Well yesterday was SO nice that we played outside all afternoon and even sat outside on the patio for dinner at Joe T's. I think it was about 75 degrees. And this was how we spent the afternoon today...
We were able to make about an 8 inch snowman, but Sam the Terrible stomped on it just as Tony tried to take a picture. You can still see his carrot nose.We began our Christmas Eve festivities at the doctor's office at 8 am this morning for Clara's 2 month check-up and Ollie's 2 year check-up.
We already know that Ollie is a healthy growing boy and they confirmed that. He weighed 32 lb (>90%) and was 36 and 1/8 inches tall (>90%). He is running and trying so hard to jump. He loves to play outside and loves to copy everything his big brother is doing/saying. His language/vocabulary has really exploded over the past month too.
Clara is growing strong too. She weighed 12 lbs (90%) and was 23 and 1/8 inches long (70%). She is getting stronger and enjoys a few minutes of tummy time at least once a day. She is even starting to smile, which I finally caught on camera.
She cracks me up when she makes this face. She has the biggest eyes!
Well, my sweet baby boy turned 2 yesterday. I can't believe it! We had a small family party at our house with pizza, cake and of course presents. The kids had a good time, but I don't think Ollie really got it. Sam basically opened all of his presents and he was happy to let him. I ordered the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe from Amazon awhile back and it took forever to get here. The UPS man delivered it during the party, so the boys "helped" Tony put it together this morning. He also got some fun books, cars/trucks, a sleeping bag (like Sam's) and Lincoln logs (a giant tub of them with MANY pieces, thanks Kiki!). Thanks to our family for making it a special day!
The boys did great with Santa as usual, but I kinda wish I had asked them to retake it, I'm not sure what's going on with Sam here :)
This would be why we did not send out a christmas card picture. I gave up after the first take. 
Making a gingerbread house. Tony's always in charge of these projects.
Clara started smiling this week, but of course our camera is too slow to catch them so here are some pics of her 3 sec after she smiled.
Getting stronger everyday!
I think Ollie thinks he's ready for a big boy bed. I, however, am not.
For quite sometime, Sam has made this face whenever I try to take his picture and now our little copy cat is too. Monkey see, monkey do.I just got these pictures from my dad from the official Thanksgiving Day wishbone pull at my mom's house. You can clearly see who won and lost this one. Sam's expression is priceless.
We had a great week of celebration for Thanksgiving. We are of course very thankful for our wonderfully crazy family, we are thankful for job security for both Tony and I in this difficult economy, and thankful for all that God has provided us with. We are truly blessed in so many ways.
Tony was off work for the entire week and we had a great time. Thanks to an early Christmas present from Nana, we were able to use our new museum membership to check out the new Science & History museum. It is awesome and the kids loved it. We put up our Christmas tree a little early since we knew we would be too busy over the weekend and Sam had been asking for over a week if we could get it out. On Wednesday, we held true to our tradition and made our pre-Thanksgiving visit to see Santa (no lines). Sam told him he wants a Rudolph book and some "surprises." We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with my family, including my Dad and step-mom here from Ohio for the week. We hung out all day Friday with Tony's family and had another Thanksgiving dinner with them including Wendy's family from Houston.
We are indeed excited about Christmas. Tony and I love Christmas so much and are always anxious to get the decorations up and our extensive collection of Christmas CDs out. It has been an endless loop of "Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer", "The Chipmunks Song", "Linus & Lucy", "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph" in our car.
Seems like everyone always says this, but, I cannot believe she is already one month old. How much our lives have changed. In good ways, of course.
Here are her one month stats from her doctors visit today. She is 9 lb 2 oz (50%) and is 22 3/4" long (90%). She is definitely long and lean, very long legs, arms, fingers and toes. She definitely got her Daddy's long toes! And she looks a lot like Ollie did at this age. Her hair is still dark, but I'm pretty sure it will change to blonde and her eyes are blue and getting lighter.
