18 Months old!

Brynn is 18 months old today! Hard to believe that she's 1 1/2 already.  What a joy she has been!  She is starting to string words together and laughs and smiles at pretty much everything.  She had her well visit today and did all of her tricks for the Dr. He said that she is doing very well for her age.  She was in the 75% for weight and 50% for height.  She's a growing little peanut.

Her newest thing lately has been to suck her fingers and play with my hair.  When I have my hair in a pony tail, which is pretty much all the time, she says, "Hair Down Please".  So, the hair goes right down.  She climbs on everything, jumps everywhere, was terrified of Santa up close, but from a distance calls him "A ho ho"  She follows Kate all over the place and does everything her big sister does.  And, she loves to give kisses.  She puts her lips out for a kiss when you ask.

Straight hair & a sleepover

Kate is really into her hair being straight. Probably because she's the only one in her class with the curls.  It's so funny because I have always hated my curly hair, but on Kate, I think it's absolutely gorgeous.  She asked me a million times to straighten her hair so I did it on Christmas and she was so proud of it. She looked in the mirror at least 20 times.  She was so excited.  She woke up this morning and asked if it was straight still.  

And tonight, she's sleeping over Namma and Pop Pop's. She LOVES sleeping over there.  

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas- filled with lots of family time.  I woke up at 4 am so excited.  I told myself to go back to sleep so I did until 5:30. I got up, dressed and came down and had a cup of coffee, and waited.  I made these cute little donuts for desserts.

6:30- everyone is STILL asleep. COME ON PEOPLE!!!  So at 7, I went up and woke everyone up.   The girls' faces were priceless.  Kate was over the moon excited.  Kate was literally jumping up and down.  Brynn had no clue.  Kate is getting more fun each year at Christmas as is Brynn.

The girls opened their gifts.  And Kate wanted us to each open one too. It was so cute.

 Brynn liked tearing the paper up

 Kate got pink hair extension head band.  She absolutely loved this hair. She wore it all day

 Giving Daddy some love

 Brynn taking a break with Dad

 Giving each other a hug to say thank you for their gifts

 Brynn's other favorite part was standing on the boxes. 

 Even Molly got a gift!

At the end, Kate was on vibrate. Brynn kept asking for more presents to open.  They each played with their toys. Kate liked the Cookie Monster toy Santa brought Brynn and Brynn played with her old toys. LOL.

Namma, Pop Pop and Uncle Fred came over for breakfast.  Then, our neighbor Pat came over to bring toys, then Jane, Michael and Chelsea,  then a nap, then our neighbors Jerry and Kim came over and we had dinner with Namma and Pop Pop and Uncle Jim.  Pap Pap came over and then the girls took a bath.  I straightened Kate's hair tonight too :)  She loves it and thinks it looks so good..  

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas!!

We hope that everyone reading this has a Very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

We celebrate Christmas Eve with my mom and dad. I celebrated Christmas Eve with my mom's parents growing up and it was a blast.

During the day, we decorated a Gingerbread man.

We went to Church at 4 and the girls were both so good.  They dressed up in their beautiful dresses (thanks Namma!) and looked adorable

After Church, we came home and had Capriotti's hoagies, as we do every year.  Here is a picture of our dessert- Brownie Santa hats!

After dinner, we opened presents with Namma and Pop Pop. Kate's favorite was her REAL camera and Brynn's was her new baby doll!  Kate took pics of  EVERYTHING!!

 Brynn still doesn't get it, but she loved standing on the boxes and handing out presents

 And then Kate handed out all of the presents she bought at a Secret Santa Shop. We gave her $15 and she came home with change. She picked out something for each of us that we would like, and it couldn't have been more perfect.  She got Brynn a wind up caterpillar, that she LOVES

 And she got Rich a Phillies ornament!  I mean, really?? How much better could that have been?

And for me, she got me a notepad with a pen that says #1 Mom. This girl knows her family so well. It's perfect!!  She also gave us something she made in school- a calendar of her hand prints in the symbols of each month, ie, a heart for Valentine's Day.  Probably one of the best presents I've ever gotten.  We both cried.  

 Namma and Pop Pop left, we cleaned up a little and then put out cookies for Santa and milk and a strawberry for the reindeer.

We read "Twas the Night before Christmas" as I do each year, and we watched Elf of the Shelf.  We said good bye and see you next year to Hermie!

What a perfect Christmas Eve!

Kate's Christmas Show

Kate had her Christmas show at SMM on Thursday.   We all went to see her perform. Her class did "I saw mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and the other half acted out to "Twas the night before Christmas". Kate was in the 2nd half and she was a mouse.  She did awesome!!!  Here are the pics my Dad took!

Kate was so good and she and Jude, the other mouse, were the best mice ever! Way to go, Kate!!  Looking forward to next year's show!

Good bye Accord, Hello Odyssey

We sold our Accord on Thursday and bought a 2012 Honda Odyssey.  I will refer to the Odyssey as our cross over.  It has everything you could want in a car. Kate absolutely LOVES the car!

Here is one last picture of the Accord.  I get a little sentimental because this was the first car Rich and I bought together.

 While we were buying the new car, Kate & Brynn had dinner with Namma & Pop Pop at the country club. Pop Pop took these 2 pics of them at dinner.

 And here are the girls in the Odyssey for the first time.  There's a DVD player in it, yet they don't know it yet :)

I refuse to call it a minivan.  So, we call it a crossover!

Holiday Baking

I had to amazing helpers help me with my slice and bakes this year :)