Frigid Christmas

It's been a long couple of months for us, and frankly I have not had the emotional energy to write on here, and we have been traveling a lot. So, that being said, we had a great Christmas vacation in Minnesota. There was lots of snow and lots of cold! We spent a week with Terry, Stacy, and Elijah in St. Paul, going to a giant indoor play place and Toddler Tuesday at the Mall of America, plus lots of shopping. The kids really enjoyed seeing the horses at the farm and playing in the snow.

Thanksgiving

This is very late, but I wanted to share some pictures from Thanksgiving. We took a road trip to Chicago to celebrate with Jake and Heather. The whole family was there for a couple of days and we had great food and great fellowship, and then we were alone with Jake and Heather for a couple of days and it was just like old times, when we all lived in Nyack together. We had a great time getting to know our new niece and cousin, Rachel. We also got to visit the Home Alone house and drove by Michael Jordan's former house. It was a really great holiday.

First Snow

We experienced our first snow of the season on the first weekend of December. It snowed all day on Saturday, and Matt was out of town for meetings, so after naps the girls and I bundled up and went out to play in the snow. Emma made a couple of mountains and Siri spent most of her time trying to get up and down the hill, until she discovered that she could eat snow. We made a small snowman and Emma, on her own, put little chunks of snow in the places of a mouth, nose and eyes. When toes were getting cold we headed in for hot chocolate (which proved to be a disaster with the white shirts they were wearing) and nutella crepes for dinner.
The next day we ventured out again, but were faced with the task of finding a place to play where there wasn't mud and water under the snow. When we found a good area Emma made lots of snow angels and tried to dig a fort in the 4 inches of snow...and Siri ate snow the whole time.

Emma's 4th Birthday!

December 11 was Emma's 4th birthday! She is so big and mature and she has started tucking her hair behind her ears like a big girl. It's crazy to have a 4 year old!
Emma wanted a snowflake party and a strawberry cake, so that's what we did. Her birthday fell on a Shabbat and the first day of Hanukkah, and we had 2 families over for dinner. We played bingo for prizes, Emma opened presents, and we had cake and ice cream. We love you, Emma!

Emma's Last Dance Class

The day that we left for Thanksgiving vacation we were able to attend Emma's last dance class. We were wondering if this would even happen, and it did. The reason for the pessimism was that a few weeks before Emma had fallen during class and refused to finish out the session. The week after she merely sat and watched for half the class, and the class before last she refused to even get out of the car. I'm almost certain that this was a combination of feeling embarrassed and alone, but she pulled through in the last one and did very well. The teacher was very kind and allowed Siri to participate when she wanted to. Emma was telling Siri all the instructions. It was very cute, and we are so proud of Emma!

Siri's Princess Party

Today Siri turned 2!!! There were times, today, that I thought, "You're only 2?!" Sometimes it feels like she's been around forever! We had a great day, and used this time to teach Emma what a birthday is, i.e. a birthday is not a party, its the whole day! We did have a party today, for a mere 2 hours, but it was great. We had 3 families over, which translated to 10 kids in total, and our apartment was full! The kids decorated crowns, colored princess pictures, jumped on bubble wrap, ate pb&j in the shape of crowns, and had cake and ice cream. It was a great party! ...and I napped afterwards!
For dinner the 4 of us had Siri's favorite food, chicken nuggets and french fries, and more cake and ice cream. Then Siri opened a few presents all of which she was very excited to receive, and now we're down for the night!

Halloween

For Halloween this year we brought the kids so they could trick-or-treat with their friends, Sophia and Zack. They did a great job, but Emma would stand in front of each home owner asking for more and more candy, and then when we got her away from the doorstep and explained that we were going to go to many more houses she got so excited! We repeated this at about every single house! I think by the end she got the hang of taking one candy and saying "Thank you." Matt spent the night trying to get the girls to get as many Reeses Pieces as he could. Siri spend most of the night holding her bag with one arm and holding a particular piece of candy in the other hand, then putting the candy back in the bag, and then realizing that she wanted it again, so she's stop, put her paper bag on the wet ground and dig around for her piece of candy. Yes, at the end of the night, on our walk home, the bag's bottom gave way. All the candy was put into Emma's bag, and the bottom broke out of that bag after we got home, about 10 feet from our front door. Needless to say, I've learned not to use paper bags for candy-collecting on a rainy Halloween!
But we all had fun, dressing up was great, though kind of a bummer that we didn't use those costumes that I slaved over longer!