Christmas 2012

Christmas morning...Todd was the one who stayed up this year.  He placed all the presents under the tree and put together a play kitchen. It looked beautiful.

 And this is where I found him.  Passed out on the couch.  Poor Da.

 I knitted this king pig (from Angry Birds) for Norrin.  He has become a little bit obsessed with this video game.  Despite how long I took on this (I had other projects), he still expects at least two angry birds to go with it. 

 Norrin didn't wake up until 7:30 am.  I had time for a big cup of coffee and time to mentally prepare myself for the day. 

 Ani Rose, on the other hand, had no interest in waking up after her late, late, late night.  She nursed and slept and ignored the lights and the noise of Christmas cheer.

 Eventually, she woke up enough to peel away some wrapping paper, but she was grouchy all. morning. long.

And she didn't act more like herself until she got a decent nap...snuggled up on a giant teddy bear.

That's just the morning.  The kids were spoiled all day long.  Lot of presents from us, more presents from Grandmom Meatball and Pop pop Jodeph and lots and lots of junk food wherever they went.  I will definitely have to sit down and sort through the pictures Todd took on his new camera.  I believe he's already taken at least a hundred photos of our beautiful babies :).

Christmas Eve 2012

Unfortunately, Da had to work on Christmas Eve, so our tradition of spending the whole day together was a bit broken.  Luckily, I have two wonderful children to keep me company :).  Norrin woke up way too early and was a bundle of excitement.  So much so that I wasn't sure I wanted to keep my ears attached to my head by mid-morning.  Our day started to fill with activity and things got a little easier.  There are two main events- cookie decorating and opening presents from family and friends.  Todd missed out on the cookie decorating, but I made sure to take lots of pictures of the action.

Ani Rose liked to decorate (with my help)...

 Then, she would sample a bit of the frosting.

 Norrin was a very focused artist this year.  He spent an hour carefully decorating all the cookies he reserved as "his".

 Ani Rose figured out how to work the sprinkles.

 Then, there would be more tasting.

 And maybe a little bit of squishing with her hands.

 Norrin's cookies.

 Mommy's cookies.

 Ani Rose's cookies...uhhh, yeah, well...it was her first time :).

 Then, when Da got home from work, we had dinner.  Penne pasta and meatballs, salad, rolls and chocolate cake for dessert.  Norrin swallowed his food without even chewing because he knew it was going to be time to open presents after dinner.  It killed him to wait for us to finish our meal and then Ani Rose got hurt (bloody nose caused by a knitting needle she was carrying...it was a perfectly orchestrated disaster that traumatized me more than it did her), but eventually it was time to open presents and man, these kids are spoiled :).

Angry birds underwear.

 Norrin had a great face for almost every gift... just so excited.

 Ani caught on quick.

 But she felt the need to play with each toy as she got to it...which made Norrin so impatient that he decided to open her last three presents...all books.

 Norrin's present to me...a picture of a solar system.

 Todd's top secret gift from me...a new camera.  This blog is going to have a serious upgrade in photo quality now that the artist has a new toy :).

 Ani Rose at midnight on Christmas Eve.  She had no desire to go to bed early.  She had a snack, watched Charlie and Lola and acted like she could care less that all the rest of us wanted her in bed.

Christmas Eve Eve

Todd made the big mistake of playing football the morning of the night before the night before Christmas...or December 23rd, if you prefer.  Since we had some time to kill before Da would get back, Norrin had some brilliant ideas.

First, he needed to decorate just a bit more.  We're running low on construction paper, so he had to make do with what we had...hence the red, white and blue chains.  Well, we'll be ready come 4th of July.

 Then, he insisted I needed to make a Rudolph hat.

 My photographer instructed me to make my best angry face...

 Then, he wanted me to make my best surprised face...

 And then he asked for a confused face...this is the best I could give him.

 I was not the only one with some fancy head gear.  Norrin had his own Elf hat that he made at school.

 Anybody have any questions about where he gets his zany personality from?

 Didn't think so.

And to make this day truly perfect, we visited our dear friends, the Borrellis before they make the big move to Wyoming.  This flopped over, asleep in his car seat picture is the direct result of four hours of playing with Henry.  We're going to miss that unruly crew :).

Christmas Performance 2012

Dressed up and ready for a day of celebration.

Just a snippet of the performance.  Ani cried and Norrin sang and danced :).

As they headed back to their classroom, Ani Rose was still crying.  Why weren't we taking her home?

 Norrin was excited for his party and couldn't care less when we were taking him home.

A Dose of Cuteness

Jazz Number 6

Todd works a lot of Saturdays.  So, sometimes I take the kids to the craft store.  Especially when the weather is cold and wet and just begs us to stay indoors.  On this particular trip, we got a giant jar of miscellaneous crafts for $10.  It was full of beads and stickers and pom poms and popsicle sticks.  It was a dream come true.  It made one heck of a mess of my home (as my mother-in-law can attest), but it kept both kids entertained ALL. DAY. LONG.  That's hours of fun for $10.  One of Norrin's creations was "Jazz Number Six".  Hope you enjoy :).

Happy Halloween 2012

Despite a horrible storm that was followed up with cold weather, Halloween happened right on schedule.  The kids had school, their Halloween parade and their Halloween parties.  Todd was able to see their parade for the first time and it was as cute as always seeing all the little ones in costume.  As you can tell from the video, its still pretty windy and Ani Rose didn't care for her owl hat, but kept it on anyway :).  Norrin sang the five little pumpkins song around his scary vampire fangs, which was an impressive feat all on its own.  As for trick or treating, we gave it a try in our neighborhood this year and it was a great time.  The kids got an obscene amount of candy and Ani didn't want to speak to anyone, but anytime they put candy in her bucket, she would smash it down in there, nice and tight :).

A very cloudy sky for the parade.

Grumpy Ani Baby Rose.

 My scary vampire.

Wagon, candy and teddy bear- this girl has the life.

 Norrin and his best friend, Scottie.  Norrin wanted out of his costume as soon as he was done trick or treating.  Scottie is a zombie doctor.