Dance Party

Carys had a successful birthday party. All the kids were involved, had a great time and there were very few meltdowns. Ms. Diane is Carys's dance teacher and she is great with kids. At the end we had a parent dance and I'm please to say the parents actually participated. It was a short party, one hour. No cake, no mess and we were 5 minutes from home. We could not have asked for more.

Happy Fourth Birthday Carys!!

Carys is 4 today, I cannot believe it. Here she is preparing goodie bags for the children who will come to her party. I don't remember goodie bags when I was growing up. We did not have cake this year for her friends because we were having a dance class so we included some cookies and bubbles and a squirt gun for some spring fun.

COLD

This was our snow day mid-February. I was so excited to take Carys sledding but we basically never made it around the corner of the block. The snow was not too heavy but it was super windy. Once I had the girls loaded on the sled, poor Helen was taking lots of snow in her face and she was red within minutes. Carys was sad that we had to return home. She said, "Mommy, maybe I was wrong". "Wrong about what?" I asked. "I was wrong that we could go outside". So sweet.

Silly Chicken

We purged some old items from our closets and this Halloween costume was one in a pile. Carys proceeded to try it on for old time sake (she wore this when she was a year and a half) She added the silly faces for extra appeal.

Carys loves to be silly and I love to be silly with her!

Post Christmas Fun

Babies!

Christmas AM

The girls actually slept until about 6:45. We set up santa presents the night before. It was basically everything we'd gotten them since we did not have the time or the energy to wrap this year and luckily our tree was full.

The kitchen set was the main gift for them both. This year we did not put tags on things becuase the whole pile was for both of them. At some point we will have to make a designation but it seems to be working out fine for now. For some of the gifts, I got two kinds of each, two strollers, two marble mazes, two coloring books etc. Some things are just too hard to share and more than that, sometimes they both want to play at the same time with things and yes, we do take turns too but they are still a little young to fully get it.

So they had an early morning exploring santa's gifts which gave Cullen and I some time to drink some coffee and get breakfast in the oven. We made a spinach and gruyere cheese strata last night and it needed an hour to bake this AM. All I can say it it was worth the wait!

Christmas Tree

Here is our tree bursting at the seams with gifts for us from family and friends. Thanks to all of you who truly help us make Christmas magical for the girls. We are trying to keep the focus on God and baby Jesus. We did make it to church on Sunday with the girls and Carys was tending to her "baby Jesus" on Christmas Eve. I think the girls will understand why we are so grateful and sharing during this season and how we should be that way all year long.

Christmas Dance

Carys and Helen danced a little Christmas Eve performance for us. Helen even dressed up for the first time although the feather boa did not stay on too long. Carys is really getting creative with her movement and this next session, she's moving up to the 4-5 year old class.

Dear Santa

One final note today without a picture. Carys found out she could ask Santa for presents. She did the cutest thing when we got out of the car the other day. She looked up into the sky and said "Dear Santa, I would like a crayon box and a play house for me and Helen". It was so cute, I had no choice, even though I'd already gotten their gifts, to go and get these items. When I asked what would happen if Santa didn't bring these things, she said "oh no, he told me he would" and that was that.

Breadmaking I

Poppy and Carys made some bread for the week-end. It is delicious! They had fun putting the ingredients together and the most fun eating the bread. Poppy made cheese bread, jam bread and the biggest hit, cinnamon and sugar bread. Yummmm.

Final Day of School

It was the last day of school before Christmas break and the girls were dressed too cute to go without posing in front of the tree. Helen is getting the hang of this picture thing FINALLY and did some cute poses with big sister.

Christmas at Tiffany's 2006

The girls had lots of fun at Tiffany's house for our Christmas get-together. Henry was there and they enjoyed (or fought) over their new aquisitions.

We had finger foods and Carys was free to roam the buffet table. If I had to call her favorite it would be a tie b/n the white chocolate covered pretzels and the bacon wrapped figs (a YUMMY Tiffany specialty).

Helen was happy with the cheese and veggies and chocolate she could grab from the table and her big sister.

Where's Carys?

In the same performance, Carys and the entire pre-school group sang Christmas carols for the parents. Can you find Carys?

Carys first Christmas Performance

Carys had her school Christmas performance last week. She had a great time. She met with her Japanese group and went over their story one last time before performing. The children did the story called "The Turnip" which was first read in Japanese. Poppy and I were not familiar with the story but after seeing the kids perform, we could guess that there was a turnip in the ground that a single kid could not pull out and each time he tried, he called another group of kids to help pull and once all the kids were helping, they were able to pull the turnip out.

Carys 'n Claire

Carys has a new buddy at school, Claire. She's younger than Carys and I think she reminds Carys of Helen. She's such the big sister with her and helps with EVERYTHING. The teachers are trying to encourage them to become independent without sacrificing the friendship. We are going to get together for a play date soon so they can have some fun outside of school.

Ready for the BIG Snow

I realized Carys did not have a snowsuit that fit after the first big snow of the season. After I bought this, she asks every day when it's going to snow. Of course, she doesn't understand I'm relieved it has not snowed again. I would like it to snow while we are on vacation but it will inveitably snow the week after. At any rate, Carys will be ready.

PINKY!

Helen LOVES Pinky. I'm not sure I can say the same about Pinky but they've just begun their friendship. For the most part she's gentle with him and he's VERY tolerant of her except in those cases where a tail is being pulled.

Flower Arrangement

I've seen a couple examples of what I call "montessori thinking". Carys is sorting and ordering things like crazy. Maybe it will counteract the scatter-brain genes she got from me.

Flowers!

These play flowers have been in our house for some time but we just let the girls have fun with them last week. They are bendy and easy to hold and apparently are lots of fun for babies.