December Fun

We have been having a wonderful December. We are mostly settled into our new house. The girls enjoyed their annual gingerbread house making with Gramma and Trekker. Edith had to be watched carefully because she likes to nibble on the gingerbread pieces as you help build her house. Addie and Trekker showed a little more restraint.

On Saturday we went to the Old Sturbridge Village 12 nights of Christmas celebration. We had a nice time finding neat things in each of the houses. We tried gingerbread, fruit cake and some cider. The cider was warmed with a hot poker dipped in the pitcher. The girls had a fabulous time leaving Brian and I behind to have fun exploring with Gramma and Grampa. One of the buildings had a bunch of gingerbread houses to look at. Gramma was showing them to Edith and then realized Edith had leaned over and started gnawing on one of the displays. Oh my!

Addie has been enthralled with the story of Jesus' birth and one of her new favorite games is to play "Mary and Joseph." Here she has the whole family set up with my nativity set along with a few extras, a sheep and some beads (cookies according to Addie).

Perfume

Well the people who lived in this house before us shopped a lot. Or at least I guess they did from the huge amount of catalogs and fliers we receive. Today we got a set of fliers with about 10 different little perfume inserts. I set them out so Addie could play with them. The funniest thing is how Addie describes the so called perfumes.

1: Stinky bathroom ick
2: Orange stink
3: Strawberry ickys

"They all smell bad."

An untrained and honest nose.

This reminds me of the last time we went in a port-a-potty. Addie opened up the door and went inside. Then she said something about how it smelled so wonderful. It was overly deodorized rather than stinky, but I just cracked up.

Sisterly Love

This evening while I am making dinner the girls are playing rather wildly. Then I notice it is awfully quiet. This makes me wonder what are they into that they are not supposed to be. I knew I had left a bunch of buttons and such out for a sewing project I am working on. Well what did I discover but the girls snuggled on the couch peacefully looking at a book together. Awww.

And another scene of love. Edith had fallen asleep in the car. Addie was then holding her hand and decided to pretend to be asleep herself. What a wonderful thing it is to have a sister. I know I will always treasure my own and I see that these two girls will have lots of memories together as well.

Little Shopper and The Best Doll

Addie continues to be an amazing shopper. I took her with me while I shopped for a new pair of jeans. She loved helping me pick out which ones to try on and telling me which pair looked the best. Then she wanted to keep shopping and shopping when I was ready to go home. She did complain that the kids' clothing store was boring and wanted to go look at more Mom clothes.

We went again today, this time with Edith. She had the best time and did not want to go home. "Let's keep shopping, Mom." The funniest thing was that she scolded me for taking too long in the toy store.

In other news, Addie has discovered that she can dress Mabel. Mabel is not thrilled with this but has learned to listen to Addie's commands and tolerate being made beautiful. What a sweet dog she is. I am so glad the two are such buddies.

Thanksgiving

We had a nice day out at my parents celebrating both Thanksgiving and my sister's birthday. The girls were absolutely tuckered out the next day. Edith enjoyed her pie sampler and both girls ate a lot of food.

The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. My favorite is our wonderful families.

There be tall pirates here.

We have noticed that Addie has had a huge growth spurt. Her ankles are getting cold hanging out of her pants. Here she is wearing(for the last time) her favorite hoodie she got this summer. Just look at her wrists poking out! That is a lot of growth in a few months.

Addie is delighted with her face paints that she got for her birthday. She asks to use them almost everyday. We all had fun painting our own faces. Addie made herself a pirate (I helped with the bandanna), Edith had fun making herself a rainbow person (?), and I even gave myself a little crown (with a few green accents from Edith). Addie is showing off her best pirate face, Arr. Face painting also demonstrates how Edith is obviously right handed as she basically just paints the right side of herself.

Artist Addie

Today Addie decided she would draw one of her favorite babies. She tried to trace her head and then had me come help her. Then she colored her in. It was real cute to see her keep picking up Baby Ann to look at her to see what she should draw next. She did struggle with the eyes because brown marker does not show up well on top of brown marker or the same color. The black ring around the eyes is the mouth. Impressive, Addie! What was great is that Addie did all of this without any prompting from me. All I did is supply the requested white pencil for the eyes.