Operation Doll House

I am sure that 20 years from now when the girls are all grown up we will fondly look back and laugh at the doll house Christmas.  The year that mommy and daddy and grandpa were up until midnight two nights in a row trying to put together the mansion.  Of course things didn't start off well when we realized we were missing the the first piece out of 80 something.  Luckily it was just for the elevator and we were able to continue on without it. 

The first night I went through almost a whole bottle of wine (over the course of 4 hours mind you) and at midnight we called it quits and were very thankful we didn't wait until Christmas Eve to start Operation Doll House.   Luckily, there was mostly laughter and only a few arguments during this whole process.

 

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!

 

Sugar High

Katie loved her Valentines Day party at Sharry's this year! I think the highlight of her week was the cupcake she got to eat and I know this because she is still talking about it four days later.  Since we don't give her sweets on a regular basis, she makes sure to enjoy every last bite when she does get them.  My girl was the only one who ate her whole cupcake including the ice cream.  Needless to say there was a serious sugar high that afternoon and it continued through the drive home, she talked nonstop.  Let's just say I embraced the silence that evening after the girls went to bed. 

 Katie finally crashed while going through her cards and you can see how tired she looks in these pictures.  

I Love Lazy Days

Today has been one of those days where the rain poured down outside and we lounged around inside.   While I felt a little guilty, it was wonderful and something we all needed.   Carly actually let Jeff and I sleep in until 6:30 and Katie slept until 7:30 which is even more unusual.  After a good nights rest we all felt better and I think we have finally beat this nasty cold. After that we just hung out around the house.  Katie and Jeff went to the grocery store and Carly and I had a little photo session.  Here are some pictures from our day

reading cards from Grandma Sharon and Grandma Maryann

trying very hard to crawl

 

Carly's first V-Day

Our Christmas Day

As a child I loved Christmas, and not just because of the presents but because of all of the traditions my mom and dad created.  And now that I am a mom I love being able to carry on some of those traditions while also adding new ones for our girls.  This year we started a Garner tradition of making a homemade pizza for Christmas Eve dinner.  While the girls were still too little to help this year, I am looking forward to many pizza making nights in our future.

 

Katie and I went to church on Christmas Eve, but because Jeff didn't get home from a very long day at work until 4:30, Carly and him stayed home.

Christmas morning started around 7:00 when Katie woke up and came out into the living room to see what Santa brought her.  She got a stroller for her babies and a pillow for her bed.  We will probably be transitioning her crib to a toddler bed in a few weeks so we thought the pillow would be a good start. And she is all about her babies so I (ugh, I mean Santa) knew that the stroller would be a success.  She was so excited about those two things she didn't really even care about what was in her stocking.  This really was a special year because everything was new to her and even the simplest things like a new toothbrush and pj's made her so happy.  Next year will be even better when Carly can enjoy the holidays as much as Katie has.

Later in the morning grandma and PaPa joined us for brunch and the opening of presents.  Katie understand the concept completely and after she opened each present she immediately wanted to start playing with it.  She also loved helping everyone else open their presents.  Here she is showing grandma and PaPa their photo calendar. 

 

 Katie got some wonderful dress up clothes from Uncle Kirby and Aunt Kim and she loved them!

And then the clean up started and Katie was even excited to help daddy with that. 

Later that afternoon Jeff started smoking his bone-in ribeye roast.  It was delicious and we had a wonderful Christmas feast. 

Our magical day ended with Katie entertaining a very tired little baby by dancing around for 30 minutes non stop.  It was hilarious and needless to say both of my little girls crashed hard last night.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day with their family and friends.