Beeba Show. She is in love with the D.W. character of the 'Arthur' series, and she wanted to read to me tonight. It is adorable the way she reads: "D Dub-a-uuuu." She then continued on a lengthy conversation and reason to Dan and I as to why she just loves this home as compared to the apartment, "I love this new home. I no like my old home. There are too many fruit flies in my old home (hahahaha she still remembers when our orchard picked peaches attracted an ungodly amount of fruit flies in the summer!). This yuck. I hate my old home. I love this new home with buuuuutiful lights."

Our Beebster is her big sister's echo. They are just too much when they are together. They spend the whole entire day together, and despite getting on each other's nerves every now and again, they are absolutely inseparable. This morning I lay in bed laughing to myself when Maddie told Faith "ewwww, your breath smells like rotten eggs and cottage [cheese]" (what about THAT for a description?!) and Faith just laughs after Maddie starts giggling uncontrollably and replies, "No way! My breath smells like a BOUQUET!"

It's funny though to hear them playing throughout the course of a day. Faith watches everything that Maddie does and then copies it almost instantaneously. They've been practicing their wedding march song lately since the princesses have been marrying their coordinating princes in their new game. The other day Maddie was pretending that she was marrying our nutcracker, and I heard Faith immediately go rummaging through the playpen looking for Buzz (Lightyear). She heard Maddie talking to the nutcracker, and so she'd turn to Buzz and say "Buzz, I love you" (and to this, you would hear "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!!" going off from accidentally pressing his buttons!).

As Faith was reading her D.W. books to me tonight, I had to smile at how incredible of a sister she is. She sat there wearing ballet shoes with her pajamas. Why? Because Maddie was wearing ballet shoes with her pajamas also, and so Faith had to do the same thing. She sat there explaining to me that D.W. is not nice in one of the books because she was telling her baby sissy to not talk a certain way. Faith said, "this a no too nice a baby sissy. I tell Beeba Show, you a nice baby sissy. I love you."

Snowstorm

Ready for the first big snowstorm of this year.

Maddie is beyond excited. She loves snow! Giant was a disaster this afternoon when we had to do our grocery shopping. It's ridiculous how packed it gets when snow is in the forecast. I went to the consignment shop too to make sure and pick up snow boots for Faith and snow pants for Maddie so that they're able to revel in the snow tomorrow and Sunday. It should be fun!

Christmas pictures and letters

Maddie made this drawing today of Santa, his sleigh, and Rudolph arriving at our house for Christmas. I thought it was so cute, especially her depiction of the sleigh, and of herself and her two sissys in their little beds. I just had to take a picture. She and Faith could just draw, and draw, and draw all day long.

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My littlest lady just loves going underneath the table. She is such a fast crawler now, and it's not the low-crawl (military style) that both Maddie and Faith used to do. She is a full-fledged textbook crawler. It's quite funny though when all of a sudden you see little Show-y underneath the kitchen table and chairs. Her big sisters get such a kick out of seeing her there with her "beady eyes and her smile!" AND, she pulled herself up to a standing position this morning!