We went to a local heated pool to have her party. We started off with some running around a gym, followed by decorating princess shoes with gems (Aiden got a frog to decorate), then lunch of pizza and cupcakes, and lastly all the swimming the little ones could handle. Emily had a lot of fun at her party. She is already planning her next one.

The birthday girl – she was having a good time despite the serious face.

A little pre-party game of tag. They do not understand the game and just had fun running away from Ms. Rachelle.

Craft time

Emily was serious about her shoe decorating. She had been planning for days which shoe she wanted to decorate.

Julia took her gluing seriously. She spread it all over her shoe like she was icing a cake.

The frog turned out pretty cute!

Our table of goodies

Emily enjoyed a lot of freedom in the pool because she was willing to kick herself around on the kickboard. She seemed to have the hang of the kickboard more this day than she has before.

Julia was pretty busy in the pool. Every time the camera came out she seemed to be turning her back to it. She had a great time just playing.

Aiden and his Mama – what a great photo. They both have great grins.

Elena floating on her own

Maeve’s eyes seem to always have such a sparkle

The little girls floating and having a great time together. It is nice to have friends.

Emily’s birthday fell on a Sunday this year which made one of the activities for the day going to church. Afterwards we went to lunch with Grammy, Granddaddy, and Mr. Joseph. Emily picked Chinese to eat so we went to PF Chang’s for dinner. She was a bit excited and had trouble focusing much on her dinner. Not to worry, we took home the leftovers which she demolished the next day for lunch. After dinner we went home and ate cake and opened gifts. The rest of the day was spent playing with the different new toys.

On Thursday when we went to Thursday school, Ashley brought cupcakes for both girls to share with their class. Everyone seemed to enjoy their little cupcakes. I love Emily’s cheesy grin!

Emily has been looking forward to this birthday a lot! She asked for a Snow Princess themed party and has a blue snow princess dress for the occasion. She asked to go swimming for her party too, but as long as she gets to play with her friends she will be happy with any activity.

Emily is our fun loving, active, princess-crazed, prone to emotional outbursts daughter. She is starting to make wonderfully fun comments about the world around her and it is enjoyable to interact with those comments. She also doesn’t miss much of what is going on and secrets are tough, but still possible.

Julia is her favorite playmate in the world. They will play Rapunzel and take turns playing different characters. The new bunk beds make for a wonderful tower in this play. The girls also still love to run the circle of our house; although, Emily is quite certain she wants to win and makes them into races. They also pretend to play that one is the Mama and the other the baby and then take care of each other. Emily loves her sister and enjoys introducing her and finishing her sentences.

Emily is pretty content to play by herself too. Emily loves to take the doll dress-up clothes and dress all of her favorite stuffed animals in the different clothes whether or not the size is quite right. She will drag all of her bedding around the house setting up new places for house. She has taken to building campfires from the building blocks and inviting her stuffed friends to come for camp-outs.

Some of the fun or funny things she is often found to talk about are: her surprise (not-so surprise) birthday party that we are going to throw for her, her future plans for running a hotel and all the detail that are going into its design and management, fascination with different ballet stories and the different variations of the stories.

Some of her other favorites are:

• favorite color – blue
• favorite princess – Cinderella
• favorite food – peanut butter sandwich & sweet and sour chicken (not together)
• favorite place to go out to eat – Chinese
• favorite activity – dressing up like a princess
• favorite clothes to wear – dresses
• favorite blanket – her "baby mouse" blanket that she has had since birth. Thank goodness Mama’s aunt made it big and she can still fit under it although it is starting to get thin now.
• favorite thing to draw – princess’s dresses
• favorite craft activities – coloring and scissor practice
• favorite playmate – Julia (although she would tell you it was Elena)
• favorite person to pester – Julia
• favorite music to sleep to – Baby Einstein – Lullaby Classics
• favorite music to dance around the house to – the Nutcracker
• favorite new discovery – that there is a place called Disney World near Aunt Jolie’s house where Cinderella’s castle is. She is advocating starting a savings fund, so we can go and visit the park.

We planned a family trip to visit the Aquarium in Gatlinburg while Daddy had some time off. As life does not always go to plan, he was sick and unable to join us girls on the trip. We went on and made the most of our day without Daddy. The girls took naps in the car on the way. After they woke up, we ventured inside to see all the fish.

Emily was very intent on getting down to an interactive area and hardly looked at the fish exhibits on the way. Julia seemed interested in looking at most things for a few minutes each. Once we got to the lower level, the girls chose to ride through the sea tunnel and watch the fish. The moving floor was a huge hit with the girls. Both girls seemed to really watch the different fish and sharks around us.

Then the girls played in the interactive area for quite a while. They were very busy and just turned knobs, flipped switches, slid windows, and ducked in and out of a dark room to their hearts content. In the past we have visited and attended a preschool program, and Emily was curious why we weren’t seeing Jessica and doing a craft.

When we were finally done in the play area, we ventured into a new part of the exhibit about sharks. And then caught a ray feeding while we had a snack. After the excitement of the play area, the girls were most looking forward to seeing the penguin habitat. They have several tunnels to crawl thru and observe the penguins. The girls were a bit disappointed to find the penguins not active and hanging out in the warmer room of the habitat. The idea that it was near the penguin’s bedtime was too hard for them to grasp.

The last treat of the aquarium was Mama allowing the girls stay in the gift shop for a long time checking out all the fun trinkets and books. Normally the stay in the shop is brief, but for a treat we stayed a bit longer.

We went out for dinner on the way home and enjoyed warm bread with dipping oil and pasta. The only thing that could have made the day more perfect was to have Daddy with us. We decided that in about a month we might try the day visit again taking him with us.

Chris the scuba-diver and fish feeder. When he ran out of food to feed the fish he did a few tricks to entertain us. We caught two of his feedings, one with the Rays and the other in the Reef tank.

Emily checking out the penguin habitat. They loved climbing thru the tunnel.

The girls checking out a shark overhead. They found a lot of sharks to watch in this tank.

Julia peeking up at the penguin habitat. I think she was as excited to be able to look back and see Mama as to see the penguins.

Emily took her nap on the way to the park, but Julia was stubborn and stayed awake. Well, she only made it so long and then fell asleep in the stroller. When we said goodbye to the sun she got wrapped up in a blanket.

We stayed until after dark so that Emily could see all of the lights and see the lights show. She loved it! I’m so glad we got to go so many times this year and enjoyed being together.

We didn’t get many photos of them awake together, but once one goes to sleep it get a bit easier. We are bundled up to stay warm!

Julia got so excited while driving! She was thrilled to get a pink car to drive.

One sacrifice of the park being so busy is that the girls had to share a seat with each other and sharing the rides with other kids. Sometimes they loved it and sometimes it was a bit frustrating for them. They seemed to connect with these girls and they loved the ride.

The girls loved putting up the tree with Mama and Daddy. They noticed little things that changed about the tree as the season progressed. They were very specific about how their stockings were hung and which one each person should have. We don’t have specific stockings at this point.

They have jammies that they call their “Christmas jammies”. They have been waiting for a whole year to wear them and they were so excited to wear them Christmas Eve. They were good to get Mama and Daddy before they peaked in their stockings.

Our Christmas Dinner – we waited for the girls to have a nap first. Dinner was great and left us with a weeks worth of leftovers.

Julia got a diaper bag full of baby things. She was delighted to stop opening gifts and feed her babies for a while.

Emily was VERY pleased with the Cinderella nightgown that Santa brought her. She asked all day if she could put her nightgown on.

Julia received a cash register toy and her reaction was awesome. She would play with it and discover something and get excited. Then she would play more and then discover something new and get excited again. Christmas is so much fun to watch.

Julia got a Rapunzel nightgown from Santa. She was pleased.

The pictures are a little busy, but this is the girls’ new bunk bed. It is their big Christmas gift from their parents. They got it a few days early because it wasn’t going to be possible for us to get it put together and remain a surprise for Christmas. They were thrilled with it.

Emily is sleeping on the top of the bunk bed. She has graduated to a twin bed. We got her the canopy for the top to help her feel comfortable sleeping so high. Blue is her favorite color so she thinks it is perfect. She has been sleeping really well in it. The first night was a long one because of the excitement of the new bed. But every other night she has slept the whole night with no fear or incidents. She had been in the habit of coming out to the couch to sleep part way through the night and that has stopped. Nap time has gone well too.

Julia is sleeping in the floor space below the bed. We opted to keep her on her toddler mattress. The smaller mattress give her extra space to have some storage cubbies and play space. When she grows longer we will get her a bigger mattress, but until then she can play in her own special area. Julia has been thrilled with her new space too. She struggles with the ladder to climb up to the top, but we are going to get some handles to give her some help. Since the new bed has come she has requested to nap in her own bed instead of the pack ‘n play. The girls have successfully taken naps together since then. They are highly motivated to go to sleep so that no one has to move to the pack ‘n play.

We chose this bunk bed because it was lower to the ground making it’s presence in the room less overwhelming. Because the girls are younger it makes the transition easier too. The new bed has allowed the play table to be put in their room which they have really liked. Sometime in the near future they will both get new bedspreads that their Mama is making for them.

This year the girls participated for the first time in our church nativity program. They got to pick what supporting part they were going to play. They seemed indecisive about their choice until Mama told them what their best friends would be. That clinched it – ANGELS! The girls only went to the practice on the day of the nativity because all they needed to do was stand there and look angelic. Grammy gave each girl their “angel hair”. The curls seemed to make them extra angelic. We had been practicing the songs at home and neither girl was interested in singing them. Emily at one point told us she wasn’t going to sing at the program. When the time came though they were both singing with the songs. I guess they picked up more than they were letting on.

The program was sweet, and we’re glad the girls got to participate and did well. There was no jumping off the stage, crying, or impromptu talking. For part of the time they sweetly held hands with each other and their friends.

Little Angelic one!

Our Sweet Angels!

We went to see Santa as a surprise activity after church one Sunday. It was a sunny and warm day. We had to stand in line for about 30 minutes to see Santa at a local nursery. They had reindeer to see and the girls enjoyed wandering among the trees too. Santa was visiting in his sleigh. We asked Julia if she wanted to sit with Santa and she said “no”. She was willing to sit next to him if she sat with Mama though. Both girls took turns talking to Santa. Emily went first and was willing to talk his hear off. Julia told Santa several things she was interested in too.

They enjoyed themselves a lot. We do need to make a repeat visit to see him because Emily wanted to refine what she wants.

The Tappan family and Edwards family have a holiday tradition of watching the Nutcracker ballet together during the holiday season. This year we went to the daytime school presentation of the Nutcracker. It turned out that the presentation fell on Maeve’s birthday so it was part of her celebration. Ashley picked back row seats so our active kids wouldn’t disturb any others.

Both of our girls made it through the performance watching with interest. During the intermission the Sugar Plum Fairy came out to tell the kids about the story. She, also with the help of the the Nutcracker prince, demonstrated a pantomime. The pantomime told the story of the Nutcracker’s fight with the King Rat and Clara’s assistance. The girls enjoyed doing it with them. We have repeatedly acted out the pantomime (with words too). The favorite part is the “rat face”. When we decorated the Christmas tree and the girls found our nutcracker character set of nutcracker ornaments. The girls were so excited. We have heard Julia say “King Rat” a lot lately.

It is so much fun to have great memories from holiday activities!

This is our version of the rat face.

Where is the best place to take a nap? How about right next to the Christmas tree. Emily decided to finish out her nap by the tree.

Mama tries to make creative lunches for the girls, but Emily took it to an new level with her own lunch. She decided to make the pretzels and grapes into trees and plant them in the peanut butter sandwich. I guess a grape is better when eaten off of a pretzel stick.