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 :)