Christmas Everyday

Today we took down our Christmas cards. Our family room is much less cheery and colorful! Boo! But instead of putting the pictures in a bag (that Abby actually likes to go through every now and again...) we decided to punch holes in them and stick 'em on a ring and voila! Instant coffee table book thing. :) Before you go thinking I'm clever, I saw it on Pinterest. It's pretty much the only reason I have any good ideas these days... just don't ask what I'm doing to do with old stuffed animals (we have a graveyard of them in the play room we have so many laying around). That's a post for another day! 

Here's our final product :

So now you know that we'll be enjoying your family and the pictures you sent all the year through. Abby especially.

Book of the week : Pride and Prejudice for kids. Amazing! Abby always wants to be Lizzie. "And you, Mom, you can be Mr. Darcy." She has no idea what a compliment that is!

565. a shower and extra time to cut/paste/stuff
566. a quite phone call
567. realizing opportunity when it knocks

Happy Hour

"Happy Hour" is usually not so very happy at our house. Fordy has had it being in his exercauser by then, I'm knee-deep in dinner and Abby has recently woken up, usually, from a late nap and isn't in the best mood. Tonight, sissy's hat livened up Ford's time...

And these? Cuties! Always juices up Abby's post-nap stupor. And she calls 'em "sweeties". If she asks for one, now you know.

And right about that time, mom and dad need a drink. Happy hour, it is!

562. Swinging, swinging and swinging

563. A successful drop off at bsf this week

564. Spontaneous pizza

Winter Warm

As we prepare for our almost 80 degree week ahead, Abby still loves to hug Frosty every day on our walk. He's positioned just up the hill from us and without fail, he gets some love. Isn't it time to start decorating for Valentine's Day? Come on, neighbors!

Just a few days ago it was pretty cool here during the day (think 50s! gasp!) and Abby put together some sweet fashion advice for all of you . What you can't see are the Hello Kitty socks and pink sparkly shoes. You can never have too many patterns working for you at once.

Meanwhile, our favorite male under one is now waking up happy and throws his pacifiers on the floor for us to find. While Abby quickly refused them post surgery, Fordy loves the things. We're gonna have a heck of a time getting those away from him once he gets some teeth. I keep picturing my friend's 3 year old who was found, after they took them away, in the middle of the night on the bathroom floor, sucking away in the fetal position. Gotta head this one off at the pass, huh?

559. navigating Abby's mood changes
560. recharging
561. Abby's hope and "it's okay, mom... it'll work out"

On The Move!

Ford is after everything these days. He really just wants to walk and screeches (and I mean, really, really screeches-- Abby's old teradactyl noises have nothing on this ear-piercing guy) whenever he's on his tummy. Here are a few action shots on our especially hard tile floors. Maybe I should look into those baby knee pads!

 Who, me? Love the new "bed head" patch he has, now...

Heading for the outlets...

Some bath toy surely made in China and not good for chewing on...

And closing in on the monitor...

In truth, this boy really wants to stand so I'm praying that he won't be an early walker. Perhaps it's all that avocado he's eating...

Book of the week : The Giving Tree

555. a safe neighborhood to take our daily walks

556. my kindle

557. purple polish

558. gift secrets

New Years Big Girls

Look at this guy! First time in the grocery cart (because his sister wasn't with us hogging the seat, leaving him to ride in the ergo)...

And his latest fascination... eating cups (yes, they are bpa free!)... and Cheerios...

Abby & Ford's cousins, Gab and Liv, came for a visit and we all enjoyed ourselves so much. Have you ever seen cuter twins in all of your life? And Faith! The sweetest dog to ever steal Red's stuffed toy. We love her for it.

Usually when we have company and Abby heads off to swing, I've got one eye on them at all times. Gab and Liv are so responsible, so communicative, so helpful... I sent them off to the swingset together with hardly a second thought. I honestly could've gone and taken a bath. Or flown to Hawaii. And they would've been fine. Every few minutes, we'd glance outside, seeing that they were fine and go right back to gabbing away about something very important (like what we were going to fix for dinner, which is about all I can talk about from 3pm on...).
They had lunch in the top part of the swing set :

Wore themselves out finger painting...

And we even saw some floats up close for the Rose Bowl Parade. This was taken at around 8:30 pm...after a full day with the big girls. Abby was beat.

And this is perhaps one of my new favorite pictures. Abby with her cousins. She's becoming quite the big girl.

551. Abby being old enough to play with the big girls

552. knowing how to pray

553. cry-free nap time

554. the hope of a future out of town trip

The 3 Faces of Lunch

Lunchtime is always eventful around here. If we can keep Abby's hands out of the yogurt, it's a win. Usually, she's just been asking for bacon. Huh? She's turned into a teenage boy. Over the holiday, we documented some of it.

Lunch often goes something like this. Abby stares off into space. "Abs. Eat your lunch, monkey."

"oh." She says.

"Hey! Can I have some bacon, please?"

And then there's Fordy. Just happy to get his paws on any bit of food that's around. A pea. A crumb. But not really rice cereal. And as long as he's out of that high chair...happy, happy, happy...

546. Christmas successfully taken down

547. the same old soup making the same great impression of abby

548. Fordy talking our ears off

549. knowing what a healthy child looks like

550. sleep! wonderful sleep

Hello Kitty Tea

Just after Christmas, we had a little tea with our friend Pema. There was bacon. There were Hello Kitty waffles. There was tea. There was lots of two year old conversation. There were memories.

And right around that same time, this guy crawled up in the rocker as well as got to sit alone for the first time in the shopping cart while sister stayed home and slept. Plus, he's scooting around like crazy now. Go Fordy!

542. enough energy to read at night

543. cabbage to stave off mastitis

544. a blank calendar

545. planning to celebrate others