Snowcation

It's not easy keeping a toddler happy when it's too cold to play outside for long stretches, most of her friends are out of town visiting family and all of her favorite museums are closed. Here are some of the ways we've kept busy:

"Mama, lay down on the ground so I can jump on you!"

"Now make me fly like a bird!"

"Look at meeeeeee!"

We found a way to make this game a little more bearable: after she climbs up and bruises our ribs, she has to give us a big snoogle before she can do it again. Worth it.

We paint at least twice a day.

Same with play-doh: (Check out Papa's fantastic beard! It was a Christmas present to Mama)

Thank you Santa! for the dinosaur magnets. They have been good for hours of quiet concentration. Well not exactly quiet, because the whole time she yells, "Family! Stop cooking and do dinosaur magnets wif me!"

We did manage to get out to the Delaware Childrens Museum where she got to finally experience something she's been dreaming about for a loooooong time: scissors.

After the museum we went to Joe's Crab Shack where there was a lot to look at and she ate a huge plate of french fries for lunch. Hey, it's vacation.

She decided to grab the camera and document lunch from her vantage point:

We'll get her her own blog very soon.

And of course we've spent lots of time in the snow:

"Guys! Let's go outside and build some snowmens!"

It has been a wonderful vacation!

Oly, Can You Spell That For Us?

She has told us on several separate occasions that the names of her fish are 'Tomato' and 'Tadpole'. Apparently we got 'Tomato' wrong.....

Christmas Dinner

Dinosaur Elf presided over the festivities:

Timmy made two beautifully aged steaks that we gobbled up:

Brussel Sprouts:

Tasty Salad:

About to be devoured:

And chocolate ice cream for dessert:

She even shares! What a nice girl:

Christmas Morning

{Editors note: this isn't even close to being a comprehensive post about all of her presents. She received many and we were not diligent about photographing, but she loves everything she got so they'll make it online eventually because she plays with them constantly!}

Happy kids in their Christmas jammas having the oranges from their stockings:

Oly opened one or two presents but was most interested in doing some art on the pad of paper I brought out to list all of our gifts.

First a present for Mama from Papa Guy: a mirror that I've been wanting for a long, long time! Someone's collecting punched tin ceilings from torn down New York City tenement buildings and making them into mirrors. So awesome!

Here's Oly taking a 2 second nap on her new Dinosaur pillow pet from Silly Grandmom:

Here she is rocking to sleep her 'Money Bunny' from Jeff and Niki:

She got a tea set from Grandma and announces regularly throughout the day, "Guys! It's tea party time!" Where did she learn that?

She had a pretty hard time opening presents Christmas morning. She became overwhelmed and overstimulated very quickly and after about 30 minutes left us to go into the tv room, put a blanket over her head and announce that she needed some time to herself.

But after a nap she rebounded and we opened many, many more. Like a giant sticker book from Nana and Grandpa: (She has never once put a sticker on a piece of paper. They go on people or furniture)

And books about baby animals:

X-Mas Sneak Peak...

Toddler In A Box

I have a feeling that this is what Christmas morning will look like....

I'm A Dinosaur!

roar.

Trying To Capture 'Hiding in the Cozy"

Christmas Lights

We visited the holiday light display at Rose Tree Park last night.

Oly hugged, kissed and said, "I wuv you" to all of the Peanuts characters:

We posed with a caroling couple:

She tried to climb on this horse and carriage:

Here's a picture from the day before when we got 1/2 an inch of snow:

Oly loves snow! But playing in it creates many, many tantrums: when her hands burn from not wearing her mittens; when I can't build her a snowman out of a tiny dusting no matter how many times she orders me; when we have to eventually go back inside.

Finally, videos are back! Our camera needed to be repaired in early December and they fixed it quick. It may have something to do with the crazy look in my eye when I handed it over to the man at Sears and said, "we need it back by Christmas. Seriously."

Christmas Cookies

Nate and Lisa (and an unphotographed Baby Alex who was scooped up by Grandma as soon as they came in the door) came over to frost Christmas Cookies with us. Yes, the sugar is flowing in this house.

We started with leftover Gingerbread House candy, 2 batches of cookies, 10 colors of icing and two big glasses of wine for the Mamas:

Oly was really into it.

In this photo she's saying, "Vook Visa! Seeeee?

Nate's side of the table stayed pretty clean, because he mostly just dipped a cookie repeatedly in icing then licked it off. After 15 minutes he was done and played with all of the toys in the house with wheels on them.

When I took this picture I envisioned it being the closing photo on the blog to show how messy things got.

But it got worse: