Wild Animal Park

Can I just say, before I start with how cute my children are, that I really hate it when places change names. Like Christmas on the Prado, when they started calling December Nights? Lame! The newest victim has been the Wild Animal Park, which is now something involving the word Safari. Super lame. So let the record show, that I will be sticking with calling it the Wild Animal Park.

We went there last week. To the Wild Animal Park. We met up with our friends Maegan and Conrad. Conrad is only 6 months (or so) older than Ellie. He is one of the cutest little kids you will ever see. Even if he is unsure about Ellie hugging him.
We spent the day walking around, playing at the play ground, and having a fun time together.
We even caught the bird show, which I haven't done since Grace was a baby. It was fun though.
I got to use my new stroller. Although it works so much better than my old stroller, it still gave me a pretty good work out.
All in all, it still a fun place to take the kids (as long as it isn't summer). And I guess I will continue to support them, even if they are messing with my head with the whole name changing thing. :)

Sisters here and sisters there, sisters everywhere!

I started a new project to try to improve my photography skills. It is called project 356 and basically the goal is to take a picture every day for a year. Hopefully it will help me capture more random pictures of everyday life. I figure I do this more or less anyways, but this is helping me be more disciplined about it. I have made it the first 16 days of the year strong, so hopefully I can keep it up.

Here are a few days from last week.

The girls enjoying their sandwiches after grocery shopping in the car. It is one of our favorite "treats."
Grace has been plugging away at her Kindergarten work. Ellie wants to keep up with her sister, so she enjoys coloring while Grace works.
The girls heading out to church. Ellie is sporting her new Christmas clothes. It is adorable now that she is walking well. She looks like a little doll. The best part is her personality is as sweet as she looks.

Soaked feet

Out with the old, in with the new

As anyone who knows Grace knows, she LOVES to color. We go through a lot of crayons. I am fairly picky about the crayons we use (becuase when Crayola says they are washable it actually means they are, and with Elizabeth in the house, that is important). I hate wasting money and I always felt bad about the mass amount of old, broken crayons I was constantly throwing away.

I found this idea online and Grace and I did it. It was really fun and now we have new crayons! They are perfect for Ellie's little hands, are pretty, and the girls can't break them. Win-Win-Win.
I had read online that if you do a lot of colors together sometimes they end up being an ugly brown color. So we sorted them into basic groups.
After baking them until they melted, and then we waited for them to dry.
It was a little like watching paint dry. So we eventually put them in the fridge to hurry up the process. Once they were cold, we popped them out. They color pretty well. I cut them in half to make them a little easier to use. But all in all, a fun and productive afternoon.

Sisterly Love

Ballet days

After the Christmas break, Grace was excited to get back to ballet. I took a few pictures of her first day back. She was so excited to wear her new outfit, too. Thanks, Grandpa Dick. :)


During ballet Elizabeth and I hang out. Her favorite pastimes include going through my purse and pretending to talk on my phone.

Out side time

In the breaks between the rain, the girls and I have been playing outside. It is nice that it isn't too hot, even if it is all muddy. It is nice that Elizabeth is now old enough to run around and enjoy the outdoors.

I get bored easily being outside, so I take pictures. It gives me a chance to practice my skills, plus, who can resist a face this cute??

Grace doesn't always enjoy getting her picture taken. She would prefer to dance.
Or take silly pictures.
But on occasion, she cooperates. As does the light. This may in fact be the best picture I have ever taken.
I also got some good shots of some sisterly interaction. As you can see, it is hard being the little sister.

This was Elizabeth's first time interacting much with Oreo, the cat. The funny thing is that Oreo doesn't usually like people very much. But she totally let Elizabeth pet her.
It was super cute.

Unfortunately, Oreo isn't a good conversationalist. But then again, neither is Ellie.

And one more for that animal people out there.

Mommy's little helper

Rain Rain go away....

Actually, I think these crazy two kinda like it.

Sweet baby Ellie

Elizabeth got some cute new clothes for Christmas, and I thought I should take some pictures of her in them before she stains them, as she has a habit of doing.

We walked around outside and did some of her favorite things. Like throw her little bear on the ground so she can watch me try to get it before the dogs do.
We also sat up on the porch. She pointed out her new "shoooooo"s.
A gift from Grandpa Dick, they are super cute.
She has the sweetest baby cheeks.
She hung out with Lady Bug for a while too.
And then walked around enjoying the sunshine.
Her new clothes were cute, but with a modeling skills like that, I think she could wear a paper bag and still be cute!

Christmas part 5

I am thinking I should have thought of a more creative name for these post, but I am still kinda of tired from all that Christmas partying.

Christmas day was pretty low key at our house. We had opened all the gifts the night before. It was Saturday which is one of Gunnar's bigger work days, and we were going out of town the next day so we really didn't have time for much. Most of the day was spent cleaning, doing laundry and packing. We did take a little break in the afternoon to take a walk. My birthday/Christmas gift was a new double jogging stroller, and with the bad weather we hadn't been able to try it out before then.

We went to Harbor Island or maybe Shelter Island, I can't really tell them apart. The girls seem to enjoy their new ride, except for their noses got a little cold towards the end.
It was however, a beautiful day for a beautiful walk, with my wonderful family. The best Christmas gift a girl could want.

Christmas part 4

Another one of my favorite Christmas Eve traditions is the service at our church. There is a Christmas Choir, Gunnar speaks, we get to hold candles. It is especially neat, I think, that the last two years have been packed, especially since the first year had very few people. I think there were more people this year in the Christmas Chior than were at the whole service the first year.

Grace enjoyed holding the candle. Although after a little bit she said she was scared it was going to burn her and she gave it back to me.
After the service we took some family pictures. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had already fallen asleep. It is hard being a baby!

Christmas part 3

The whole week leading up to Christmas had been rainy and cold. Christmas eve, however was sunny and beautiful. Since we didn't really have enough room in the house, we decided to have our traditional Christmas Eve dinner on the porch.

While we were waiting for some of our guest to arrive, we opened a few gifts, as Grace had been on the edge of her seating waiting to open some.
Maria got new Christmas footwear from Gunnar.
The girls got to open some gifts from a sweet lady from out church.
Ellie got a new squishy baby...so sweet.
Finally our guest got here and we baked in the sun while we ate.
Elizabeth and I got the bright side.
After eatin we went inside and opened gifts. Gunnar got the Snuggie from Sonja.
The girls were thrilled with the present opening frenzy.

In typical child fashion, Elizabeth thought all the paper was as fun as the gifts.
Grace got a tea set from my parents. She proceeded to invite her aunts to a tea party.
And a few pictures before everyone left.

With Aunt Sonja:
With the Hiltons:
And with Grandpa Dick. This one is my favorite, as Elizabeth was too busy talking on her shoe phone to stop for picture taking time. :)
We had a great time together. Christmas Eve dinner with the family is always one of my very favorite Christmas activities!