Monday, December 27, 2010

Christmas

What a whirlwind the past few days have been.  We've been to so many parties that I lost count!  I'm exhausted and my house is beyond trashed, but I just wanted to post a few pics before it gets too late...

Poppy displaying one of her favorite gifts from Santa - a tin of Curious George card games.  Here's the story behind this present - Marc took her to the toy store in our neighborhood at least a month ago, if not longer.  She looked all around the store and declared that she had to have these "george cards" for Christmas, and she picked out a pack of 4 gertie balls for Sam.  When she wrote her letter to Santa, those were the only 2 things she asked for.  Every time we went to see Santa over the past month, she only asked for those 2 things.  Any time anyone asked her what she wanted for Christmas - "george games and balls for Sam".  So of course I waited until the very last minute to actually go to the store to get these 2 items, and of course they were sold out of both of them.  Marc actually had tears in his eyes when I told him.  He decided that
we
Santa just couldn't let her down and luckily good ol' Amazon with express shipping came through for us and both gifts were delivered on Christmas eve and everyone lived happily ever after.  (and as it turns out, she really does love playing the george card games and Sam really loves his gertie ball)

And this vintage re-make Fisher Price piano that Santa brought for Sam turned out to be Poppy's favorite part of Christmas.  Both of them LOVE that thing.

This wooden duck rattle was at the top of Sam's favorite things list.



And this was the scene at the last party we were all at on the day after Christmas, right after each kid happily received a pillow pet.  Love this picture!

And be warned - Marc got a flip video camera from Santa, so expect to see a ton of videos from now on!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Sugar, sugar!

We're up to our eyeballs in sugar around here!  First, we spent some time making our annual gingerbread house.  Poppy was all about quality control with the candies...

Sam was the supervisor...






Then we got hit with a bit of snow earlier in the week, so Marc took Poppy to school on a sleigh.  She was thrilled to say the least...



And today, it was all about making cookies.  It was very serious business...

Again, she's all about quality control...



Sam had fun watching, wishing he could have a little nibble of cookie dough...

Check out this mobile Poppy and I made for Sam.  We've been working on it for weeks and now it's finally done, just waiting for Marc to hang it over his crib.  (oops, that reminds me, I still need to post nursery pics!)
I helped Poppy pick out the shapes from the craft store.  We ended up with a few sheep so that he would have something to count while he's falling asleep, a star to wish on, a horseshoe for luck and a heart so that he knows he's loved.  Then we painted them, added feathers and strung them up.  And Sam loves it!

After a break for naptime, it was back to our cookie making madness.  Time for the frosting.  It was so hard for Poppy to keep her fingers out of that frosting and to not gobble up all the cookies as she frosted them, but she did!

And this little cutie was drooling like crazy while he stared at all of the cookies.  And btw, Sophie the Giraffe is the best infant toy, ever.  He loves that thing!


Our masterpieces!  Have you ever seen cookies this beautiful?!  Poppy was so proud of herself.  We had so much fun today!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Holiday Fun

The little elves that run our advent calendar have been keeping us quite busy this week.  They had us baking Christmas cookies, writing a letter to Santa, having game nights...


Saturday they sent us to Santaland at Chestnut Ridge park.  The weather turned out to be perfect, no too cold and the snow held off.  There was just enough snow still on the ground so that Marc and Poppy could take a ride down the hill on their sled.  We definitely look forward to going back later in the year when there is more snow.

Poppy was of course, petrified once she got up close to Santa.  He offered to hold Sam so that she could see that he was alright, but she still wasn't going to get too close to him.  Later on she said that she liked meeting Santa because he had a little gift for her, but her favorite part of Santaland was getting to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies!


Then bright and early Sunday morning, Poppy checked the advent calendar and she found a little note that said we were going to eat breakfast inside of a gingerbread house.  She was a little confused by this - she didn't understand how we would fit inside of a gingerbread house!

We drove up to Canada and went to the Great Wolf Lodge, where they had built a giant gingerbread house as a fundraiser.  For a donation to their charity, you could eat at the single table inside of the gingerbread house!

Here's what the outside of the house looks like.  The house was really made out of cookies, chocolate, pretzels, candy and icing!  Poppy was in awe when she saw it...

And this is once we went inside, Poppy peering out the window, still in awe that she is surrounded by so many cookies and candy...



It was so cool that we had the whole gingerbread house all to ourselves!



Sam was so excited that he fell asleep!  Isn't his little car seat cover the cutest thing?


Poppy was so excited that she barely ate anything for breakfast.  We all had such a great time!  And the Great Wolf Lodge was quite possibly the coolest place ever!  We were able to get a tour and see what the rooms look like and see the waterpark.  Poppy was staring at the waterpark and she sadly said, "I wish I had my bathing suit."  Don't worry Poppy - we will definitely be going back for a fun weekend trip!

Monday, December 6, 2010

'tis the season for super fun stuff!

First of all, check out this awesome shot of Lola giving Sammy a little kiss.  Don't worry, we don't let her lick him all day, but she would if she could.  This dog lives for spit-up and baby drool. (and don't mind Poppy's spaghetti sauce stained face)


And check out Big Boy Sammy (as he likes to be called) sitting up!  He's getting better at it everyday!


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We have a beautiful advent calendar that is a little wooden house and Poppy gets to open a door or window each day.  In years past, we've always filled it with candy and other little treats and trinkets for Poppy, but this year I decided to write down a little note from an elf that tells us a fun thing we get to do that day.  The other day the elf said we can have hot chocolate with all the fixings after dinner.  Poppy was soooo excited - she LOVES hot chocolate.  And then we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas while drinking our hot chocolate.  I'm going to try to snap pics of the different advent activities we do...


Both Poppy and Sam loved reading this book.  And we've read it at least 100 times since then.
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On Saturday our little advent elf told us to go get a Christmas tree, so we took our annual walk down to the local tree lot, like we have every year since we've lived in our house.  Unfortunately, another part to our annual tradition is that Marc and I argue about where to get our tree every year.  Marc has always hated my beloved tree lot; he thinks the trees are over priced and sorry-looking and he desperately wants to drive out to the country to chop our own tree down at a tree farm.  So after winning the battle for the past five years, I finally agreed that next year we could chop our tree down where he wants.  Sniffle, sniffle.  How can you beat being able to walk to get your tree and bring it back home on a wagon?  Oh, and on the way to get our tree this year, we were walking down the street when a crazy white cadillac came driving down the street, blaring its horn and pulled over to greet Poppy, with a jolly old Santa sitting in the driver seat.  He gave her a GIANT candy cane and she has been carrying it around ever since then, telling everyone that she saw Santa driving down the street.




(in case you can't tell, that's Sam I'm carrying in a black sling)


She really didn't care about the Christmas trees, she was so excited about that candy cane!

Hee, hee.  I just had to include this picture of Poppy helping us get the living room ready for the Christmas tree...

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Then Sunday we were off to one of the coolest things - we went to the Genesee Country Village for their special Yuletide in the Country.  We basically were on a small tour with about 10 other people (my parents went with us) and we were able to go inside colonial homes that had actors acting out the history of Christmas.  It was sooooo neat.  We weren't really supposed to take pictures and there were no flashes allowed, so the few pics Marc did take are a little blurry.  The weather was perfect, cold and snowing...

I was so nervous about Sam getting cold - I had him bundled in about 5 layers, plus a snow suit, plus I wore him in the baby carrier, plus I put a thick blanket over him.  He fell asleep the first minute we were outside and he didn't open his eyes once during the 2 hours we were out there!

In this house, two little girls read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and Poppy had a huge smile on her face the entire time because she recognized the story.

All of the actors were dressed in costume and had accents.  As we walked through the village, people would walk by singing Christmas carols and ask you to join in.  It was so neat!  Poppy said her favorite part was when the boys and girls danced together...

And then at the last house we visited on our tour, they lit the real candles on their Christmas tree, had a boy playing bag pipes and showed us what their traditional Christmas dinner was like.

After the tour, we were able to stay for a yummy turkey dinner before we got in our freezing cold car and drove an hour to get home.  Poppy couldn't stop talking about all the things she loved about it.  She even remembered a song that one of the carolers was singing in the village.  We all had such a great time, we can't wait to go back again!

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My two cuties reading together.  Poppy loves to read to her baby brother.

So many more fun Christmas things coming up in the next few weeks!  Oh, and Sam's photo shoot went really well - it was very interesting.  For those of you non-Buffalonians, Fisher-Price is based in Buffalo, so they are always looking for kids to photograph for their boxes or ads.  So no, Sam is not a model, but he did smile really good for the photographer!  You know I will definitely keep everyone posted if he makes it onto the box of something!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Random thoughts...

We had a great Thanksgiving.  Lot's of eating and relaxing and then some more eating.  And so many things to be thankful for.




I had all of these random thoughts to post, but now I can't seem to remember them!  I have mush for brains these days.  Hmmmm...

Today I tried sitting Sam up on his own and he was able to sit up!  I couldn't believe it!  He toppled over after a minute or so, but it still impressed me and you could tell he was excited.

Have I ever mentioned how much Sam LOVES freezing cold fresh air?  Whenever he's crying, all I have to do is walk outside and he instantly stops, takes a deep breath and starts looking around.  Works like a charm every single time.  I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy, bringing a screaming baby out onto the porch even when it's snowing, but whatever works, right?  And whenever we go for a walk, the colder it is outside the faster he falls asleep and stays asleep.

Poppy is all about card games lately.  She is super fun to play with and is finally good at waiting her turn, etc.  I think her favorite right now is Snap, or maybe Old Maid.  The entire time we play, she keeps saying "I hope I don't get stuck with the OLD MAID!!!"  Super cute.

Can you believe how big he is getting?  4 months already!  Oh, and he has his first photo shoot at Fisher-Price this morning.  That should be interesting.  Poppy has been saying that she would like to get something for Sam for Christmas so she is coming with us to the photo shoot and then I told her we can go to the toy store afterwards and she can pick out a toy for him.  She is beyond excited to pick out his toy (which she totally knows he will be too little to play with and that she'll have to play with it for the next couple of years...)

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