Merry Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, we got all dressed up for church. Here is our little angel wearing her flower girl dress yet again!

While we were all sleeping, Santa Claus came to Grandma and Grandpa's house. He enjoyed some cookies, and the reindeer ate some of the carrots we left for them.

On Christmas morning, Duncan was the last one awake! We all waited rather impatiently in Mommy and Daddy's bed. Then it was finally time to head downstairs!

Santa brought Elsie and Duncan a wagon! They were both very excited to sit in the wagon for a ride. Elsie even got outside for a few rides, including a long one up to Leah's house and back!

Duncan was excited, but still waking up a bit!

We opened our stockings and found lots of great little things Santa brought us.

Elsie had asked for and received a black jacket from Santa, and Duncan got a cool, new jumper!

Of course, Duncan was pretty fascinated with the wrapping paper.

Elsie got a cookie set for Christmas. She really loves it! She can cut the cookies, bake them, and then feed them to Baby.

"You have to be quiet. Baby is sleeping."

Duncan was dressed in his Merry Christmas jumper from J-Ma.

And got a great should ride from Dad!

I love this picture! Our Elsie ballerina hard at work on her new tool set!

After a great Christmas dinner, Leah and Elsie had a great time playing a new game with Aunt Kris! I was surprised to learn that Elsie is old enough to play board games - she is getting so old!

And Jack helped out Grandma by washing down the counters...while wearing purple gloves. What a great son!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

We celebrated Grandma Jan's birthday with her at the farm. Duncan and Grandma spent some time playing together on the floor.

Duncan even shared his favorite monkey with Grandma!

Elsie and Leah pretended to be monsters!

And after Grandma's birthday dinner the girls chased Grandma around the house roaring their terrible roars!

Duncan is 33 weeks old

Duncan turned 33 weeks old four Wednesdays ago. We were all so excited about Christmas just a few days away!

Christmas Cookies!

We baked many Christmas Cookies this year! Duncan isn't quite old enough to be super helpful, so Daddy strapped him into the Baby Bjorn and kept him safe behind the apron.

Elsie and Daddy kept a very close eye on the cookies!

We made fudge again this year, and did a better job this time. It gets a little tricky on the induction stove. Elsie immediately brought her stool over to the cutting board.

She found a small piece just calling out her name.

Yum!! Fudge!

Mommy's friend, Kristin, came over to help make some cookies. And Elsie showed her how to decorate them with sprinkles.

Elsie helped get the dough ready to cut the shapes. She pressed it down onto the floured surface.

And then rolled it out with the rolling pin.

So very carefully.

Even Duncan helped cut some cookies. And when I wasn't watching, he snuck some into his mouth. He didn't have any complaints, and didn't get salmonella either. Phew.

Then he got a hold of the spatula. Big shiny metal thing!

Time to wave it around!

These need more sprinkles! Elsie was very attentive to detail, making sure that every cookie was covered with sprinkles. We had a lot of fun, and the cookies were so yummy!

Duncan is 32 weeks old

Duncan turned 32 weeks old five Wednesdays ago!

Duncan is thinking about crawling...and not liking the idea.

Great job pushing your shoulders up so high Duncan! He can do this for about a minute...

...before he starts crying out for help!

But he is really enjoying standing! I propped him up at the chair, and he was pretty excited! He promptly fell down as soon as I took this picture. I think we have a few head bumps in our near future!

Duncan had a lot of fun at school this past week. Playing with blue play doh.

Walking along the new texture mat.

So excited to feel the great textures on his bare feet! And he is standing!

The class also did paper mache.

The teachers told us that Duncan had the longest attention span of the class during this activity. When they finished up, Duncan was so upset.

Glue and guitars!

Elsie has been using glue sticks at school for a while now. She brought home a little project they had worked on - gluing shapes to a piece of paper. Elsie wanted to continue this project at home, so we cut up some shapes and tried our glue stick...hard as a rock. So, I brought out the real Elmer's glue. Elsie loved it!

More and more and more glue!

And then stick on the shape.

We all made a guitar at Elsie's family night a couple months ago. It made its way home, and Elsie has been playing it every night. We taped it over her shoulder just like Scribble Jim (the music enrichment teach at school).

Playing the guitar.

Check out this video for some great guitar playing!

O Christmas Tree!

The week after the Polar Express, we started getting all of the decorations out, including the Santa hats.

Elsie really loved wearing hers...and loved putting Duncan's on too.

We went to a local church to pick out our tree. I had these fun memories of tree shopping when I was younger, but Elsie and Duncan weren't in the mood for Christmas tree shopping. It was cold, and Elsie was not loving the snowpants I made her wear in the car. And Duncan was just too sleepy.

We just pushed the tree right into the car between Elsie and Duncan.

After Daddy put the tree into the stand, we started hanging the ornaments.

Elsie was a really big help hanging all of the ornaments. There are a lot of ornaments right at Elsie's eye level on the tree! Especially on the front of the tree!

And Duncan was excited to grab at the bright, shiny balls!