Long time, no type

We are welcoming in the holiday season - yeah, yeah. Living in Winterhaven is kind of like living in one of those Christmas towns in the big display windows or the ones they sell at ACE. Every house is decorated with lights and has a theme that usually changes every year due to a competitive factor among neighbors. It is awesome for children. They get to see the lights every night, and the thousands of people who come to marvel make you feel like a celebrity in front of the paparazzi.

However, you also get a burn out factor. We start setting up the weekend after Thanksgiving and work constantly until the official "Festival of Lights" starts, usually two weeks before Christmas. Then comes the shopping and the parties and the relatives. Thus far we have had 3 Amelia birthday parties, 3 Christmas parties, 2 photo session melt-downs, and 2 hayrides through our neighborhood.

Speaking of parties, Amelia turned the BIG "3" on December 9th. It was nice to officially have a "pre-schooler" now. She definitely is ready to move on from being a toddler!

Our "birth group" birthday party.

Amelia's "family" birthday party.

I am slowly coming to realize just how damn hard everything is with kiddos. I love my children tremendously but unfortunately the world does not revolve around them and that creates problems.

We tried to take Christmas photos at Sears and between a creepy guy photographer, a really crowded store, visits from all the relatives, a party the night before, and the lack of English speakers, we had a total and complete melt-down. Round 2! We went back today, to try again. No luck.

Amelia is in a "phase" (let's hope and pray) and refuses to do 50-90% of what she is asked to do. We have chosen to call it "extreme independence" or being extraordinarily "precocious" for the sake of omitting four letter words from our vocabulary due to her knack of picking up all words and their correct usage.

I am hoping Amelia figures out that listening to and helping out Mommy makes life a lot easier all the way around. I really miss her when she was 18 months and still snuggled and thought picking up was fun! She is her own little person now and while she is difficult, she can do amazing things on her own too.

On her brag list of independent things she can do now are: loading and playing CD's, pouring milk into her glass, cracking an egg for her french toast, dressing herself including shoes (although she started at 20 months), and being fully potty trained (okay we still have a pee accident once or twice a week).

Lily is starting to roll over both ways although most of the time it looks "accidential". She is also going to start cereal because she has started to wake up every two hours at night hungry and I am not in the mood for a newborn again! Other then being constantly hungry, Lily is a very happy baby who likes to coo, smile, flirt and blow raspberries at everyone.

All of the above has lead me to neglect our blog and fail to post any more "recent" photos. Sorry. I did get my Christmas cards out though and the house is relatively clean (although I haven't started on the laundry).

Here is a photo from lily's baptism in November and some other cute photos. Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and safe travels!

Lily's baptism.

Amelia and friends at Lily's baptism party.

Lily enjoying her Bumbo.

The results of our Sears photo shoot, Lily above and Amelia below. We were not able to get any good ones of them together because of Amelia's "extreme independence" ;)