Winter Days

A while ago, I saw an easel at IKEA for a great price that I thought might be a good Christmas present for Ava & Carter. I ended up getting one, and then a week before Christmas, Ava told Mark she wanted an easel like Maisy (we love Maisy books and had just discovered a Maisy cartoon). I can never predict what new thing Ava is going to want from day to day, so I was pretty happy I'd picked something that I not only knew they'd both enjoy, but also that had been specifically asked for. It's been a huge hit.

Audrey becomes more expressive every day. Her face lights up when she recognizes us and her sweet laugh makes us all act crazy just to hear it. The other night after her bath she started clasping her hands and now grabs at anything within reach... Ava's learning the hard way how important it is to keep her hair away from those little hands. (obviously, she doesn't light up when the camera comes out)
Last week we got some snow and even though it was frigidly cold outside, Ava & Carter got to play outside for a while. It wasn't a good packing snow, so building anything was out of the question. They were left to making snow angels and eating snow, and I never knew snow tasted so good.

Christmas Part 2

The day after Christmas my parents came to celebrate Christmas with us. While Nana snuggled with Audrey, Ava and Carter had a blast opening presents. Carter was very into tearing off the wrapping paper - as soon as he'd open one present, he'd barely even look at it before exclaiming, "More! Presents!" So wish I'd had the video camera ready. I even let him open the few thing we had wrapped up for Audrey simply because he was having so much fun!
Ava got a variety of princess items to add to her collection...

... and Carter got more toys with wheels! Here's a mat my mom made that fits our coffee table. It has roads leading to all the places we frequent and even has little wooden trees that velcro on.
He got more track and trains for his collection (although Mark and I have already decided we need more so we can build cooler tracks - sometimes I think we have more fun than Carter does!)...

... including this train set (in front of the one Carter's playing with) made by my dad. Of course, I only got 3 of the 5 cars in the picture, but trust me, it's beautiful! I'm sad I didn't take more opportunities to learn from both of my parents' sewing & woodworking talents while growing up!
Later in the day we went to my brother's house - here's Mark with all the kids... or rather, here are the kids. HA!

Stay tuned for snow pictures!!

Christmas Day Recap

The tree is down and all the decorations have been put away so we have room for all the new toys!

When we woke up on Christmas morning, we read the Christmas story (Audrey sleeps later than the other two most mornings - go figure. I don't think she minded that we let her sleep).

After Mark finished, he was trying to emphasize the gift God gave us in Jesus and how we also like to give each other gifts, but Ava kept interrupting and asking when she got to open her presents. Guess we'll have to keep working on that!

We were headed down to West Virginia for the day, so Ava & Carter only opened one present that morning (I purposely tried to pick things that would be good travel toys).

Carter LOVES Mater from the movie "Cars."

This has been a great way to encourage Ava to try writing letters. She loves this and is writing letters for fun! I'd tried to help her write more than just her name for a while, but she wasn't into it until now.

We had a quick breakfast and jumped in the car for the ride to see all the Buttons. The ride went well (Audrey's longest road trip to date).

Audrey gave lots of smiles to Uncle Paul.

Trains = Happy

Princess = Happy

We had an awesome time before packing everyone up and heading home. I expected Ava & Carter to fall quickly asleep after all the excitement and lack of naps, but they stayed awake the entire 2.5 hour trip home. Audrey was pretty hungry when we got home, but I really wanted to get a picture of her outfit:

Umm... maybe I should have waited until after I fed her. I saw this outfit and wanted to buy it for her because she really is such a happy girl. It finally went on clearance, so I snatched it up!

Audrey = Happy!