Presents

When I was growing up, I was a master at unwrapping my presents and then ever-so-carefully wrapping them back up so my parents wouldn't know I'd been in them. I'm sure they did know but they pretended not to anyway. My little Audrey is falling right in my footsteps. I don't know what it is about a wrapped gift with my name on it that makes me go a little "insane". Even now, at 33, I can't keep my hands off my gifts. I shake them, poke at them, ask a million questions about them, and bait the giver until I get them to succomb to my pressure and just tell me what it is. It is a very rare event around here when I am surprised about a gift I have gotten. I just can't take it- if it is under the tree with my name on it, I have to KNOW.

This year, I put a present for Audrey under the tree fairly early. I didn't put any others under there and didn't tell her I'd even put it there. I wanted to see how long it would take her to notice. The tree is in our dining room and that room is at the bottom of our stairs. Audrey has to pass right by it anytime we come down from her room. She noticed the gift immediately and asked whose it was. I very nonchalantly told her it was hers and tried to distract her with a snack. She took to the snack and I thought she'd forgotten the gift.

She didn't.

 She just waited until I wasn't standing right over her to take a peep. I'm not exactly sure when she did it or if she really saw what was inside. She admitted that she looked and said she didn't know she wasn't supposed to. :) I believed her precious little 3 year old self. This will be the last year she gets to use that excuse though.

That sweet girl loves everything about Christmas this year- especially this tree that she helped me decorate so well. I think we may just keep it up all year so Audrey can move all the ornaments around as she pleases.

33

The first birthday I blogged about was my 30th. We left our almost 4 month old with my in-laws and took off to The Grand in Point Clear for the weekend. I can't believe I did that and I can't believe I am blogging about my 33rd birthday now. A lot has changed in the past three years. For starters, I remember that I was very concerned about making my 30th birthday "memorable". I kept telling Clay that we had to make it special because it was my "30th" birthday! For my 33rd birthday, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do. When asked what I wanted for my birthday, my response was a day off. I did get a new wireless printer, a date night, the second book in The Hunger Games series and some free time! My two girls worked hard to make my day special by letting me sleep in, helping daddy make my birthday cake and we invited some sweet friends over for dinner. I think my 33rd birthday was more "memorable" for me than my 30th. Like I said, a lot has changed in 3 years around here!

The morning of my birthday, I slept until I woke up. What I mean is, I slept until I WOKE UP- not when a little person woke me up or my alarm clock. I loved it. While I was sleeping, my precious ones were working on my birthday card.

 Their sweet Daddy was keeping them busy!

 My momma has always made me a Pea Pickin' cake for my birthday. Well, as long as I can remember anyway. Since we live 3.5 hours from her and my birthday is so close to Christmas, I don't always get to see her on the actual day. Clay has graciously taken up the task of making this cake for me. He's gotten really good at it! Those of you who know Clay know how special this is- he doesn't eat foods like this. He made this cake completely for me knowing he wouldn't take a bite of it. He likes it, he just doesn't eat foods that are "bad for you" like cake! He's a disciplined fella.

 This picture is of when everyone was singing "Happy Birthday" to me. I'm not sure why but I was feeling pretty embarrassed at this particular moment. I love the expression on Audrey's face though. She loves special occasions and she was loving singing to her momma.

 I put this final picture in because I think Clay looks so handsome. I love it when he wears this blue shirt. He was multi-tasking like a champ, too! Audrey told him he was a superhero the other day and I think this picture proves it. He can do it all.

The day/weekend was wonderful but it seems like I just celebrated my 30th birthday yesterday. It's hard to believe that it was 3 years ago. I hope the next 3 years don't go by so quickly.

Playdate

We went over to Lyric's house last week and painted salt dough ornaments. Erica and I have become addicted to Pinterest and decided that we need to have a once-a-month craft playdate with our girls. She hosted the first one and I will do next month. We are doing them in the afternoons after nap- that is the hardest time for me to fill and with Clay starting his outages, we need something constructive to do!

The actual craft lasted about 10 minutes.  They enjoyed it while it lasted though! Plus, I have some super cute ornaments for the tree! :)

Wordless Wednesday: Park Play

Mcwaneing

We went with some friends to see McWane's new Winter Wonderland exhibit. I love that place. It is so worth the annual fee!! Smiley stayed home with Daddy so he could get some snuggle time with her and I was able to play with Audrey one on one. It's so easy to just take Audrey somewhere! She no longer needs me to take anything with us except just her. I love that!


We played in the snow... this was Audrey's favorite. They have a zipline that I tried to get her to go on but she wasn't interested. It was a little too scary this year.

 In the space shuttle taking us to the moon.

 Playing with the blocks... see how she has her sleeves pulled up? She does that all the time. She says that is how they are 'posed to be. Drives me crazy but I love it at the same time!?! What I love is that she is her own little person and can make her own choices about silly little things like how she wants to wear her sleeves.

 She's at a bit of a clumsy stage. She does lots of falling and flipping and just overall losing her balance. In the picture below, she was just pushing these cars around (she told me to move off the road cause I was in the way) and fell and hit her head. Huge bruise and cried and cried.

 By the time we left, we had to visit the snow one more time. I would have just let her play there the entire time but they have a time limit (10 min?) so we have to leave and then get back in line again. Later she told me she wanted some snow for Christmas. I'll add that to her list with the soap dispenser. Haha

Smiley

My little Smiley girl is absolutely into everything. Audrey was never interested in much of anything but Clay and me. She still doesn't get into anything. For example, I have an wire angel on a side table in my den. It was given to me by a student when I was teaching. It's been on the same table for about 4 years or so. Audrey's never touched it. She only noticed it for the first time when Shelby Claire pulled it off the table today!

Playing with the clothes in the hamper is big fun! This will entertain her for a good 10 minutes.

 This was before we got the baby gates up. I underestimated her intelligence. I thought that if I put a gate a the entrance by the den, she wouldn't know that there was a second entrance to the dining room through the kitchen. Big fat wrong!

 This is a picture of her figuring out how to move the gate that I put at the dining room door in the kitchen. Yes, she can wiggle her way right around that door.

Found the stairs. Loves the stairs. Scares the you know what out of me. Seriously, Audrey NEVER cared about any of this stuff. We "baby-proofed" but it was completely unneccessary. We did it because the baby books told us we needed to. Shelby Claire is going to put all those baby gates, locks, bands, and guards to good use!!

She got herself a huge bruise on her forehead the other day climbing into the fireplace. She loves to get herself in the fireplace and knock all those candles off. She is literally in it. Behind that black screen! Notice the quilt that is on the hearth. That quilt was plenty to protect Audrey from bumping her head on the brick. She never tried to pull it off or bother it. Smiley pulls it off and gets herself tangled up in it about 20 times a day. It's time to invest in some of those ugly corner guards for the hearth!

I love this sweet girl and her curious little personality. Even if it means that I am going to have to put locks on the windows and the refrigerator!

Tree Decorating

The day after we got back from the mountains was spent decorating our house for Christmas. I had worried over where to put our tree because Shelby Claire is at a stage where she is into everything. The last thing I want to do is have a baby climbing our Christmas tree. We ended up sticking it in the dining room. I like it there because you can see the lights from the street. We thought it would be "out of sight, out of mind" for Smiley but, um, not so much! We ended up putting gates at both doors to the dining room to keep her out of it.

 Audrey helped me decorate the tree this year and LOVED EVERY MINUTE of it. She told us to "put some moosic on" so we could dance! Love her!

On our honeymoon, Clay and I picked up an ornament from Newport, RI. Since that first ornament ten Christmases ago, we've collected an ornament for each vacation we go on. We've added other random ornaments for the girls and now almost every ornament on the tree has a special meaning to us. We joke that if the house were on fire, I'd run back in (after safely getting the girls out) and get my ornaments!

 Despite my love of those ornaments and the memories they bring back to me, none are as special as my Audrey. Let me tell you, it took every ounce of self-control I had to allow her to help me but I kept reminding myself, "It's just an ORNAMENT!".  She unpacked just about every ornament (even the super fragile ones) and hung them on the tree or told me where she thought I should put them. She hung about 50 on the lower branches and that's where they stayed. Our tree is pretty skimpy on the top but boy does it look fan.tas.tic on the bottom! Thankfully, we didn't break any that day but that's not to say that they won't be broken before we get them back in there boxes. Not only did she enjoy decorating the tree the first day, but she likes to rearrange the ornaments on a daily basis. I moved the handprint ornaments to the very top and just let her have at it on the bottom.

That little outfit Shelby Claire is wearing is a size 24 month and Audrey wore it last year. I'll leave you all with that little tidbit to think about!