Kids with Santa

Some shots of us with the Santa at our church Christmas party. Not sure who this gentleman is, but he made a dang good Santa! Natalie ran right up to him and told him what she wanted and was thrilled when he gave her a candy cane. 

Angela was not afraid, but certainly suspicious. She was not gonna take her eyes off of him.

And this one hilariously captures how impossible it is to get good posed shots of children. As soon ad Natalie realized that there was a camera, she got very stiff. And Angela...well... she varies a lot from second to second in her expressions. I promise they were enjoying themselves as much as we were!

And, this is sorta random, but I wanted to share some cool pictures I took of some friends from church for their Christmas card this year. I have another friend who is going to have me do some portraits of her baby due in February, which is exciting. I like the chance to use my fancy camera and practice my photo editing.

Christmas Preparations

We have been having a great time preparing for Christmas- attending church functions last week and this week. Last week it was the stake event with a huge collection of nativities, a live nativity outside, a bunch of musical performers, crafts for the kids and cookies. I was asked to make 2 dozen cookies to contribute. I accidentally made 18 dozen. Woops. Then this last Saturday at our ward Christmas party, I did NOT win the sugar cookie competition, which I am slightly bitter about because half the participants, including two of the three winners, were NOT sugar cookies. One was shortbread and another was a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Still, mine were well enjoyed and there were only a few leftovers, which disappeared in our house in less than a day. 

Angela has an ear infection from her cold. It may have been exacerbated by teething symptoms. I think she's finally ready to sprout fangs because she's been biting me when she eats. She's on some medicine now and will hopefully feel better soon because Micah and I are going crazy getting up with her as she screams miserably every hour all night long.

We had joy school today at our house and enjoyed doing some Christmas crafts- we all made hand print ornaments with salt dough. It was super fun and easy. The kids enjoyed helping mix and were mesmerized by me spraying their hands with pam and carefully pressing the prints. Darlene- you should do this with your kids! 1 cup salt, 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup water made a batch for 4 toddler hand prints.

I told the Christmas story with little printout characters and tape. They loved it - and had much more attention for it than the bible videos clip of the nativity. And Natalie likes playing around and rearranging them. Here is one version:

She acts out the wise man giving the gifts to Jesus and the angel telling the shepherds to follow the star. It's nice to hear her telling parts of the story because it tells me that she gets it... somewhat. She also once took all the people away and just left the animals in the manger and had the angel thank all the people for coming. And she played baby Jesus getting a cookie because he was good at Publix.  Here, the donkey is "riding baby Jesus to sleep". 

Natalie's drawing skills have taken a dramatic leap. These are some drawings she did this week. Here is a person, complete with eyes, a mouth, 4 appendages and hair. So far as I know, it is her first representational work that bears any visual clues to resemble the subject.

This one, she explained, is a Daddy. He has a mustache and a beard. Can you see it?

Life as an Angela continues to be tough as big sister knocks her over and is otherwise too rough. She gets a few good bonks each day and is learning to be pretty durable. She fell headfirst into a lego block this morning. At lunch, she still had a slightly red perfect circle on her forehead...

Sniffles

We've had lots of colds in the past few weeks. Micah was really sick and congested last week, Angela has it bad this week, and Natalie and I have just been a little coughy and sniffly here and there. Angela wakes herself up at night and from naps coughing all the time and sometimes it's so bad we have to run in to make sure she's not choking and dying. I've been trying a number of homeopathic remedies, essential oils and saline nose spray, but nothing has helped it clear completely. Good thing, in spite of it all, she can be relatively happy!

 Angela has thick, luscious hair.  And by that, I mean that she is not bald like Natalie was. So I like to do this:

Our friend took us to the aquarium on her membership recently. The world of coke next door had a bunch of giant ornaments on the lawn and Natalie really wanted to sit in them...

This was at EPAR-the end of semester party thrown by a bunch of professors at GA Tech each semester with pizza and beer. We were happy to invite some friends so we weren't the only one with kids. Natalie instantly became popular, offering her soda to "cheers" with the other students' drinks.

Angela is sporting a sticker from the grocery store here. I'm happy now that she can sit in a cart because her and Natalie can ride together in the car cart! Yay!!

Angela gets herself into some interesting situations with her new ability to get around.

 And Natalie has to go to new lengths to keep her toys from Angela's eager hands.

Angela now weighs too much for Natalie to pick her up The most she can do it roll Angela onto her lap. Angela is almost 21lbs and Natalie is 28.

I got a trim and my hair somehow ended up super short. Here's a rare shot of me rocking the kiddies before bed.

Mwahahaha. Trapped!

Thanksgiving

Sometimes, Natalie plays with Angela and it's cute.

Other times, Natalie is pushing Angela away and hitting her when she touches Natalie's toys. Need to work on telling Mommy instead of taking matters into her own hands.

 In other news, it has been over 3 months and I am finally halfway through the 5lb chocolate bar that my Dad got us for our anniversary.

Natalie got a flu shot. And then she got a lollipop, doughnut and some chocolate milk. Oh, the pathetic bribery that it takes for kids to do things that are good for them!

We joined some friends at the zoo on Monday and had a blast!

Thanksgiving dinner was a fabulous affair even though it was just us.

I made an amazing homemade meal with all the essentials

Here is how Angela feels about cranberry sauce:

And this is how Micah feels after trying to glut himself on too much food

Post-dinner snuggles

And we randomly happened upon fireworks for the tree lighting down at Lenox mall while we were on a scenic drive of Atlanta.

Angela is into everything, won't stop moving and stands up on things now.

Now: let the Christmas cookie baking begin!

Sorry, I would write more, but now I have to go feed Angela before passing out, to be woken again every couple of hours all night long.