Kate's First Trip to Disneyland

 We love to visit Disneyland during the Christmas season and it was fun to take Kate for the first time.  It was a beautiful day and we had a great time together.

Sickies

We were all sick up until Christmas.  Most of our time was spent like this:

Fortunately it was just colds so we weren't too miserable.  It was actually really nice to just all lounge around as a family and snuggle with the kids.  But I still vote for no colds next Christmas.

Grant started feeling better first and took over picture taking for us.  Here is part of his documentation:

Me and Kate Kate (you have to look hard to see her peeking behind me).  And yes those are footy pajamas...don't knock em' till you've tried them.

Kate Kate eating lunch and wondering, "Why does HE get to touch the camera?"

Snuggling

There are always quite a few foot pictures when Grant is in charge of the camera.

Can you guess what we were watching?  Grant didn't like the movie and decided that "the green guy" (Buddy) was the bad guy.  He's clearly not ready to appreciate "Elf."

Jesus' Birthday Cake

Grant was adamant this year that he wanted to have a birthday cake for Jesus.  I picked up a small cake from the bakery and some icing for him to decorate it.  Then this happened...

...and that was the end of the cake decorating.

He was a bit dismayed about the size of the cake.  "Jesus' birthday cake is smaller to mine."  He didn't understand  why Jesus would have a smaller cake than he had on his birthday.  It was wonderful to see his enthusiasm and excitement over celebrating Christmas as Jesus' birthday.

Through the Glass

Kate can't really play outside yet since she's not walking.  So when Grant goes out she frequently stands at the door and knocks on it until he notices her.  She gets so excited, giggling loudly and waving vigorously.  Makes me laugh every time.  And is there anything cuter than a little girl with pigtails?!?

Snowflakes

Grant's favorite activity of the holiday season was making snowflakes.  We must have gone through half a pack of computer paper.  Then he would find random pieces of paper (candy wrappers, paper bags, napkins, etc.) that he thought would make a nice snowflake and started cutting those.  It was a lot of fun and a HUGE mess...but he couldn't have been happier.

Kitchen Update

One more room is finished.  We LOVE the new floors...they make such a huge difference.  As you can see in the "before" pictures, the old tile in the kitchen wasn't even laid straight.  You can't really appreciate the bad color, how deep the grout was, or how it looked dirty all the time.  The flooring guys said it was one of the worst tiling jobs they'd ever seen. So we're so happy with the new floor--it makes the room so much warmer.  I had to take pictures at night so it's not as dark in the kitchen as it might at first appear.  Here are the before and after pictures:  

Bathroom Update

 I know, I know...bathroom pictures are soooo exciting.  But it's one more room that's almost done (after we do the paint touch-up).  Here are the before and after pictures:

First Day of Preschool

The preschool we had signed up for finally started the Monday after Thanksgiving.  Grant was very excited and bouncing off the walls on the first day.  He seems to really love it and we're so thankful.

Birthday

So the flooring people started working on the downstairs on my birthday.  We tried to be gone as much of the day as possible, then hung out upstairs for Kate's naptime.  This is how it looked the evening of my birthday after I found and uncovered the table and chairs.  

 They actually got the entire kitchen and laundry room done that day.  We love it!  It's so dirty in this picture.  I'll post the finished product soon.

The whole week we ended up going to bed by 8:30 every night since there was nowhere to sit.  :-)

Play Doh

"Look, Mom--it's Jabba the Hunt!"

For My Mom

I keep saying that I'll post pictures of our house, but haven't taken many yet.  Here's the family room...it's the only room that's painted and mostly done.  I'll post more pictures in January after the floors have been put in and the rest of the walls have been painted.  :-)

Halloween

We moved into our new house a few days before Halloween, so we got to trick or treat in our new neighborhood!  It was a lot of fun getting to meet all the neighbors.  Grant wanted to be a bee again this year (which made things a lot easier) and so we thought Kate should be a ladybug to go with him.  She ended up staying home with Daddy, answering the door, while Grant and I trick or treated. 

At the end of the night, all was quiet and I found these two in the kitchen, sharing a little drink.

Mr. Caterpillar

Grant's been finding lots of cool bugs in the backyard.  Yesterday he found a black caterpillar and Kate got to examine it.

Kate Kate

Don't you just want to sqeeze her?

Kate's New "Crawl"

Kate is getting much closer to walking since we got her a walker.  She's finally figured out that she needs to get her little rear end up in the air in order to stand up, but she hasn't figured out how to coordinate that with her arms.  The result is this funny new crawl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZFCXZgek8I

Doctor's Visit

Both the kids had appointments with the doctor yesterday.  Last year's picture of Grant's checkup was quite sad, so I had to be sure to update with this year's picture.  Quite an improvement!

 This one is really blurry, but I love how you can see them both smiling.  I couldn't get another one with them both smiling at the same time.

The smiles lasted all the way until the shots.  Then there was just incessant screaming.  I think they were glad to see us leave.  On the way out we ran into Grant's new preschool teacher, so that helped make his day a little brighter.