Perched

As Alyssa is getting so good at crawling and pulling herself up on things, she is fun to watch find new places in the house. This morning she was excited that she could look out the window. She sat there for more than 10 minutes just babbling away about the few inches of snow we got last night and she was very excited when she saw the garbage truck come by.

Our Happy/Smiling/Laughing Girl

For 2 days in a row, Alyssa has only taken one nap. The funny thing is that she still acts like she is ready for a nap, I put her in her crib, and for the next 2 hours she just plays. The great thing is she is happy when she is ready to get up.

This is her when I went to get her, happy and laughing. She just recently learned to pull her self up on things so I am not sure if that is what is keeping her from napping (maybe not though cause yesterday when I went in and peaked at her, she was laying on her back playing with her toes). She does think she is pretty big and has that look of accomplishment all the time now that she can crawl anywhere she wants, get from laying to sitting to laying all on her own, and pull her self up on things on her knees. I actually think it is more likely that she sleeps so much and so well at night so during the day doesn't need as much. Either way, as long as she is so happy, she can do what she wants. It is such a joy in my day to hear her happy sounds all the time.

While I am on the topic of happy, cute girls. Here is Kaitlyn on her new pony that the neighbors were getting rid of. She rides it all over, she gets quite the work out. She even packed her backpack and rode to North Carolina.

Ward Christmas Party

We had our ward Christmas party last night!


They had face painting and Kevin showed off his skill:)



Kevin and Bryson loved that they had playdough to play with while waiting for everything to get going and also to play with while listening to the talent show.




This doesn't have anything to do with the ward party but they gave this mask to Kaitlyn while she was grocery shopping with me this morning - it is so fun having Christmas with the kids!!!

Traditions

Since this is our first year not traveling for the holidays to visit family, we started some traditions on our own...
The kids were quite impressive with their gingerbread houses. Kaitlyn's was appropriate since she loves candy and tried to eat as much as possible but also wanted to put on tons on her house. Bryson did all of his on his own, the design and all. He told us that the one Kaitlyn made and the one mom made were just for decoration because there were no openings but his is for the gingerbread man because he made an opening in the fence and the house. He also thought all on his own to do the lightpoles around the outside, the green tree in the backyard and the red tree which is a cherry tree in the backyard, he also thought of doing a "trap" walkway so that when the gingerbread man walks across it and eats some of the candy that he will fall in the backyard, and then my favorite was the chimney - he said that the gingerbread man has never gotten presents from santa before so he blocked off the chimney with candy to make sure santa doesn't come in this year. Creativity #1!!!

Another tradition we decided we wanted was Ice Skating, so we went this afternoon with another family in the ward, the Everetts. Bryson started off needing to hold someone's hand.



Then he progressed to using the wall for help.



And then even though this isn't the best photo, he amazed us by skating around the rink pretty quickly all by himself several times, he will sleep good tonight!
Kaitlyn on the other hand would only skate if we held both her hands.



I am sure it was quite hard on her, so she took a break to play in the snow and play with her friend, Johnny.



Alyssa was once again perfect even though it was FREEZING cold.


Even though it wasn't as warm as when we went ice skating in California, it did have a beautiful surrounding with the Wabash River behind us.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Snow Storm

We got 10+ inches of snow Saturday night. We had no church on Sunday and the kids didn't have school on Monday. We enjoyed staying nice and warm in the house. Kevin did venture out to shovel our driveway and it was quite the job. His back has been hurting for days, he says that if we continue with these types of storms, a snow blower will move from the list of wants to the list of needs.



I got the kids snow pants just days before the storm, not they had everything and could enjoy playing in the snow! Their favorite part was sliding down the slide. Kevin even helped them make a ramp at the bottom so they would slide further!

Icy Wonderland

When the weather said ICE, it wasn't kidding. This is how it looked all weekend and in fact still looks. The temp was about 30 and raining. It would then make icicles or coat everything. We were fascinated with the grass and the individual frozen blades.

Breakfast with Santa

Purdue had a breakfast with Santa on Saturday morning. We went and had pancakes and then they had crafts for the kids. They also had a fun gingerbread house for the kids to play in.


The best part was visiting Santa. This is our 3rd time talking to Santa this year and the first for Kaitlyn getting on his lap. You would never know she is "too scared" from that smile.