Quotes September - December

September and October:

The danger of raising a child in the south: Addysen told me one day "I'm fawv."  I didn't understand her so I asked her what she meant.  She told me "Haven is three and I'm fawv."

Haven filled up a purse with toys, put it on her shoulder and said "Look!  It's like I'm a real person!"

November:

Addysen, very proud to have learned that 2 halves make a whole, told me one day "Half and half make a whole...and a whole and a whole make another half!"

As Thanksgiving approached, Addysen asked me one day "Is turkey better than dogs and cats?"  I asked her what she meant to which she asked the exact question again.  It occurred to me with Thanksgiving approaching that I may know what she meant so I asked her "You mean to eat?"  and she responded "Yeah!" 

December:

Haven asked me one day "Can we do the ali-cander?" (translation: Advent calendar)

Addysen calls a nativity scene an "activity" scene and calls hand motions to a song the "commotions"...i.e. "I did all the commotions!"

While talking to Addysen about her Auntie Jess getting married this summer, Jeff mentioned that we would be going to the wedding.  Addysen asked me, "Mommy, are we going to go to the marry thing?"

Instead of saying "had," Haven always says "had-id"...i.e. "I had-id to go potty" and calls breakfast "break-ist" (no "f" sound in the word)

As we drove through Liberty's campus looking at Christmas lights, Addysen, amazed by how many lights there were, said "It's like a hundred and two a thousand lights!"

Various December Pics

I made these clipboards as Christmas gifts for the girls' preschool teachers

One of Brielle's favorite things...wearing shoes that are not her own and much too big for her!

Usually the big girls get to lick the beater...now Brielle realizes what she's been missing out on all this time! :-)

One of the places Haven likes to read...crammed into the closet, on top of the blankets with the door closed...thus the reason she has my book light with her to be able to see her books!

Brielle doesn't like to wait to get into the tub :-)

Sleepover

The girls and I had been talking about Mommy having a sleepover with them for quite some time and Christmas break seemed to be a perfect time to do just that since they didn't have to be up for school in the mornings!

First, we had popcorn and watched Beauty and the Beast

And then we got snuggled in together! I took Haven's mattress out of her bed and put it on the floor next to Addysen's mattress so it made one big bed we could all fit into! 

We didn't get a whole lot of actual sleep...especially Mommy...but we made some fun memories! :-)

Christmas

Santa came!!  And the big girls were quite excited that both he and Ollie seemed to love the cookies and milk the girls left  for them and they even left nice thank you notes for the girls! :-)

Ollie also left a little message on the refrigerator for the girls before he left with Santa to go back to the North Pole

Time to open the stockings!

Dora socks!

Princess cups!

Brielle got real quiet and when I looked over, she was going to work, trying to open up some candy

Success!

Amazing how quick that child can spit her paci out and get something she wants in her mouth! :-)

Sweet sisters in matching sleepers!

Jeff read a children's version of the Christmas story this year to the girls.  Brielle however, was a little more interested in Elmo than the story. :-)

And then we opened the last box from our advent calendar

This next picture has a little back story to it.  A couple weeks before my birthday, the women in my Bible brought over a cake made of cupcakes and surprised me with a little celebration of my birthday.  The cake was on the counter and when I went to blow the candles out, I leaned over it a bit too much apparently and lit my hair on fire!  There was much screaming...followed by much laughing after (thankfully!) discovering it hadn't done much damage to my hair (besides an awful smell...burnt hair is not a pleasant odor!)!  When I told Addysen and Haven about it, we talked about how I discovered that when you have long hair you should always remember to hold your hair back when you blow out candles!

So fast forward to Christmas, we sang happy birthday to Jesus and then without any prompting, both the big girls proceeded to grab their hair, hold it back and then blow out the candle! :-)

Then it was time to open presents!  The most fun of the morning was the girls opening their presents for each other and their presents they had gotten for Jeff and me on their annual trip to the dollar store with their preschool class to get presents for their Mommy's and Daddy's!  This was Addysen's present to Haven...a Dora umbrella.  She was so excited since Addysen had gotten a princess one for her birthday and ever since, Haven had wanted one of her own!

Haven got Addysen a tiara...perfect since Addysen's other tiara had broken!

Haven's present for Jeff...a pink flashlight...in case he needed to use a flashlight :-)

Haven's present to me...a Santa Clause ornament...because she thought I like Santa :-)

Addysen's present to me...flowers...so that I could make another bow for her hair :-)

Addysen's present for Jeff...this candy cane...because she thought he would like it :-)

One of Haven's favorite presents of the day...a Dora doll!

Brielle decided to take a break and found a nice place to rest!

Addysen loved the Cinderella ornament I had found for her at the Disney store on my Chicago trip in the fall

Brielle was so cute opening presents this year!  She figured out how to get into the presents (often with the help of her sisters) and enjoyed it for a short time, but got burnt out pretty quickly!  She took quite a long nap that afternoon! :-)

Haven was so excited to get a very special present from Auntie Em...homemade doll clothes for her baby Molly...including this cute Christmas dress which Haven wanted to put on her right away!

Brielle got a hug me Elmo from her Gramma and Grampa...and more importantly, they graciously gave her a great box to sit in! :-)

Honey baked ham, sweet potatoes, twice baked potatoes and "that good salad" for dinner...num!

Christmas Eve

The big girls decided they wanted to leave cookies for both Santa and Ollie this year.  So Addysen made little name cards so that they would know which plate of cookies was for whom since they had specifically picked out cookies for each of them.

According to the girls, they gave a heart to Ollie because they love Ollie...

...and a cross for Santa because they love Jesus

One of our Christmas traditions that seems to get more complicated to find each year as the girls are in different "types" of sizes (i.e. baby, toddler and girls clothes' sizes this year), but so worth all the time it takes to get matching Christmas sleepers to have all this cuteness on Christmas Eve after baths and on Christmas morning! :-)

I love reading The Night Before Christmas to my girls on the night before Christmas! :-)

Having little ones, I never even attempt to put any presents under the tree until Christmas Eve after the girls go to bed...doing it any earlier would cause way too much temptation!  It makes it so fun though having it totally empty under the tree until that night...the girls get SO excited when they wake up in the morning and see all the presents under the tree!