Merrrry Kissmas. Evy Bahddy!

We had a wonderful Christmas celebrating with Yaya, Poppy, Douggo and Alli in New Jersey!

Addie was very excited about all things Christmas--Trees, lights, Santa.

Yaya has a tradition where all the "kids" put their own ornament on the tree. Here's Addie putting hers on the tree


Daddy's turn

Mommy's turn

Time to hang the stocking! By the way...

Two years ago she fit inside of the same stocking ;)

Reading Christmas books before bed


Getting the cookies ready to put out for Santa

Addie and Hiccup carefully placing the cookies next to the milk

Fast forward to...5:45am...Addie wakes up and as a courtesy to Yaya and Poppy, Steve and I kept her busy looking and stocking stuffers till 7!

Not a great pic, but you can see how big her smile is behind the pen!

Reading books and eating a lollipop (yes, we gave her a lollipop at 6am...how else do you keep a kid in one room for over an hour on christmas morning!)

Presents! Addie wanted to play with each one before moving on to the next one.




I love this action shot of opening the "beeeeeg present"


Check out all that loot!


Cuddles all around.

Post-christmas "resting" :)
Being goofy with Daddy (like always!)


And reading one of MANY books she got for Christmas with Uncle Douggo and Aunt Alli


Addie's favorite toy of Christmas--a Little People amusement park...she must have pushed the little girl (aptly named "Addie") down the slide 300 times this weekend.

Christmas dinner--Addie is directing us all, as always


Family pic!

And what trip up the coast is complete without a stop by at the McGee house?

Addie and Shannon had a blast playing with playdoh and stampers...

and doing puzzles...
Checking out Shannon's big girl bed


...yeah, it's that comfortable :)

And playing in the race car with Baby Kelly

When we got home, there was a lot to clean up...thankfully Addie is a big help!


Happy Holidays and a Happy New Years to everyone!

Hanukkah and Snowpocalypse '09

I was waiting to post Hanukkah pictures until after we did our big dinner with Gaga and Uncle Dan, but due to Dan's work travel, we had to postpone the dinner until this weekend and due to a snowstorm we had this weekend, the dinner was postponed until the new year :(. But we did celebrate Hanukkah (albeit latke-less) at home by lighting the menorah every night and Addie got a small present each evening.

Getting her first present.

Smiling with Daddy on day 2

Day 5, a cool perspective

Addie loved lighting the menorah (or rather, watching us do it) and her favorite part was when the candle burned out and let off a wisp of smoke, we would cheer for each candle. She was sad when day 8 was over!





So yeah--Snowpocalypse. DC got slammed with a ton of snow this past weekend--reports were that we got 23 inches here in Maryland!



Compare this picture to the picture of our swingset during the last snow we had in the previous post for perspective of how much more we got this time.



Watching the snow fall out the window.

Daddy made pancakes FROM SCRATCH for a snowbound breakfast. I called it a "momentous occasion" but he didn't know what the big deal was (because he cooks meals for us....how often?) :)

So how do you keep a toddler occupied when you're INSIDE for 48 hours? Oh so many things :)

Addie and I made homemade ketchup and YES she liked it!

Addie love love loves washing the dishes...she did this for 30 minutes last night--that's like 5 hours in toddler attentions-span time. Yes, I realize it's not the most efficient use of water, so we don't do it all the time, but after a weekend inside, keeping her occupied was more important than saving the environment (hey, we drive a hybrid, we're doing our part ;)

On Sunday it stopped snowing and while Steve dug our cars out (and some of our neighbors'--isn't he the sweetest?) Addie and I headed out to cheer him on.

Addie tried to dress herself in my hat and Steve's sock and slippers :)

We finally got the right clothes on her and headed out. How long did it last this time? A bit longer than last time, but the minute the wind started blowing (drat that cur-sed wind!) we had to head back inside.

We also had some old-fashioned fun with a bowl, some flour, and a spoon.


Seriously, this kid had a blast with just flour. Who knew?

And then this morning, Steve had to go back to work, but Addie and I are still at home. We may venture out this afternoon, but this morning we busted out the finger paints.

At first she was very dainty, just using 1 finger.


Then the whole hand got involved and all daintiness went out the window.


Lining up her completed works of art.


Happy "first day of winter" folks--we certainly have felt the winter for quite a while now :)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

The holiday season!

Steve and Addie putting together the "Kissmas Tee"


Decorating...






And then we had our first snow of the season!


We convinced Addie to get bundled up to go out in the snow

30 seconds in, she says "all done." Um, no--it took forEVER to get you ready, we're going to have fun, DARNIT!

Look, Addie, you can eat the snowflakes!

Okay, this can be fun...

Hey, look, a "yittle" snowball!

Having fun with Daddy's new toy, the BOSS snowshovel.

And not a holiday tune, but in case you have forgotten the words for Patty Cake, here are about...half of them :)

First haircut!

Yes, some of Addie's peers have already had 5-10 haircuts at their young tender age of 2ish, but you loyal blog followers know that her hair has always been on the short side, so there hasn't been a need until now.

If you haven't seen the Thanksgiving post yet, scroll down and take a look at the mad scientist mullet she had going on. I was holding desperately onto the fact that I could put pigtails in her hair (though they lasted all of 4 minutes) and was hoping that the top would start growing to catch up with the back and...well, it sounds silly now that I'm writing it out!

So we talked to a Rockville friend for a recommendation and headed to Kidville. Addie had a fussy morning (rainy day...they're never good) so I was nervous, but she was a total and complete ANGEL. The lady who cut her hair said "come back and hang out with me" and "she's better behaved than kids twice her age!" I just smiled and said thank you, not feeling the need to point out the 3 tantrums she had before 9:30 am even hit.


Excited to sit in a "yittle pink ay-pane"


Even more excited to watch a DVD of Dora while the process happened (yes, I admit that this did contribute to the good behavior)


Look at me, I'm a big girl with a big girl haircut!
Mama/daughter portrait (notice her eyes aren't looking directly at the camera....Dora)

She even got a "My first haircut" certificate for her baby book.

And they gave me a little envelope with a hefty lock of hair. A friend of mine had one from her son's first haircut and her husband threw it into the junk drawer. She said "why did you do that?" and he said "if it's in there...it'll NEVER get thrown away"

Which makes me wonder...if you are a parent, do you have your kid's first shorn lock of hair? Do you take it out and look at it?

Just glad it's not a tradition to keep first fingernail clippings... ;)