Father's Day

How can you not love this Dad?

When I told Gabby recently, "Did you know that you have the best dad in the whole world?" She responded, "No, he's not." Stunned, I started to open my mouth with thoughts of insisting that I was right and that she needed to be more respectful, but she got her next line in first. In a very matter-of-fact tone she said, "He's the second best dad in the world. The man I marry when I'm a mom will be the best dad in the world." Wow. She really thought that one out.

For Father's Day this year, the girls surprised Daddy with some large artwork.

They worked extra hard and were covered in chalk by the end of the process.

[Note: No we are not celebrating "Fat Her's Day".]

When Daddy came home the girls made him wear 3-D glasses (it was 3-D chalk) and surprised him. It was actually pretty cool looking with the glasses on.

We printed a photo of their message for the inside of their Father's Day cards. (And don't tell Gabby, but I still think they have the best dad in the world.) ;)

Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we spent the morning with Great Grandma Allred and Great Aunt Sandra's family.  Great Grandma Allred is literally crazy, so we never know what to expect, but she does pretty well with the girls and the girls get along with her by teasing her back.  (Below, Great Grandma is tapping Claire on the head with a pencil.)  Great Grandma does not remember much, so we always have to try to remind her of who we are.  This time, she spent quite a while hitting on Jason.  She said, "Boy, you sure are handsome!" to him more times than I could count.  :)

The second half of Christmas Eve, we spent at our friend's home.  We had a double celebration there: Aksel's 2nd birthday and Finnish Christmas Eve.  (They are from Finland, where the biggest celebrations are on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day.)  They treated us to an amazing feast.  Below, the kids are eating about five desserts at the same time and loving every minute of it.

Here is my good friend, Elina, the talented cook for the evening.  And a glimpse at how happy the world would be if I were tall.

On Christmas Eve, the girls slept in until about 7:15am.  Merry Christmas to us!  They then came downstairs hand-in-hand to discover the scene below.  Santa had brought them a dollhouse and a train set!  [A side note: ever since we have combined the girls into the same bedroom (on a bunk bed), they get up together and always hold hands to come find us.  Very sweet.]

The girls enjoyed opening their gifts that morning.  According to Gabby, her favorite gift is the set of dolls from "Brave" that Claire gave her.  Claire says her favorite gift is the Dream Light that Gabby picked out for her.  I guess Santa didn't need to invest in the big doll house after all....  (Luckily, they are spending a lot of time with that dollhouse too.)

For Christmas dinner, we had some old friends from NYC over, who recently moved to our area.  It was good to have some motivation to cook a real meal.  We also kept our tradition of acting out the section in Luke about Christ's birth.  Below, Gabby is Mary and Claire is Joseph.  Gabby kept wanting to act it out over and over, playing different parts and was sad when she was told it was time for bed.

Christmas Spirit

In December, we began getting into the Christmas spirit.  The girls are the perfect ages now to really get excited about all things Christmas.  Every morning in December, they jumped out of bed just to change the countdown.  (I'll admit, something like that wouldn't get me out of bed before I am ready to be awake anymore.)

The first weekend of December, we went to our city's light festival.  They do a really good job of making it a fun night for the whole family.  We walked along the river trail and stopped to hear carolers and do activities along the way.

While Jason was in Las Vegas, we did some activities at home, like building gingerbread houses.

These sets from Trader Joe's were great, except for one thing.  I am not sure if you can see here what Claire is doing, but she is putting tiny ball sprinkles all over frosting that is too hard for a tiny ball sprinkle to stick to.  Instead, the sprinkles all ricocheted off all over the table and floor.  Over and over.  Those were fun to step on for the following week....

Jason and I also went to several parties, including an ugly Christmas sweater party.  We managed to win the contest for the ugliest sweaters, thanks to Jason's co-worker loaning us two sweaters from her vast collection.  They are pretty flattering on both of us, right?  Must be the built-in shoulder pads.

Thanksgiving

This year, we had family come to our home for Thanksgiving.  It was great to have incentive for a big feast and extra hands to make the work light.  As you can see above, the kids rather enjoyed the end result.

Nonni & B took a train all the way around our local mall with the girls.  The girls had the time of their lives on the "real train!"

Mostly, we just enjoyed spending time with each other.

Of course, when we told Aunt Cami that the forecast showed rain for the whole time she was in town and we may be stuck inside together for a while, she responded, "Just shoot me now!" ... then she looked around the room, realizing that we could hear her.  We love you too, Cami.  Haha.

Halloween

Gabby enjoyed a halloween party at her school again this year.

Claire never has a hard time joining in with the festivities at Gabby's school.

Every morning that we drop Gabby off, Claire has to take care of her baby in Gabby's classroom.

Halloween night, we went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood with some friends.

I think this is the first year that the girls realized their incentive for knocking on doors: the candy!

The Great Pumpkin

This past Halloween, Claire was a garden gnome and Gabby was a butterfly.  Claire had no idea what a gnome was before Halloween, but what better way to learn?

The pumpkin that we picked out this year with Nonni and B was huge.  So much so, that we thought if Claire kneeled down, she could fit inside.

Like she enjoyed her first Halloween pumpkin at 3 months....

But we didn't try it out.  Instead, we let the girls carve pumpkins.  They decided to do a spider and a cat.

They lasted about 10 minutes poking holes in their little pumpkin.  Then they moved on to eating pumpkin-colored cookies.  And the next thing we knew they were walking around like ghosts while their father did the carving.

The final result of all of their hard work:

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July in town this year.  We began the day with a breakfast and kids bike parade at the church, then we headed off to the local beach, where we enjoyed the sun and the company of good friends.  From there, we headed to a friend's home for a yummy BBQ dinner, smores over their backyard fire pit and an impressive fireworks display.

Claire knew who to make friends with in order to ditch her bike and ride in style at the parade.

The friends who invited us to dinner have a dog named Diego.  So this is how Claire spent the entire evening.  Attached and happy as could be.

 We didn't take many photos on the 4th, but on the 5th, we pulled out some of the fireworks that we didn't get to the night before and the girls enjoyed playing with fire in the backyard.

Gabby was the nervous one.

Claire was the one who made us nervous.

Yes, our daughter is afraid of the little black snakes....

We Love Daddy

It's rather fitting that our Father's Day post comes right after the playset post.  Jason is a better dad than I could ever hope for and is the ultimate example of self-sacrifice for your children.  The girls and I are so blessed to have him in our lives.

Anytime something breaks around the house, Gabby says, "Daddy will fix it when he gets home."  (Perhaps you remember that she also said that about her bottom when it was hurting her.)  She is also appreciative of her Dad.  Since the playset has been up, several times she has said something along the lines of, "What a wonderful playset!  That was so nice of Daddy to build it for me."  I love when she compliments him when he attempts to speak French, "Good job, Daddy, you said it in French!"

Claire lights up whenever Daddy gets home.  She is often the first to hear the door open or the sound of his voice and starts shaking her arms enthusiastically while saying, "Da-da-Da-da-Da-da!"  I am thinking (and mostly hoping) that we have a Daddy's girl on our hands....

How can you not love this dad?

Mother's Day

Thank you.  To Gabby, Claire & Jason.

For my best Mother's Day yet.

I am so blessed to be the mom of two precious girls.

Easter

Although Jason and I were out of town for Easter Day, we were able to bring the kids to an Easter egg hunt that our friends had at their home the week before.  The hunt involved more than 60 children and 1,000+ eggs hidden in their yard.  Gabby had a blast!

As many have noted, Claire has more expressions than we can keep track of.  Her face says it better than I can even make up thoughts for:

While Mémé stayed with the girls, they celebrated Easter making Rice Krispies Easter Eggs.

Gabby finally discovered that she really does like swings after all.  (I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that she noticed Claire having fun swinging first.)

 And the girls got to go to church with Mémé in their Easter dresses.