Snow

Somehow I have no pictures of our little southern puppy in her first real snow, but she loves it.  She wants to eat it all and attack it all.  Oly loves it too!

Trying to lay down for a snow angel:

Wearing her new Dog Hat that Lucy sewed for her:

Mountain Climbing:

Sledding with Tommy: 

We have the perfect incline for the 4 year old sledder.

Farmer Visit

I'm just going to say it right now- these are the only 4 pictures I have.  Apologies.

We saw Tommy at the park and put Lucy to work pushing the 4 year olds:

While Amy and Jay played ball with Jo Jo:

Many, many jungles were constructed:

And enjoyed!:

There are so few pictures because it seems like most of what we did was sit together in the living room while all of the kids played elsewhere in the house.  IT WAS GREAT!

Christmas Day

This is an older picture but it's so cute.  

"How can I lay on the blanket AND get in the sunshine square???"

The Christmas morning loot:

Here is the (incomplete) dollhouse from Oly's Mama and Papa.  I'm still searching for the pictures that I have, but on Christmas in 1986 right after I turned 4, my Uncle John put together an elaborate Victorian dollhouse that my Grandma purchased and I had it for years and years.  Tim and I picked out a different model from the same company for our little Oly girl.  My love for John has grown exponentially since starting to build this thing!  And I haven't even put the shingles on yet, which he says almost sent him off the deep end!  What you see is about 7 hours worth of hot gluing, I have at least that much to go.

Santa brought her furniture and dolls and it's been an absolute hit!  Thank goodness!

 More presents being opened and used:

Cutey pie in the afternoon playing with Josie's new bag of tennis balls:

Here's our Christmas Duck!

We kept it super simple for Christmas dinner:

Roast duck, roasted potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, red wine sauce.

Happy Family!

Christmas Eve

Josie is really digging the tunnel forts that Oly constantly builds in the TV room:

It snowed briefly last night and pajama clad Kiddo had to run out and catch a few flakes on her tongue:

The Dutton-Watts came over for Christmas Eve dinner and we destroyed the living room in 4 minutes flat.  

Then had what is a new X-Mas Eve tradition: 

A Trader Joes smorgasbord with tater-tot tossing contests.

(Ashley's going to kill me when she sees this picture)

Here are the girls with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads:

Click

The Week So Far

Again we went to the Nutcracker (this time with free evening tickets because Mama sewed all of the capes for the evil rat army!).  Last year we attended just the abridged version but this year we did the real thing.  A few people warned us that some kids find the battle a little scary, but the only tears we endured were at the very beginning waiting for the curtain to open.  She snuggled in Papa's lap the whole time.  

She refused any posed photographs, but this one shows her new haircut quite nicely:

It's just going to keep getting shorter until we have NO tears when brushing!  

This year was extra special because we got to see Hallie, her 3-day teachers daughter as the Snow Queen as well as RUTHIE! A tiny mouse!  She was absolutely the star of the show:

We brought a bouquet of flowers to each of our friends.

Here is Oly at the playground after finding one of those ride along scooter things and discovering the nice hill behind the field:

And laughing with glee when she'd run into me at the bottom:

Tom-Bone

Tommy's 4!!!

We threw him a little birthday shindig and he requested "Timmy Chicken" and a Thomas cake.  

(Timmy chicken is just any tasty chicken that Papa Guy makes and the kids are guaranteed to eat)

Gender Poll

So, we're going to have a baby in about 50 days.  Woah.  And just like last time, we'd love to hear people's guesses as to what the gender of this little bundle of joy will be.

At Olys school the older kids, presumably within their math studies, went around campus and conducted simple surveys.  This inspired the preschoolers to do their own surveys within the classroom and their parents, so I'll post one later of Oly's as well.  Yesterday hers was, "Do you like tomatoes, onions or pears best?"  That's actually a very tricky question.  Try it.

Ok everyone, close your eyes, test the cosmic vibes, and guess whether my belly has a boy or a girl in it.  Some clues(?): The baby is extremely active, bouncing around like crazy especially at night; is sitting up high; I mostly have only gained weight in my belly and buns; I've been craving kimchi, grapefruit, seltzer water and...well.... gin.  Keep in mind, that absolutely every single person who guessed last time around guessed incorrectly.

I know that Blogger is acting strangely and not everyone can comment, if that's the case then email me directly and I'll add you to the list!  And no, Tim and I won't help you out with our own guesses.

Oly Girl and Tommy Guy

Last night they were Buffalo Trackers and their hunt took them all the way to the Quaker school where Mersie is a teacher for their Holiday Sing.  I stayed home and ate chocolate with Janie.  They didn't find any buffalo, but they still had a great time and vowed to try again another night. 

The other day they played Car Store and "scanned" every single toy car that Tommy owns.  Which is a lot.  Inventory is hard work!

That black box is full and that's probably only a fraction of them.

Our Christmas Tree

This is the best photo we could get:

The Girls

Here's a picture of Oly coloring at Pinocchio's Pizza.

Both her Papa and Aunt Dana stick their tongues out like this too:

This is the outfit she wore to school on her birthday:

This is what Josie does while I'm in the grocery store:

This is naked Oly smothering the dog:

This is 5 pm yesterday evening:

Then at 5:30 when I woke them up and we listened to Christmas music:

I want this to be our Christmas card:

Thanksgiving

And now our yearly showing off at how rocking our Thanksgiving Dinner was:

Mama was left out of the afternoon raw oyster fest, but it's a good thing because Tim was left extremely unsatisfied after Oly ate the majority of them:

Crazy good scalloped potatoes:

Traditional stuffing:

BIRD!:

Tart cranberry relish:

The fam at dinner: (Tim and I like to dress up, Oly likes to dress down.)

Tim introduced "I got your nose!" to her and she thought it was a brilliant little trick that he invented:

Here's Josie's new perch: