New Years! Welcome 2011!

We got to bring in the New Year (well sort of...until bedtime for the little ones that is) with our dear friends the Checks and Bonfiglios. The kids played and the grown ups chatted with pizza and snacks...pretty much your ideal set up. As usual we waited a bit too long for pics so Makin was tired and we had limited time for cooperation, but we had to try.


Brad and I didn't even make it until midnight...maybe someday we will be cool enough again...but I'm not so sure, sleep is a dear friend these days. :)

Happy New Year!

So Handsome

Those eyes...that dimple...we are gonna be beating the girls away with a spoon! ;) And I'm not a biased Mommy talking at all. :) Love you little boy!

Its Starting...

He is wanting to play with toys, wanting to be entertained, wanting to sit up or stand up...our little guy is growing up! It's almost over night all of a sudden he is not that little newborn anymore...the sleepy part of me is very, very ready for this, but the part of me that was SO ready for Lorelei to hit all the milestones coming up, now realizes that I'm not so eager for it to fly by. Thankfully, Makin seems to be pretty laid-back, so I have a feeling we will have to be happy with some slow-going milestone reaching, but I think I'm okay with that. :)


(Makin I apologize for the pink Bumbo...I want to make sure you like it before getting a more manly color, plus who wants to move an extra Bumbo!?)

If Lorelei Had Coffee

Well she didn't do it quite as funny as she usually does, but at least you get the idea. :)

Ahhh

That is the look of "my mom FINALLY let me sleep laying on my back!" Because of reflux and the colds/allergies/trouble breathing Makin has had, I have kept him sleeping in his bouncy seat. The doc said it would be fine until he was 4 months. I finally decided it was time to give it a try and so far it is going well. :)

Where is Lorelei?

Why hiding in the tiny corner to get away from the vacuum of course. :) She is a pretty fearless little girl, but the vacuum is definitely at the top of her list. I would also include "carey monsters" in the dark and sometimes heights. :)

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Melissa made us these muffins when Makin was born and Brad, Jeanette and I were instantly addicted. We finally have the recipe so had to try them out! They didn't seem quite as perfect as Melissa's so I'll have to see if she has any secrets up her sleeve or if I just over-baked, but they were yummy nonetheless!

I honestly want to do more baking with Lorelei, but it is not easy to time it. I knew I wanted to make them so had the supplies etc ready so we made a mad dash as soon as Makin fell asleep because we knew we would have 30 minutes for just the two of us. While the mashing of banana's didn't keep her quite as occupied as I thought, she LOVED spooning the banana mush into the bowl to mix it all in. At least there are a few busy chores she can enjoy. :) I was also very glad to have an indoor activity to keep us busy with the cold snowy weather outside. :)

Pillow Punk

Yet another reason I LOVE weekends...and my husband. :)

SNOW...again!

Yeah...we may as well live in Minnesota...at least they have snow plows!

Snow...Day 1
Daddy duty! Brad was the brave parent who took Lorelei, who had been bugging us to go out as soon as she stepped out of her room that morning, out into the cold snowy day! It took 45 minutes to put her in four layers of pants, socks, and shirts, and they were outside for about 15! We are investing in snow-pants in the near future, that is for sure! She was very, very excited to build a snowman, only to be devastated that they couldn't build one that day. She even had her carrot nose all ready to go.



In case I didn't already have enough reasons to dislike snow, lets add - making the already crowded and messy apartment even messier!










Took a couple pics of the boys...just loved Makin's face in the top one. Brad, you should have been looking...hasn't he figured that out by now? The parent ALWAYS HAS TO BE LOOKING!!!

Just to let you see the amount of snow...measured 1 ft at around 4 pm... and it was still snowing when we went to bed. :)



Snow...Day 2

So much fun putting on many layers again (ha!)...and cramming on her rain boots...but this time Mom had to bundle up too, because, although Brad was home, he was working. As soon as I got Makin asleep on the dryer, we started bundling up to head out. We are just thankful Brad was at least home a) not to drive in this and b) at least we got to get outside since he was there to listen for Mr. Makin!


And the best news is...Lorelei got her snowman! The other good news is...Mom got a much needed work out after all those Christmas goodies! :) We were outside for about an hour and a half having tons of fun building our snowman, making snow angels, and then attempting a quick sledding job that went downhill fast...no pun intended but it was really quite funny after typing it. :)


As you can see, Lorelei was in love with her snowman and even gave it a kiss and a hug. Even though she was crying her eyes out from being cold, hungry and tired, she still didn't think she should go inside. Our outdoor adventure girl! Hopefully we can try and have some more fun on the balcony tomorrow. :)

They Clean Up Pretty Good

After three days we finally got some pictures of the two kids dressed up for Christmas. Still with the flash going off. Brad and I were ready to throw the camera out the window, so this is as good as its gonna get. Can't quite decide which is my fav. Let me know which is yours if you want one sent your way!

Christmas Day

There were two highs of the day. The first one was Lorelei waking up (after sleeping in!) and when we asked her if she remembered what day it was she said "Santa Day!"...well either that or Saturday, either one was accurate but I'm betting on Santa. :) She rushed out excited to see her presents and was ecstatic to see Santa had been there and enjoyed his snacks too!

Of course, the crazy present opening began. Makin ended up taking a nap mid-presents, but thankfully Lorelei was willing to break for a bit to get him to sleep.

We finally ate lunch around two, but by that time Lorelei had so many snacks she didn't care about food, and then took a great nap and enjoyed playing with toys the rest of the day.

Lorelei brought out a blanket and enjoyed her new panda pillow while watching some TV.













Second high of the day: A White Christmas starting at about 9 P.M. No, the SNOW was not my high, but we knew Lorelei had not quite fallen asleep yet, so I snuck in her room and asked if she wanted to come see outside because it was snowing. Of course she was THRILLED.





One of the best things about having kids...they make you enjoy the little things so much more...even snow :)

Christmas Eve

It was a crazy day, but I'm just going to stick to the good things. :) That's what we want to remember anyway right? :) We took more pics of them later and will include that in another post.

Beautiful kids ready for a beautiful candle light service where we got to sing Silent Night (one of my favorite parts of the whole season!) Only pic I got of the two kids was after Makin was sound asleep. He stayed awake the entire time until AFTER church and then finally was out for the count.


Lorelei bursting at the seams to open some presents...we let her open one big one, which was a kit of bath toys/instruments etc...so it led very well into bath time that followed! :)


Singing to "Baby G" aka Baby Jesus. We were trying to help it sink in for Lorelei to "get" Christmas, so thought a birthday cake for Jesus would be a good way. We brought out the Little People baby Jesus and she even tried feeding him the cake. :) Hopefully she sort of gets it...we tried anyway!


Bloopers Jingle Bells but still pretty cute and funny. Her favorite part of the entire song was where she got to yell "Hey!" so I was trying to get to that part...but it was already way past bedtime so I guess we can't expect much. I couldn't even get my colors right at that point. :)



Preparing for Santa! Sooo fun! Two cookies, milk and carrot for the reindeer.

And to all a goodnight!

Away In A Manger

Merry Christmas Preview!

Had to share this especially for the grandparents. Miss you all!

Sugar Cookies

As was our entire Christmas season...running a bit behind...were the sugar cookies. We finally got them cut out Thursday evening and then ended up frosting them Friday...not sure that is a tradition I want to continue, but it worked for this year.



Lorelei enjoyed "hep" (helping) roll out the dough and cut them out, but it sure stressed her mother out. :) Somehow my patience had run out when it came to making cut-outs. Maybe I can find a mini rolling pin for her next year and it will go better when she doesn't feel the need to smash the dough with her hands? :)



Friday we frosted. Well, I did the frosting and Lorelei did the major decorating. The first cookie I made I handed it to her on a plate and gave her the sprinkles...or "sprinkies" as she calls them (so cute!)...and what on earth was I thinking? Two seconds later I glanced back at her and she had dumped the entire bottle of sprinkles onto one star. Thankfully Brad was home so he saved many sprinkles and helped me to not have to mess with the clean up. After that there was much help from me with the sprinkling. She also loved the M&Ms and we had quite a few cookies with as many of those as could fit. :) Still yummy though! Now, to eat them!

The Box

I am wondering why we even bought any toys! My mom mailed our gifts in this huge box, and it has stayed in our living room ever since. It has kept her entertained so that she actually doesn't bug me to watch T.V. and is used mostly for hide and seek, but pretty much anything you can imagine. Hooray for simple entertainment!

Pre-Christmas Playgroup

We enjoyed heading over to the Bonfiglio house for a morning playgroup today. Lorelei enjoyed Chase's fire gear, including a home-made fire hose! She also had a lot of fun playing with his remote control car...I'm thinking we may be shopping mostly in the boys section of stores for this girl! At least she lets me dress her in pink. :)
She loved seeing her friends again.













Two out of the three babies! Makin and Leah actually did great taking a few pics together. :)

Christmas Town 2010

We can't say enough of how thrilled we are to get to go to Williamsburg and experience Christmas Town!

I will just start with a disclaimer...there are actually very few pictures of our trip this year. Right before leaving the house I checked the camera and no "low battery" was showing up on the screen...about about 30 minutes into our visit, it started showing up! Brad said, "we should have brought the extra battery." WHAT EXTRA BATTERY!? All this time and we have an extra battery!? Well, I can assure you that battery will be put somewhere close by from now on. :)

We had even more fun this year. For one, because Lorelei was older and super excited, and also because we knew what to expect and had a pretty good game plan of how we would spend our time there. It was also wonderful because we were able to go during the week. While it was still plenty crowded, it was WAY less than it was last year.

We got there nice and early and we had plenty of time before the first Sesame Street show at 3:30, so we went over and saw the Clydesdale horses. Lorelei LOVED the horses. We went in to the barn three different times because she wanted to see them again and again and not leave. She even got to ride a little Clydesdale ride all by herself! She had the biggest smile and giggle and kept saying "Hi Mommy!"

Top Left: Lorelei is infatuated with maps. Pretty much every piece of paper we have becomes a map around the house...so she was thrilled to actually have a real map to look at!

Then we headed back to the SS show. She had been saying ALL DAY - "See Abby!" and I warned her that last time she just got to meet Elmo, so she might have to just see Abby during the show...well to her delight THERE WAS ABBY! She got to go up and see them both but basically ignored Elmo for the first minute or so. Abby even tickled her face with her wand. She was a very happy girl. It worked out to wake up and feed Makin in the nice toasty theater while Lorelei watched the show. So fun!

Right after the show we headed to the train. This was the ride we missed last year so wanted to make sure we got to do it, and were hoping to take it twice, once in the daylight and once in the dark. Lorelei enjoyed it but Makin was not too thrilled with the cold breeze and was soon back to sleep once I had him covered with a blanket (don't worry, was already wrapped up in his parka!). Then after the ride he was content to sleep all bundled up in his car seat the rest of the night.

We went to explore and even got to stop by and see a couple of character penguins (no pic again) which was a lot of fun. She also rode the carousel and absolutely loved it. She loved yelling, "Hi Daddy!" and waving as we went past him. She didn't even want her mom holding onto her during the ride, but I insisted as they didn't even have belts on!

After some whining and crying from Lorelei and coercing from Brad I finally gave in and let him get some S more's popcorn. It made both of them so happy I was wishing I had done it an hour before. Apparently I just need to keep my family fed and we will have much happier campers. Lorelei loved carrying the popcorn on her own and it was hilarious as she would walk along to get the popcorn out of the bucket, but then have to stop to actually get it in her mouth.











We finally made it to the end with the huge Christmas tree (Germany I believe?) and were headed inside to get good seats when a nice man made sure to let us know, "the tree is about to sing" so we stayed just outside the front door and what a show! They had an entire lights show with various Christmas songs and the tree being lit up a million different colors and ways to go along with the music. Too hard to describe, but it was amazing!

Then we headed in and got to enjoy a show with singing and dancing while Lorelei ate some pizza and we had a few snacks. This explains the sauce all over her face for the following pictures. ;) They sang almost every Christmas song you can think of in so many different styles and there were dancers who danced along and changed outfits at least 4 times. They had to have lost 30 lbs per person this month with all that running they were doing and how many times they do that show per night! Needless to say there was plenty of action and fun to keep Lorelei entertained. I loved the circular stage where the band sat and then were raised up and played live for all of the show. There are so many amazing shows we would love to go to here. It would be an awesome date night. Maybe someday!

We headed back and decided to forgo the extra train ride for time and freezing cold purposes, but ended up hitting up taking a second carousel ride, per Lorelei's request, and a SECOND Sesame Street show, which happened to be perfect timing to feed and change Makin before heading home. Lorelei loved it the second time as well of course, AND got to go and sit with her favorite friends one more time. This time she paid a little more attention to Elmo. ;)

A great night!

Garden Lights

Sunday evening we headed out to Norfolk Botanical Gardens to see their light's display. It was gorgeous, as we remembered from last year. Lorelei was VERY excited and even more excited when she found out she got to be up front with us! Then, just to prove he COULD be as difficult as his big sister (when we took her at his age, she did the same thing) Makin refused to be happy in his car seat (probably because we were not constantly moving) and decided he needed to be in on the action!

So, this is the way we spent most of the drive through the lights. Thankfully, babies love lights and bright colors! :) Fun had by all.

Santa!

Lorelei has been SO excited about Santa this year. Although she seemed very sure of herself, I was anxious to see if she would still be comfortable when she finally saw the big guy. :) As you can sort of tell from the picture, she was thrilled! She had no trouble walking right up to him and getting on his lap. He even understood what she was asking for, which just shows how special he is, since her very consistent request of a train actually sounds like "tray." :) Lets hope Santa knows the best train for this little girl! :)

As you can tell, there were a few things to keep the kids entertained for their LONG wait for Santa. This included some footprints and cold ice (she pointed out which ones were bird prints...she is so into that stuff!) and then had a blast with the fake snow, as you would guess she would. :) Took a lot of dusting to get her ready for her close-up. :) Makin...well he stayed snug in his car seat to make his Mom and Dad's life that much easier. :)

Lorelei watching a children's choir perform while we ate lunch. She was singing along as well. Something to look forward to in a few years. :)











My apologies for all the questions in the video. She had actually told me all of this information without me asking as we were starting to head out of the parking lot, so was trying to get it on film. She continues to tell me that Santa is at the North Pole and he is wrapping her presents. :)

Something About Little Boys...

and overalls! :) So cute!

We were actually heading out to a MOMS Club party where I then neglected to take any pictures, so this is all we get from that day. :)

Side note: The little bump on his nose is believed to be a stitch giving us problems. Going to send updated pics to the docs next week but they don't seem too concerned...not sure what they would want to do about it anyway! Just there to make me mad about Christmas pictures. ;) Hopefully it goes away soon!





Couldn't decide which was cuter...so you get two. ;)

SNOW

...in Virginia Beach...in DECEMBER!!! This cannot mean good things when winter actually GETS HERE!!! Sorry, when it comes to snow, I rival the Grinch. :) The good news is, we didn't have to go outside! I didn't have to drive in it! It wasn't that bad this time...but I was a bit bummed they didn't flip out and let Brad stay home. :)

Monday morning Lorelei woke up with a nasty cold and you could tell she was not feeling very good...she was quiet! So, I planned for a day of staying around home and keeping warm and was thanking my lucky stars I was not living in MN like my friend Verna! :)

The snowflakes started falling just as Brad was heading to work and Lorelei was thrilled. She seemed content to just eat her toast and have a PJ day, but then after a little bit of deliberating I figured she better get outside and enjoy the snow. She quickly got dressed and bundled up to head out.

She loved making footprints in the snow. She kept looking up at the sky and it looked so cute, then when I tried to get a picture, of course, she quit. After asking her to do it a few times I said in frustration "Are you going to look up at the sky or not?" And as is her usual answer these days with this question. "Not." Saying it plain and simple like it was just one of two choices I gave her and she simply picked that one. :) Ugh!

As Lorelei was playing in the snow...

Me: Eat it! Lorelei: No Yuck! :)

I had to convince her snow was not yucky and told her it would taste like ice. She liked it and kept saying, "Ice! Ice!"













Makin's take on snow...WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME YOU CRAZY LADY!? At first I was going to just leave him cozy in his swing...then realized it was his FIRST SNOW...so had to go out in it. :)













Once I got him calmed down he thought it was okay to look at...as long as Mom was holding him. :)




We topped the morning off with some hot cocoa and Lorelei took the longest afternoon nap ever... :) When Brad was asking her about her day and she was telling him about the snow he asked if she liked it...she said "No! Too cold!" :) Well sure didn't look like she minded but I'm glad she has SOME of her parents blood in her. ;)

Painting Ornaments

Well, as I assume will be the first of many years to come, we broke out the paint and painted ceramic ornaments. Brad is such a good dad and was Lorelei's painting buddy. Of course, he has yet to finish his and gets one half painted by the time Lorelei has done 4...but at least she had a painting buddy. :)

This Is The Way We Eat Our Corn and Mashed Potatoes

...just like Daddy, and Uncle A.J. and Grandpa Schoof! Before even seeing Brad do it, Lorelei started sprinkling her corn over her mashed potatoes. :) Guess it runs in the family on both sides so it's bound to carry on to her too! :) My thoughts...no mixing, no mixing! ;)

A Few Cute Shots...Partial Christmas Card Preview

Okay, so since our family pic does not show off my kid's cuteness enough, I had to take some extras of them so that we could have FOUR pictures. Yes, more torture. Brad was just thrilled that HIS part was done and he didn't have to put on his nice shoes anymore. :)

Some cuties of our sweet little man.


He was finally happy after a long nap. Previous to this we tried to take sibling pics and while Lorelei cooperated BEAUTIFULLY he was not so great. (Big switch there!) But we got a couple that were good enough to end the torture.



And since I can't get enough of him, here is another of Makin. His favorite past time these days is chomping on his hands/fingers. :)