Willa's B-day

On the morning of Willa's birthday, Larkin woke up early and helped me get some surprises ready for Willa. We blew up balloons and made some pink and white streamers to hang from her doorway, and then tiptoed (with Joel) into Willa's room--where she was still sleeping. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and Willa sat up in a daze. We tossed pink balloons on her and then she had the biggest smile on her face. After we finished singing she looked a little confused and asked, "Where's my candles?" We had to explain that you can sing happy birthday on someone's birthday without blowing out candles. Then she smiled and said, "Take these balloons out and come back and surprise me again." So we did!

We had Cat Mama, Papa, Uncle Matt, Auntie Laura, Ethan, and Laura's mom Tammy over for a little party. Here's some pics-

Getting ready to sing

Making a wish:"I wish I could be a star in the sky."

Polka dot rain boots

Cinderella Barbie=Love at First Sight

The birthday girl and Auntie Laura

Best gift of all: spending time with Baby Ethan

Baby Ethan and Happy Birthday Willa

Willa wanted only two things for her third birthday: To hold her new cousin Ethan, and to stack ALL of her books on her nightstand. I'm happy to say she got both her wishes (and a bit more!).

Baby Ethan flew all the way from Virginia to meet his cousins and to celebrate Willa's birthday. Willa has had this love connection with Ethan ever since the day he was born. I'll never forget Matt calling us from the hospital and we could hear Ethan crying in the background. That night we told Willa that one day she'll get to meet and hold Ethan, and she jumped up and said, "Let's go right now! I want to hug him!"
Ever since that night, she's always talked about holding Ethan like it would be the most special thing ever. Her eyes get really big when she talks about holding him, and I can't even count how many times she has said, "You mean I can really hold him? All by myself?!"

When he arrived, Willa jumped right into action and held him every chance she could! I love the picture below--you can just see the love in her eyes-

One day Willa and Ethan sat on the couch together for well over an hour. It was the most precious thing to see--Ethan was totally content just being next to her and she was having the greatest time talking to him. She told him how she wanted to paint his fingernails just like hers someday, and she examined every inch of him while she talked and held his fingers in her hand.

Larkin was not quite the natural when it came to babies--
She liked to admire him from a distance but it usually took some work before you could convince her to hold him. She got nervous if he made any noises, and babies do make lots of noises! She did love him though and has talked about him a lot since he left. Today she interrupted a conversation with, "Wasn't baby Ethan just so cute? I just can't believe how cute he was."

By the end of the weekend, Ethan started doing a belly laugh every time the girls just looked at him. He loved watching them play and run fast by him. We took them all to a playground one afternoon and Ethan burst out into a belly laugh when the girls ran on a suspension bridge. So of course the girls ran and bounced over the bridge many, many times, and Ethan got the hiccups from laughing so hard!

They also could make him laugh by sticking out their tongues, and Matt said that on the flight home Ethan figured out how to stick his own tongue out and then he laughed hysterically. I'm sure that's the first of many tricks the girls will teach him!

Bathtime

Three kids, three smirks!

Almost all the pics of the birthday party are copied onto my mom's computer (thanks Auntie Laura for taking all of them!) and I don't have access to them tonight, but here's one pic of Willa and her THREE candles! I'll do another post sometime next week about her birthday and the party.
Thank you so much Ethan, Uncle Matt, and Auntie Laura for being a part of Willa's special day!

a bazillion pics

Ok well that was a nice little break from blogging there!

We all had a great Christmas and New Year's. The girls were spoiled rotten by Santa and many thoughtful relatives and friends. They even had a last minute visit on Christmas day from Auntie Lisa!

The girls opened up one present early and got some super cute dresses from Auntie Laura and Uncle Matt. They each got a few different dresses, and Larkin immediately became attached to this black one with flowers. She loved it so much it was hard to convince her to try the others on!

I love Willa's posing stance:

We've had a pretty mild winter so far. A few days before Christmas it was close to 80 degrees ("great day weather" according to the girls) and we went outside to do some raking. A nice neighbor offered up his yard and leaves (our trees are a different type and haven't dropped many yet) and the girls got right to work!





Here's a pic of the girls on Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve Larkin got a bad crick in her neck and was basically bedridden for most of the day because of the pain. On Christmas morning she was fine for maybe 3 or 4 presents, and then suddenly it started hurting again and she did not want to open anything--just sat really still with her heating pad on her neck! So we took a break from presents and opened the rest about an hour or two later once her neck was feeling a little better. Willa was such a good sport and didn't care at all about not opening the rest right away!

Yes, Larkin slept in her new favorite dress...and yes, Willa is wearing a hand-me-down!
Later on Christmas day we went over to Gma and Gpa's house and Lisa came too. We stuffed ourselves silly and had a great time talking and doing lots of puzzles!

The "present" that has seen the most use though was the huge appliance sized cardboard boxes that my parents were getting rid of. We taped them back together and they've spent the past two weeks dragging all their toys into them and pretending they are "dens." When I decided that I could not take another day of looking at two gigantic boxes taking up our entire playroom, I cut off the tape and the boxes fell flat on the ground. I thought the girls would cry since I was about to toss them, but instead they yelled, "IT'S A BOAT! HURRY, GET ON IT! A STORM IS COMING!"
So the boxes ended up staying an additional few days! Here's a pic of Willa having a picnic on her boat, and the bear she is holding is "a nice wild bear who lost his mother" and she is taking him along as they sail on their boat to Africa. Larkin said that her boat "did not have electricity so we have to dry our clothes on a clothesline, and we really don't have much food on the long boat ride--but don't worry, it's a vacation."

Here's a pic of them dressed up for the ball and riding in their "coach." The ball is always in our living room where they crank up the music and dance.

Princess Harlez comes to the ball too!

Santa

Joel's work invited Santa to visit the office and have cookies with all the kids of employees. After Larkin and Willa woke up from their naps they started squealing and were so excited to go and see Santa. I was pretty surprised at this because we've tried to see him in the mall and they usually do not get within 10 feet of the guy without crying or frantically gripping my leg.

They picked up out their "fancy clothes for Santa" and spent a long time combing their hair in the bathroom and getting everything just right. Larkin was upset that she didn't own a pair of real high heels and thought that they would be perfect for meeting Santa.

Joel met us in the parking lot and told the girls that he thought Santa had come down the chimney into his office, which scared Willa a little bit. She grabbed Joel's hand and immediately started looking to the ceiling, as if he would fall from the sky at any moment.

Once we got to him, the girls went up to him pretty easily and we asked him what his favorite cookies were. Santa said he loved peanut butter cookies the best, which made both the girls grimace since they've never had peanut butter cookies before and they thought that sounded disgusting. Santa also said he loved egg nog, and they didn't know what egg nog was either, so they looked at him (and at me) like he was speaking some other language.

As soon as we got off the topic of food and onto what they wanted for Christmas, thing got better. Willa talked to him for a little while and told him she wanted a baby doll and a dress, and I don't think Larkin said anything but she did smile a lot at him. Santa even had presents for the girls--some princess sticker books!

After all the kids had a chance to talk to him and get their gifts, we went into a conference room and had cookies. Santa walked in and Willa looked totally amazed and said loudly, "HEY! SANTA CAN WALK!!"

All in all it was a great first Santa experience!

Holiday stuff

Here's some pics of what we've been up to in December!

The girls were so excited to decorate sugar cookies. They picked out all the cookie cutters they wanted to use (butterflies, flowers, and hearts were top of the list! Sorry Santa!) and we made the dough together. They always push chairs in front of the oven when we bake cookies and sit and read books while watching them bake.

Here's Larkin reading a book while she waits for her cookies--a few days before I took this picture she came up to me while I was in the middle of cooking dinner and said, "Mom, I'm ready to learn how to read. Teach me right now." I stopped everything and grabbed her some easy readers and she's been working at it ever since!


Anyway, once the cookies came out we made the frosting--and Larkin got her finger caught in the beaters! And I do mean caught--her finger was wedged between the two beaters and I could NOT get it out! We ran to the next door neighbors for help, and eventually it came out under running water. Thankfully nothing was broken--the doctor did some x-rays and said she just needed a finger splint for a few days. Larkin learned her lesson though and now keeps her hands behind her back when the mixer is on!

Look closely and you can see her finger splint!

Princess Joel and Willa enjoying some cookies after our stressful night!

We also made a gingerbread house this year from scratch! It was a lot of work but was so much fun! And thanks to the hot glue gun, our roof didn't fall off this year! Yea!!


And finally, we took the girls ice skating this weekend at Whole Foods. They have a rooftop ice rink that was just the perfect size for learning to skate! They were both nervous at first that that they might be skating on a pond with water underneath (Mom, What if the ice cracks? Will I get stuck in the water?) but once they realized that it wasn't a pond they were good to go!


Both girls caught on quickly and were skating solo in no time! I kept trying to coach them on how to skate (while holding their hands) but then realized that the best way for them to learn was to just let go and let them figure it out. They did fall a few times but didn't mind at all!


We paid for a one hour session and thought they wouldn't last the whole time, but both were near tears when we told them our hour was up. They both kept saying, "I don't want to put my tennis shoes on! I want to wear my ice skates!! Let's go ice skating again RIGHT NOW!"

Bastrop State Park

Here's some pics from our day trip to Bastrop State Park a few weeks ago. It's about 45 minutes from our house and has lots of great hiking trails in the woods with pines and hardwoods. The area is actually called the "Lost Pines" because it's the only pine forest in Central Texas!

Here's Joel under the bridge pretending to be the troll from the Billy Goats Gruff. The girls ran over the little bridge probably twenty times pretending to be all the billy goats! "Who's that tromping over my bridge??!"



The girls LOVE to hike and probably did close to three miles this day without a single complaint (well, ok Willa did ask to be carried once but not for long!). They do like to make lots of stops though to check out the scenery on the ground. On this hike the pine needles were a big hit. Larkin was very meticulous when it came to collecting her needles. She inspected each needle before taking it, and then stacked them one by one, all facing the same direction. She kept saying that they were so beautiful and that this was the "greatest day" since she got to collect so many pine needles. I tried to tell her that if she likes the pine needles so much, she could just grab a huge handful and shove them in my backpack. She looked at me like I was crazy and stuck with her own method.

Willa however had no qualms about grabbing huge handfuls!


We spent about half an hour just sitting on a trail while the girls collected pine cones and needles. They're at such a fun age where the little things in life are so entertaining and interesting to them!

Get up! It's Christmas!!

The girls had a good Thanksgiving--we went to Cat Mama and Papa's house for the day and ate and relaxed over there. Cat Mama and Papa went to visit Matt, Laura, and cousin Ethan the week before Thanksgiving (and had turkey there) so we had ham for our Thanksgiving dinner. The girls were excited about that because they are pretty emphatic about not liking turkey!


We visited Great Aunt Mary in the hospital while we were there and Joel took them for a ride in her wheelchair (of course!).

The girls made sticky buns from scratch in honor of Gramma Ruth (Joel's Gramma) who passed away a few weeks ago. Ruth always had sticky buns for Thanksgiving (well, any occasion really!) and a few days before Thanksgiving Joel said that he wanted to go buy some sticky buns just like Gramma's. The girls and I surprised him and made him the buns from scratch, and they were delicious!! I think we will be continuing Gramma's tradition.

At about 6:30AM the morning after Thanksgiving, Larkin was in our room saying, "GET UP! IT'S CHRISTMAS ALREADY! LET'S DECORATE!!!!" So by 7:00 we had all the boxes out of the shed and ornaments everywhere! By December 1st we had the front trees all decorated with lights, the tree inside up and fully decorated, 12 new ornaments already painted, and Christmas cookies all baked (more on the cookies later!).

I love this outfit of Willa's--can you tell she dresses herself??! Skirt AND a dress, ruby red slippers, and a hat and gloves for 50 degree weather!