Pooh

Yesterday we had our first successful poo in the potty!Of course we made an enormous deal about it, complete with a sour gummi worm treat (she loves those things) and did lots of dancing and cheering. This dress was so much cuter (and less Mrs Claus looking) before she ripped off the large flower pin on the dress during church.
Buh-bye! She loves to flush and watch everything leave.
She also picked out this snowman at Old Time Pottery on Sunday. It's pretty tacky but was only $7.50 so we got it for her.
Just a few more days until Christmas! It's probably time for me to wrap some presents, huh?? Finally got out about 75 Christmas cards over the last two days, whew!
Exciting and busy times!

Baking

What a busy weekend but I just had to post a couple of pics of my little helper helping me bake our Annual Christmas cookies this morning.

Her outfit today was about the most precious thing on the planet. I got the shirt, skirt and leggings at Walmart for $14. The skirt and leggings will also work great at Valentines. She also LOVES boots right now and they looked so cute with this. She got a TON of comments at Costco when we went to pick up our Christmas cards. She was also doing a lot of dancing, so that helps.I starred 25 different pics of our baking from this morning that I want to print and share. Here's just a couple because I need to finish some cookies for her Sunday school teachers and get on those 100 Christmas cards I need to address.

She really didn't need much help from me this time! She knew just what to do.
Sprinkles are still her favorite.Sneaking a few for herself!
If I can get some wrapping done tomorrow then I'll post the rest, but it seems kind of doubtful! The to-do list is too long this time of year.

Winter Stuff

It's been such a yucky and indoors kind of week due to the weather. It's been so cold, snowy, then the little bit of icy rain that turned to just plain rain on Wednesday night. We've mostly just been hanging around the house on weeknights. I'm so ahead on my shopping this year that I don't feel stressed to get out and shop, but we do need to get our Christmas card done!

We have done a lot of art projects this week. Two nights we painted and tonight we drew with markers (we needed to make a card for a teacher tonight). She just loves to paint and will paint for about 45 minutes, a toddler eternity. All she'll draw right now are elephants, that's what this page is filled with. She's extremely meticulous and focused on her drawings and a lot of them look really good! I just give her a nice brush and let her go to town doing whatever she wants.Here's how much snow we still had Wednesday morning, still quite a bit considering how much had melted and the snow had arrived Sunday night!
Every afternoon she was coming home and immediately asking to go out and play in the snow. By Wed afternoon there was hardly anything left, but she wanted to go so bad. We grabbed her little shovel and headed out but she was pretty upset about how little was left (the rain had started by this point and was washing it away.)
After a couple of minutes she was just downright upset. There wasn't enough to play with and we wouldn't let her eat this dirty 3 day-old snow. It's kind of impossible to explain to an almost 2 year old that snow melts!
While we were doing the dishes a few minutes ago Brent asked me what party I had tomorrow! Tomorrow will be the FOURTH holiday lunch I've had this week. Monday was our Ladies Bible Study lunch (at work), Tuesday was free, Wednesday was my little department's breakfast at Pancake Pantry and today was our overall department potluck luncheon and then tomorrow is our Secret Sister lunch (at work). I am SO tired of food!
Lilli helped me make my stuffed Snickers cookies last night (my absolute favorite cookie). Between trying to take a bite out of every Snicker and then piling them all together on the baking sheet she wasn't the best help but they still turned out great and none of them made it back home. This picture also cracks me up because you can see Pippin standing under the baking sheet at the bottom of the pic hoping for the worst to happen - he's had to wear his sweater all week because it's been so cold (so he's the blue and red stripes above!)

So glad tomorrow is Friday!

O Christmas Tree!

We went and picked out our Christmas tree about a week and a half ago, the same day we went to visit Santa. We've started buying our tree at the neighborhood nursery, ArtHouse Gardens. The owner does so much for our neighborhood that we want to support their business and keep him in business. We could probably spend half as much at Home Depot (esp since we need such a tall tree with our tall ceilings!) but it wouldn't be nearly as personal. And one year our Home Depot tree literally started smoldering on Christmas Eve - their trees are cut super early and not cared for.Here we are with our Tree 0 about a 9 foot tree from North Carolina, organically raised. They suggested we use it in our fire pit after Christmas because it hasn't been treated by any chemicals and is safe for burning.
Here she is in the living room being set up, they're really fresh so the limbs hadn't quite fallen yet.
We did most of the decorating after Lilli went to bed. She's really not that interested in it, she'll sort of play with some of the ornaments but I also put a little 3 foot tree in her room she can touch anytime, so I think that generally helps her leave the big one alone. Pippin greatly enjoys snoozing with the tree in the background.

One of my favorite ornaments is my vintage 1977 Hallmark ornament (my birth year) I got at a flea market from some women who used to come each month with vintage ornaments.
Last year we let her pick out her very first Hallmark ornament. We had some things to get at the mall last weekend so once we tore her away from the tacky lawn art we made a stop into Hallmark to continue the tradition.
My goal is for her to just pick one, but much like last year that's an impossible dream. She likes to play with ALL of them.

This is the one she played with the most and was first drawn to, Santa on a Train. And that does sum up this year pretty well - she LOVES Santa and loves trains!
After we grabbed some dinner at Wendy's we also went to Toys R Us to finish some shopping (what a chaotic, miserable place to be this time of year!!!) Brent played with Lilli while I shopped and she spent about 98% of their time getting in and out of each and every little electric car they had. I think she is going to be VERY happy with her gift from Grandma and Grandpa!

Monday

Now this is how I would've liked to spend the day - nice and cozy and warm! I can always count on those two to keep my lap warm and completely occupied. But it was Monday and a work day so off I went. I think we probably ended up getting between 2-3 inches here at our house. Our roads were still really covered at 6:30 so I went back to bed and ended up going to work around 8 once the roads were warmer, the sun was out and more people had traveled in. Most people did the same and they ended up closing our corp offices at 3 so everyone could be home before dark. Our daycare ended up opening around 10:45, which is around the time they finished installing the new hot water heater, so that worked out well for Brent, too.

He did spend most of the weekend and some of today on the upstairs renovation. Most of the room is painted now and we took a truck load of junk from up there to Goodwill on Saturday. Most of yesterday afternoon was spent removing the mold that's been up on the ceiling since we moved in 4.5 years ago - Before:
Nasty, Nasty, Nasty. Prob due to the really old roof we had inherited.

And this is one Brent took later after he had been Clorox-ing for a while. It ended up looking brand-new and a fresh coat of paint will make it sparkle!:
I forgot to post one of the garb we put Pippin in yesterday. Cold, snowy indoor days just make us torture the poor guy. But I do think he likes wearing his sweater!! He just hates the snow. I don't think he has moved out of his warm little bed tonight at all.
This afternoon when I picked Lilli up most of the snow had melted. We got her little shovel out and we scooped around in the snow more and she played until we once again had to drag her inside because it was SO cold!

She just loves throwing the snow!
And then she started eating it!! Her little cheeks are so chapped from the wind and cold.
I really hope she didn't eat any of Pippin's yellow snow. HA!
Luckily tomorrow daycare will be opening at regular time and hopefully from here on out all snow will be confined to weekends!

The Weekend

The weekend can best be summed by me, washing my hair in the sink on Sunday night, in freezing cold water.Why do things like that not break in the summer when a cold shower or the pool would be a treat? Saturday morning we were heading back in from a kiddie concert at the library and hear our cellar alarm going off signaling a water leak under the house. Sure enough, our 20 year old water heater had gone kaput and was leaking water. Brent ran to Lowes, got the needed supplies to install a new valve to shut off the water to it but allow the rest of the house to have (cold) water, and bought a new water heater. But, it wouldn't be installed until Monday (unless we wanted to pay $95 on top of the expensive of having to have the most expensive type of heater and the already exorbitant fees to install it). So it's been a cold water kind of weekend and there went most of my Christmas bonus! But at least we have heat and water, and can afford the repair without much angst.

We did get a couple of inches of snow today, so here we go with daycare closing and all that joy. Makes me miss the days of actually get snow days ourselves. Now every snowfall only comes with extra stress of making sure we make it to work and figuring out where and who Lilli will be staying with.

But she did love playing out in it and did not want to come in at all!
She had so much fun throwing snowballs.

Poor thing had to be so cold (we were freezing!!) but she did not want to come back inside. She threw snowball after snowball, chased us around and just dug around in it as long as she could bear to. She's still wearing her snowsuit from last year but if she grows an inch this winter we'll be out of luck!
Man, I can't wait for a warm shower tomorrow night!

She Likes to Move It, Move It

Lilli has picked up some absolutely strange dance moves from unknown parts. She'll be doing her odd little bounce around and then all of a sudden, very seriously, straighten her arms like a ballerina and do a twirl. It absolutely makes us fall out in the floor.