Great Holiday Break

Wow. What a WONDERFUL holiday break we had!! I wish Matt could ALWAYS be home and that we could have parties every day and sleep in until 10am like I did several days in a row - ah, that was the life. Now we're back to reality, which is still great, but there are no parties, no sleeping in, and no Matt during the day to hang out with. Thank heavens we at least get vacations to renew ourselves and spend time together as a family.

Christmas was great. Matt told the nativity story on Christmas Eve using our miniature nativity. Amelia LOVED this set and played with it daily.
Santa brought us more than we needed, but it made for a great Christmas. Amelia got a play kitchen and she loves it - she had been pretending to make food for a few months so I knew she would love to have her very own kitchen.
The princess tea set was also a huge hit. She has hosted daily tea parties ever since - if only she didn't want real water in the tea pot - it makes a big water mess, but it's worth it since it brings her so much joy.
Chase got a lot of books and a set of blocks that I'm not sure he really likes :)
I had a migraine most of the day so we missed Christmas dinner with our friends. Matt and Amelia went to Burger King for Christmas dinner as they were picking me up some drugs. It was quite a memorable holiday.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

We hosted a party with 4 of our friends and their families. We had great food, fun activities, and rang in the New Year with a special countdown at 8:30pm so the kids could get to bed at a decent hour. We all had a blast. It was great to have a home with enough space to finally have a party! There were 15 little kids running around and I loved every second of it.


We went after-Christmas shopping over the break and Amelia spotted a princess bed and didn't ever want to leave it! She snuggled in tight with Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Belle. The girl is obsessed. I love it!
Amelia loved playing in the car with her daddy. She saw a fire truck today while we were at the park and she wanted to drive it really badly. She said "drive fire truck" about 20 times on the way home from the park. I think she believes that it will happen if she says it enough. She has been saying phrases over and over again like "go Bella's house" "see doggie?" "momma get it?" Matt and I have wondered if it's an OCD thing and tried to determine if she says it a specific number of times, but there's no magic number :)
Daddy got to spend lots of time with his little boy.

Now we're back to our daily life. Amelia is so incredibly fun. She loves playing pretend and mimicking everything we say and do. Here she is taking a picture of her doggy with her "camera" which is the play phone from her kitchen.


Yesterday she came up to me and said:
"take-a shirt off?"
why? is it wet?
"no"
then why do you want your shirt off?
"I wanna be naked" :)

Once her shirt comes off, the rest comes off too. She then put on her hat and boots and wanted to play outside in the rain. I swear this kid never feels cold.
She loves to make "big towers" by stacking boggle cubes. She counts how many "squares" are in the tower by saying "1, 3, 5, 6!" She can count to 14 but when she's actually counting something she says the same 1, 3, 5, 6! Then she says all the letter she sees in the tower. She's getting pretty good with her letters and tower-building skills :)


Amelia LOVES to play with her little brother. She always says "baby lay down on blanket" so she can play with him. She gives him her toys to play with, but I try not to leave him unattended for too long because this is what I will find:



But at least she likes to share her toys :) We'll see how she feels when he can actually play with them. I wanted to post this picture of Chase in his cousin Jonah's hand-me-down jammies. I totally remember Jonah wearing these EIGHT years ago! Thanks Jonah :)
Chase is such an amazing little boy. I've said that SO many times, but it's true. He is content almost all the time. On Sunday, I put him in his swing in the den thinking he would fall asleep while I was being visit taught in the other room. 40 minutes later he was still wide awake in his swing and didn't make a single peep - he just stared out the window. He's starting to get on a schedule which is really nice and only wakes up once or twice in the night. He now weighs 12.5 lbs and is growing so fast! Amelia is only twice his weight at 26 lbs. He's going to pass her up by the time he's 1! He is smiling and gooing and getting cuter every day. We love our little boy.


Smiling for the camera!
He has the best sad face :(
Here are a couple of video clips. The first is of Chase smiling and gooing. The second is Amelia playing with Chase on Amelia's favorite white blanket. This shows Amelia's new favorite thing to do - talk gibberish while dancing. She then plays peekaboo with Chase. She loves her little brother.