Tea Party

Tati had been asking me for a tea party for days and days so we finally put one together while Gavin was napping. We need to do this more often. The key for a successful tea party is to make sure the child does all the pouring. And my other rule is to talk overly politely to each other. I think Tati equally loves both those things.

Cheers!

And at the end Tati came up with this awesome game. She says, "Mom, I know what we can do. Let's both close our eyes at the same time." So we did that a few times. We'd "close" our eyes and then she'd peek to see if my eyes were still closed. It was super fun and super cute. I love this face and I love this girl.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Gavin got his first big boy hair cut. (Note, we did shave his head when he was a wee babe but that doesn't count.) I'd been working up to it for a while because I knew he needed a haircut and I also knew I didn't really know how to give a cool boy hair cut. Greg just basically always buzzes his hair and my role is usually just the back hair line and around the ears and then the quality control of making sure there aren't any noticeable pieces missed. The problem was that I wanted Gavin to have like a hair style. I was thinking maybe a faux hawk-ish type do. Yeah, my bad.
1. He is a baby and his hair is WAY too fine for that yet.
2. I ain't no hair chick.

Here's the before:

I even had a video chat tutorial via my sister who is a hair chick using my nephew's head and a remote control as the hair clippers. Ha, ha. Yeah, so the situation just all sort of got out of control. Greg wasn't home as he's been pulling crazy hours at school and I knew it was probably as good a time as any so we went for it. The photos are all courtesy of Chloe who I think did a great job.

Here's the during:


And here is the after:

(better pictures of this cutie to come)

A Dream Come True

I think I've said it before but Chloe has a love for Mary (Jesus' mother) that rivals that of a Catholic's. This year she was thrilled to tell us that she was going to be Mary in the children's nativity.

They didn't do a play this time so she didn't have any lines but during the two songs, this girl rocked and loved that little baby doll just like the real Mary would've rocked and loved little, baby Jesus. It was so cute to see how ultra excited she was to have this dream come true.

Corbin, one of her BFF's was Joseph. Unfortunately Corbin has a big brother who likes to tease him otherwise he would've been more into being Chloe's husband. But his refusal to hold her hand didn't dampen the experience at all for her.

And what's a good nativity night without Santa and Mrs. Claus showing up? I'll spare my anti Santa rant here. The girls had a great time and in my old age I'm not minding the charade as much.

The line to see him was a bit slow and Tati got super bored.



Then they both asked him for ipods and me and Greg laughed.

Dancing Queen

Tati is our little dancing girl. She is always grooving, shaking her bootie, and walking on her toes.

It is pretty gross but she can actually walk on the knuckles of her toes. (I'll try and get a video of that). We have long thought that we should get her into some sort of dance class and we finally found one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It is fun because they do a variety of different beats and movements. It isn't really as advanced as I hoped but she enjoys it. It is also pretty low stress and low key which is good. They can wear a dress up skirt on top of their leotard if they want, they can wear different colored tights and they can wear shoes or no shoes. Saturday was "family day" when we could all come in the class and watch. She loved the attention. I brought our crappy camera but I got a few good ones.

I love that Tati has this like super skinny body and yet she still has cottage cheese on her little thighs. Just goes to show that cottage cheese is meant to be there I guess.

Here are her little feet stretching. I love this picture because these ballet shoes are like 3 sizes too big and Tati doesn't want a pair that fits her. Good thing I bought these a few years ago for dress up!

I've included a movie. At the end you can see that Tati takes her twirl too far and falls on her head. That pretty much ended the class for her that day. It was the first time I've seen her get embarrassed before and that was the saddest part. Her head was fine.

Life is good

Just in my backyard

jumping on my trampoline in the snow

eating a cookie

and feeling super happy.

Love, Tati

Karma

Could this all be from not going to Ikea?

Pinecone is not even a week old and she is dying fast.

To be continued.

Tis the Season

Well, Gavi loves Christmas so far. Except he is a bit frustrated at all the limits we're placing on him. One step at a time. He just needs to learn how to be patient.


We went and got our Christmas tree this weekend. We totally sold out and didn't go to Ikea. It was a big debate and we did feel a bit like traitors but honestly the trees (albeit cheap), kind of suck. They are often already dried out when we buy them and they have absolutely no real tree smell whatsoever. So we splurged this year and bought one from Lowe's. It smells divine! The whole house smells like tree and the little extra stump that Greg trimmed off is next to my night stand which means I have an extra potpourri of aroma in my room. We love it. The girls named our tree, "Pinecone" because of her lovely shape.

They also loved looking around at all the decorations and ornaments while Daddy took like an hour (no joke) going through all the different kinds of trees and sizes and finally picking one that he liked. It was just too cold for us to all be outside for that long.

I got a few good pics of the kids though.

Afterward we were all starving and decided we'd grab a cheap burger from Burger King. After dinner, we vowed to never go there again--ever. So we all headed home with our tummy aches.

We somehow got them to wait a whole day to decorate. It probably had a lot to do with all the Christmas books we got out. They are so easily entertained by books. I love that about my chillins. It is so fun to get out the ornaments that I made or the kids made over the years. I don't think we're ever going to be one of those families that has matching ornaments or colors or whatever. It inspires me to make some new ones. I actually really want to sew some felt ones. If I do it, I'll post pics.

Here are some of the kids decorating!

Here's one of Gavi giving me kisses.


And here is the finished product!

Hopefully she'll still look this awesome in a few weeks.