3 months.

Last month's pictures seemed like ages ago but it is all a big blur. She is actually sleeping pretty well but sometimes even 6 hours consecutive sleep just isn't enough.

The kids are napping and I have to get busy.

Christmas festivities.

Sugar Cookie Decorating

Christmas Eve Talent Show (new tradition) including Ninja moves video & Lil' Bunny Foo Foo Dramatization 

Christmas Morning

Graham Cracker Houses

My favorite Christmas shot

and due to a distinct lack of shots of our girl in this post, one of Rocky

 

The above shot is my favorite from Christmas this year. It reminds me so much of my busy little boy. Within 5 minutes of the tree being up he had found all of the pom poms on the garlands he could reach and bunched them together in these little clusters. It makes me laugh finding these and  watching him busily and very seriously "woking" on the tree.

Christmas 2011 was a success and already feels like ages ago, not just a week. We had a wonderful family gathering on the Eve. We did some caroling and hopefully Rich got some fun shots to share from that. Every time we went to house, Lars wanted to take off his jacket and boots. It was fun to see the kids sing and the people at the doors light up. That is definitely a fun new tradition and then we gathered for our traditional hamburger and rootbeer floats. Mike special ordered some gingerbeer which is a fun new kiwi addition to the tradition. Then we had a little talent show which brought us some bollywood dancing, some tap, some ninja moves, a dramatization of "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and a slideshow from 2011. There were several other random talents in there and Rich was asked to narrate LBFF about 3 more times for the kids. 

Christmas morning was short and sweet. I tried to make the room feel fun with balloons and streamers and candles. Lars was genuinely thrilled by it all. There were lots of excited "oohs" and "ahhs" as he ripped through the gifts thanks to his adoring grandparents in New Zealand and New Mexico and the free chain saw Grammy Lyall found for free at the local dump. Our little girl slept through the whole thing and I wasn't about to wake her up to take a family picture of us looking exhausted.  Next year, we have decided to not put the candy out because we couldn't keep Lars out of it. He had handfuls before I had cut of his supply.. He was jazzed. Hey, it's Christmas. We are still enjoying our NZ supply of goodies that was sent over by liz and in the post-Christmas letdown where you can't quite get the energy to get back to work after gearing up for the holiday. I am giving myself through New Year's and then it is back to it! And because there was a distinct lack of pictures of Rocky in this post...

Here's to a positive, less stressful, exciting (but the good kind of exciting- not the broken pipe, broken bone, broken car kind of exciting) 2012.

Happy Christmas!

It's been quite a year. Time to relax and celebrate! Happy Christmas to our family in New Zealand today. 

Mike special ordered some Ginger beer to take to the family party tonight. Each sip reminds us of NZ. Lars loves it--just like his dad. We are going to do some caroling, some hamburger eating, and some talent showing tonight. Sounds like a fun Christmas Eve. 

cutie kids

Wow, Christmas is nearly here! Lars and I made sugar cookies today and are making graham cracker houses tomorrow (I don't like gingerbread). He has no idea what this whole Christmas thing is but I know he is loving all the extra treats. He'll get just close enough to Santa to get candy canes so he's go that all figured out.

These are a random smattering of pictures from this last week. I love the little outfit our girl is wearing. I am not big into putting babies into headbands but this outfit that was given to us had one and of course when I put it on her little red head, I just couldn't get enough. Cutie!

From our family to yours...

It was going to be hard to be the video from last year (with JD & Wyatt's stellar performances) so we went a totally different direction. We wanted to include all our team from Oregon and Illinois. The only people we were missing were mom and dad which I am bummed about. I think my favorite part might just be that perfectly cute little voice singing "and a pint of Ben & Jerry's"

It's become a fun tradition and the kids are super cute. Happy week before Christmas!

Snow already--I will regret saying this

It's rainy and warm today--well warm for December in Vermont. Very odd weather. It is totally affecting my Christmas spirit which at the moment is non existent but if were to get some snow, I'd be ho-ho-ho-ing with the best of them. Here's a shot of our toddler tree. Can you notice how most of the decorations are bunched on the top? Things shift daily on that tree and I have moved all the balls up higher. I think this is going to be the last year of the pipe cleaner decorations Leilani and I made in '08. I love how Lars takes all the pom poms and pulls them together in bunches. I should have gotten a before picture when I decorated and then what it looked like 10 mins after he got into it. He's a designer, what can I say?

Oh and he's at that age that he think if he can't see you, you can't see him sort of thing. So he pulls the curtains around him and pulls the lights off the window. It's a favorite time. We got wood and our stove has been pumping out warmth all week. It's so nice to have it going. Now, if it would just snow already!--I will regret saying that.

I was diggin' her outfit today all of which was handed down or given to us. I think my sister's sister-in-law made that vest many years ago. I love it. Of course, the legwarmers are perfect and I wish I could just hire liz to be our full time knitter--but I guess she kind of is, we have kept her busy!

The video doesn't full capture how awesome her smiles are but it's better than nothing. I still think she looks a lot like my dad. Little Roxcy Red. 

Christmassy weekend.

If it weren't unseasonably warm for December, I think I would feel more in the holiday cheer since we have been doing all sorts of holiday things lately. Last Friday night, we went to the town tree lighting and the fire engine was totally decked out--it looked very cool. It was a cold night but the Inn was looking beautiful- especially the garland around the front door that Keighty designed. 

The next morning we headed across the river to pick our Christmas tree. It's not too big or too small and I will do a whole special post on our "toddler tree" this year. Later that afternoon we went to see Santa who arrives via fire engine every year. Mike waited in line with him and prepped him to go up  but just like last year, he was not into it so we all got our picture with Santa. Although, he was very into the candy canes which he was stealing from the basket. Yes, it looks like he has blood around his mouth and is kind of gross but isn't he just the perfect combination of cute and dirty? 

perfectly peaceful

There is a bit of a ritual around her naps. She'll eat and then she seems to like to be swaddled (but not too tightly) in a fleece blanket that is around her head but not smothering her face. I kid you not, she falls asleep faster this way and rests perfectly peacefully for a couple hours. You know she is out when her eyelids get this purplish color. You can tell that her baby brain nano-neurons are firing hard and fast. I remember a pediatrician telling us once that if we could comprehend how intensely fast a baby's brain was developing, we would feel very intimidated.