More Christmas

Forgot to add some of my dad's pictures from Christmas.

Emmery giving Gramma her Christmas ornament.

Mikey must have been a REALLY good boy this year.  He has been dying to get his hands on one of these  blenders!  Thanks "Santa!"

We were hoping to get some good family pictures but the weather was just not cooperating!  Marc really wasn't either.

Christmas

My parents and Kate came down to Houston for Christmas this year.  We had an awesome time.  So awesome that we didn't even break out the cameras until Christmas Eve!!  Oh well, we still got some good shots.  This was the first year that Emmery actually "got" what Santa was all about.  Leading up to the day we kept reminding her that Santa was coming and bringing her gifts.  When people would ask her what she wanted for Christmas, she would always say a new stroller.  The baby stroller that my mom had gotten for her birthday was pretty mangled and abused so we got rid of it.
On Christmas Eve they both opened their gift from Nanny and Pop, new jammies!  Emmery was so cute when we put them on her, she did this slow twirl thing while we snapped pictures.

On Christmas morning all of the adults were up before the kids.  I'm sure that is the last time that will ever happen!!!  Until they're teenagers at least.  Kate slept in Emmery's room with her, that way we could make sure she wouldn't sneak downstairs in the middle of the night.  She texted me when Emmery was making her way down the stairs.  Marc was still sleeping.

When Marc woke up he went straight to his new tricycle.  He's still too small but he'll be riding all over the place soon!

Marc is trying out his new monkey slippers.

Em got to try out her new skates in the house!

Later in the afternoon Mikey took Emmery outside to practice some skating.  The weather was so dreary, but that wasn't going to stop her!

Already confident enough to let go of Daddy's hand!  She's a natural!!

Santa

Last weekend Mikey cleaned and rearranged the pantry.  The next day, the kids were awful quiet, and here's where I found them...

Emmery is painting some craft sticks here.  I didn't take a picture of the final product because it turned out pretty bad.  Not Emmery's fault, mine.

She got ahold of the glow sticks and decided to crack them all at the same time.

Marc is so proud of himself!

I don't know what it is about kids and cleaning, but she loves to sweep and mop the floors, wipe down the tables and chairs...

Marc loves yogurt!  He's a mess here but he actually does a good job of keeping himself clean most of the time.  This morning after he was done eating I noticed there was not one drop of yogurt on his bib!  Pretty impressive for 14 months!

Lazy Sunday morning blowing bubbles on the back porch.  Em insisted on wearing her sunglasses.

Giving daddy some sugar...

On Sunday evening we went to a Christmas party put on by my playgroup.  It was really nice, Santa made an appearance!

Coloring at the party

Emmery was timid at first, but she warmed up and went right up to him...

Even posed for a picture on his lap!

Marc, however, was having none of it!

Even tried one with me holding him...

Finally some cool weather!

Last weekend we took advantage of the cold front and went to the zoo on a Sunday.  Like we suspected, not many Houstonians would venture out in the cold.

A friend of mine gave me this idea to work with counting.  Emmery can count to ten very easily.  I'd like to start working on counting from 11 to 20.  So I introduced this activity with the numbers she knew already.  I was actually surprised to see that she had some trouble putting them in order.  I guess just counting out loud is different than being able to visually put the numbers in order.  So we will definitely be doing this again.  Her attention span is so short though.  She probably put them in order about 3 times and was ready to play with the play dough.

With Christmas approaching we've been receiving lots of packages.  There were a few sitting by the front door, so Emmery started playing with them.  Finally I walked up there to see what she was doing.  She built a ramp!  She ran into the living room and grabbed a ball, put it at the top and watched it roll down again and again.

Marc had to get in on the action...

These flameless candles were on sale at Costco.  When we got home Em was dying to play with them, so Mikey lit each one.  I grabbed the camera thinking it might look like we're letting the kids play with fire.  They look pretty fake though...