Only here

Christmas Day was everything we hoped it would be.  Myla couldn’t wait for us to come downstairs, and came herself.  She climbed up on the chair arm and glanced in her stocking.  Her eyes got wide and she said “Santa did come!”  Both the girls got bean bag chairs, which in the past few days have been everything from a train to a boat.  They got all sorts of wonderful toys that they haven’t stopped playing with.  In fact, I bet you didn’t know, Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem on Santa’s train.  Well, they traveled to the kitchen tonight anyway.

Today, I got off work early so that I could spend some more time with the girls while Johnny slept.  Last Thursday, we got, oh, eight inches of snow.  And today, we did this.

The park was still pretty covered in snow on the ground, but the slide, swings and climbing places were clear and dry.  And since it was almost 60 outside, we took full advantage before the wind drove us inside.  It was a nice change of scenery, and – I don’t know if you can tell from the pictures – a pretty good time.

Merry Christmas!

May your day be merry and bright!

Ten months old!

This crazy girl is now ten months old.  And she is crazy!  Kinsley has become a master scooter on her bum and still occasionally finds herself on her stomach – a position that she does not enjoy.  She’ll go backwards in the position for awhile until you look at her and then she remembers that she isn’t supposed to like it and fusses.  She is very ticklish and smiley. Sometimes it sounds like she is saying real words or asking us questions about what she’s found.  We did an official weigh-in on the home scale and she’s about 20 pounds of craziness!

Myla had been fighting another – or the same? – cold again and has found herself kind of tired.  She was much better yesterday and had a great time at Witulski Christmas dinner.  Myla loves to count things and read our Christmas books.  Yesterday, she got to play in the “deep, deep, DEEP” snow we got overnight.  We’ve been counting down the days to Christmas and every day she tells me that its almost time.  I almost dread the day after Christmas when we don’t have a star to move or an elf to search for.  I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with something to keep the Christmas spirit within her for longer.

Myla has also been… imaginating.  Here’s what I found after putting Kinsley down for a nap this morning (yes dad, she does nap, sometimes…)

All the drawers and cupboards in my kitchen – and bathroom open.  And do you know what was in them?

Ducks.  18 of them, actually.  All in the “whale’s belly.”  I couldn’t help but laugh.

Lights and more lights

Myla has been so much fun this Christmas season.  She loves all the lights up on people’s houses and we will be driving down the street and she’ll say “look mama, more lights!”  She tries her hardest to get Kinsley to look out the window at them too, but Kinsley just looks at her when she tells her to look and see.  We got to go with A2 to zoo lights on a special night and she had a great time.  She’s still talking about all the lights we saw and the merry-go-round we rode and “remember mama, when we went to the lights at the zoo last day?” 

We finally got our tree up and decorated and that was a lot of fun too.  Myla was going through her ornaments and saying “ohhh!” or “ah-ha-ha!”  She has a few that she takes on and off to play with but her favorite thing by far is to turn on the lights.  Kinsley likes to sit and look at the tree.  She’s not quite mobile yet, but is quickly becoming a master at backwards.  In time, she’ll figure out that its not so bad to go backwards if you can control where you’re going.  Right now, she just gets backed up into something and gets frustrated.

We’re having a lot of fun seeing Christmas through our little one’s eyes.  Everything is almost done – except for Kinsley’s stocking, which was destroyed by our obviously unloved dog.  So, I am starting from scratch with the goal that it will be done in time for Santa to fill it.  I will get back to that now – leaving you with a couple more pictures of tree decorating…