The Holidays Are Upon Us!

We finished November with our family Thanksgiving get-together and my birthday.  Thankfully, this year was the closest Thanksgiving gets to my birthday because let me tell you, by the time Thanksgiving was over I just wanted to sleep through my birthday :-) Of course Alex wouldn't have that and instead took me to stay at the Ritz in LA for a night AND to see Michael Buble (4th row from the front, no less!). At the start of December we began our book advent calendar with the girls. I wrapped all their Christmas books and then bought a few more new ones to bring us to a total of 24. They get to open a book each night to read before bed.  On the 1st day of December the girls awoke to find Ellie the Elf clinging to the front door! Then that night book 1 was Elf on the Shelf.  That first day they didn't really understand her purpose and when asked what they wanted to name her Olivia chose Bananas and Emma chose Coco (my parents' dog).  Mom and Dad vetoed those choices and we finally all agreed on Ellie the Elf.  The second morning had much more exciting results when they found her climbing the banister :-) We are only a couple days into December but I'm already so excited for Christmas because the girls just "get" so much more about the holiday this year :-) Enjoy some pictures from the last few weeks!

Thanksgiving

Michael Buble Concert

                                                               Reading Elf on the Shelf

                                                                 Ellie's 1st visit

                                                                    My birthday

                                                            Sleeping Beauty at the Ahmanson Theater with my mom and sister

Book Advent Calendar

                                  Ellie's 2nd visit (I think this can only be viewed on a desktop, sorry!)

A Little of This, a Little of That

We have been in an odd limbo in this house lately! A week ago Olivia decided she wanted to "for real" potty train. She has potty trained off and on since 18 months but unfortunately with Emma being dead against it and all our moving we never really made a commitment. Well apparently my little OCD child had had enough wishy-washy and decided to go full throttle! She woke up Saturday morning wanting to use the potty and by Saturday night was potty trained! She's had some accidents here and there but yesterday was her first entirely accident-free day! Emma went along with Olivia at first but she's back to being dead set against potty training. The thing we've learned with Emma is SHE makes the rules...when Emma wants to do something or NOT do something...it's pretty much law. Potty training will have to be her idea so for now she's just floating along happy as can be :-)

Here are some phone photos I've never gotten around to uploading...

She's finally letting me do her hair!

Daddy's birthday 

Morning walks

Dinner at Islands...we've discovered they behave so much better in booths as opposed to highchairs!

The first days of potty training Lu refused to leave the potty at all...Potty Picnic Lunch (Em was there for support)

When you gotta go you gotta go, even if it means rushing from the table with your bacon still in your hand :-)

Changes

We finally finished the girls' new room! Or as they call it "their big girl room." We still have small things to do like getting up some artwork but for the most part it's done! The girls have slept in their new, huge room the past couple days and it has been an adjustment. The cribs are father apart and the room lets in more light but everyone is doing well all things considered. It only took us 5 months to finally finish (haha) but we built a closet in the room (it was originally a bonus room), repainted everything from the walls, ceiling, and trim, added wainscoting and new trim and window sills, and had one wall stenciled. We made their new room more mature then their past nurseries so that this room will work for them for many years to come :-)

Happy Halloween!

The Scarecrow and Dorothy

Halloween was so much fun this year because for the first time the girls "got it."  Well. Sorta. They did ask for presents quite a few times until they realized they were getting candy and then they proceeded to ham it up at every door :-) Before trick or treating we had the whole family over for pumpkin carving and dinner.  Then all the little girls got dressed up and we headed out.  The girls were so great at saying "Trick or Treat" when a door opened and so polite with their please and thank yous for candy.  They even said "Bye! Happy Halloween!" when we turned to leave each porch :-)  We didn't know how long they would last out there and when it seemed like they were slowing down I asked if they were ready to go home--Lu yelled NO and proceeded to pull me by the arm to the next house!  After everyone was finally tucked in for the night I continued to hear the girls on the monitor saying "trick or treat!" or "happy Halloween!" until 11PM!!  *They only had one piece of candy each so I imagine they were just hopped up on adrenaline at that point* All in all we had such a good time with family and trick or treating and this experience makes me look forward to all the future holidays.

Did NOT want any pictures taken of her

Dad's

Mom's