Self Portrait

Last week when we were snowed in I had to pull out of all my preschool teacher ideas and this was one of them...the full size self portrait.  I traced Katie on a long sheet of paper and then let her do the rest. 

She loved it and was concentrating very hard.  When little sister woke up from her nap she of course wanted to color too. 

Checking out her hand compared to big sisters.

 
I love Carly's expression in this one.  Katie had just accidentally torn a hole in the paper....oooooohhhhhh

The finished product is proudly displayed on the pantry door.  

Snow Days

 

We are having our first big winter snow event this week and the girls are having so much fun.  Of course it seems like it takes just as long to bundle them  as it does to actually play outside. 

Carly trying to wave bye to mommy even with all of her layers on

 

Sledding is so much fun, especially when mommy or daddy is pulling the sled.  Katie didn't love it at first but out little daredevil, Carly sure did.   

Then we built a snowman but Katie insisted on it being a snow lady because of a book we had recently been reading.  She is complete with her tiara and blue easter egg eyes.  

And no snow day is complete without some hot chocolate to finish it off. 

 

 

 And today we are on day three of our winter wonderland and the snow lady hasn't melted.  Since the weather people are calling for two more days of snow it looks like our friend is going to hang around for a while.

Christmas with an Almost 3 Year Old...

equals a very busy, messy and loud, but happy household.    Katie is very into Christmas this year and is excited about everything.  This is the first year she really "gets" it which makes it more fun for Jeff and I.  And while Carly is interested in some things I think it is mostly because her big sister is.   I will do a more thorough update hopefully this week but for now I will leave with you some tidbits on what has been happening with us.

• Katie wants to be an elf when she grows up and specifically the elf, Hermie from Rudolph. 
• Katie's imagination has taken off and she has many stories to tell. Right now they mostly focus around Rudolph, Tink (aka Tinker Bell), Peter and Wendy.  
• Carly is showing her personality more including some serious 1 year old tantrums including kicking and throwing herself on the floor to get my attention.  I seem to remember my mom telling me I used to cry until I passed out so we are lucky Carly hasn't taken after her mommy in that respect (at least not yet).
• Both girls had their well child check ups last week and are both completely healthy and doing just fine. 
• Christmas shopping is so much fun this year and I can't wait to see the girls faces when they see what Santa brought them.   And Santa better get busy because he still has to put that doll house together and hopefully he won't wait until Christmas Eve (hint hint daddy).  

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! I will update with pictures as soon as things calm down a bit. 

Fall Festivities

Today was a beautiful sunny day so we packed up and headed out to Stoney Ridge Farm for some fall fun.   We went there last year for the first time and knew it would become a Garner family tradition.  Katie wasn't feeling that great and kept saying her tummy hurt but with this possibly being the last sunny day before Halloween we decided to give it a go.  We could tell Katie wasn't feeling 100% but she hung in there and still had fun.   Now, 3 of the 4 of us are napping and 2 of the 4 (KT and J)have fevers.  I am hoping our little outing didn't make things worse and everyone will wake up feeling better. 

Concentrating very hard.  She was "steering" the entire time and didn't crack a smile once

I love this one especially how Carly is peeking out of her hole

first doughnut

yummm

maybe I'll just put the whole thing in all at once

and it's gone

Easter Egg Fun

We colored eggs for the first time today with Katie.  She enjoyed it but is still a little too young to really get into it.  Next year we will take our egg dying to another level but for now we will just enjoy our simple pastel colors.

And now a few miscellaneous pictures from the past week. 

This was what proceeded the video in the previous post.  Carly pulled out almost every diaper and had so much fun doing it. 

 

A few days ago Carly got another cold and now Katie is coming down with it too.  This will be the second year in a roll that Katie has been sick during Easter weekend.  Here she is enjoying laying in mommy and daddy's bed. 

 

 

 

Happy Easter weekend!