New Year's Eve

We took the girls to the Christmas lights display -- the 31st was the last day -- at the Toledo Zoo. It was such a great display of lights. Didn't see any animals as they were all snug in their beds but there were plenty of animals done up in lights. And the bonus of the night was it was 54 degrees!!!!! Just a prefect night for us.

This was Cassie's 2nd New Year's Eve and Chloe's 1st with their forever family -- lots for us all to reflect back on in 2010. We are all complete now that we have each other.



What you can't see with many of these pictures, this one included, is the animation. Here we see two monkey's on the palm tree. If this were a video, you'd see them climbing up and down the tree. Very nice.






It may not be evident in the picture, but this tree was really spectacular. It had to be at least 100 feet tall. Getting all those lights onto it must have been a real trick.

And even more presents

These trampoulines were presents from Grandma Jones. The girls just love them. Daddy made the mistake of putting the first one together before the girls went down for their naps. Each one takes about an hour to assemble, so when the first one was complete, it became a "mine"-field of sorts. But all's well that ends well. They have two now, so no more "mine"-field.

Christmas morning...need I say more

Cassie's sitting on her new privy, but she doesn't really know what it is. An hour after this shot, she was putting food in it.





Feeding a carrot to Butterscotch the Pony. Grandma and Grandpa Spring worked with Santa to make sure that the girls got Butterscotch this year. Butterscotch is pretty cool. She chews on the carrot, and responds to all kinds of things - sight, sound, and petting.





Chloe's first lipgloss. Apparently this is a tasty variety, as it became a snack shortly after she opened it.




Cassie jumping for joy. It was a pretty neat trick for Momma to capture this because the camera usually has a 1 second delay between the time you push the button and it takes the picture.

After Santa arrived....

and before the girls were up....maybe even before Santa and his elves finished for the night. This is all their loot for being super adorable and such good girls and because Santa's helper loves to shop.

Christmas with family

Opening gifts with Grandma. Check out the McMansion-sized doll house!



And if you're going to have a doll-house, you've got to have dolls, and stuff. Lots of stuff.



Uncle Ray made some penguins. The girls LOVE penguins.



Sonny & Sherry's Moving & Storage company, shortly before the move from Grandma's to our house.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!

We wish everyone a blessed and magical Christmas!

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!"
~Luke 2: 13-14



Away in the Manger, no crib for a bed,
The little LORD Jesus laid down His sweet head.
The stars in the skies looked down where He lay,
The little LORD Jesus asleep on the hay.

An early Christmas present for Daddy

Hey - time for a rare post from Daddy, or "Dadda" as the girls say it. We've been home with Cassie for a year and a half. The first few months were tough on Daddy because Cassie acted like Daddy was the devil himself. Of course, that put a heavy burden on Mommy too, because she did all the work. Eventually, Cassie began to "tolerate" Daddy, which is to say that she wouldn't melt down when Daddy changed her diaper or made her a bottle. Slowly, and I do mean slowly, Cassie began to warm up. Just a few weeks ago, she turned a big corner. She started "preferring" Daddy over Mommy for certain things. Things like who sits next to who at the dinner table, who puts her down for a nap, who changes her diaper.

Then just a week ago, she said some magic words: "I love Dadda"

Now she says it about 40 times every day. Yes, I know this is "a phase". There will be other phases, not all of which I will like, but I'll take this one and milk it for all it's worth.

Chloe is still a work in progress. She's never raised her defenses quite like her older sister, but she still hasn't fully opened up yet either. That too will come. Soon, I hope.

Meanwhile, Cassie says "I love Dadda".

I love you too, my sweet child. I love you too.

Balcony Santa seems to be okay

Last night we went to the Holiday Nights display at Greenfield Village (part of Henry Ford Museum). It was actually warm -- 32 degrees (Fahrenheit, for my Canadian friends) -- and there was no wind for this time of year. Really, I'm not kidding - that is warm and we were very excited about the weather. If it had been too cold we might not have been able to go with the girls. I had the girls dressed in 18 layers (onesies, long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, tights, pants, socks, boots, winter coats, scarves, mittens and hats). They were in the stroller most of the time with a blanket. They loved watching the people dressed in 19th century clothing, the carolers, the horse and buggies, Model Ts, and the fire pit warming stations on almost every street corner. We had dinner there -- cafeteria style indoors, as opposed to the only other option, which was having sausage and sweet potato stew on a street corner. Mama and dada thought the stew sounded tasty since they also severed beer at the same place. But, we thought the girls would like to warm up a bit inside. We also got to see Santa and two of his reindeer. Santa was waving and talking to all the kids from a balcony and both Cassie and Chloe couldn't wait to get out of the stroller to see and wave to him. They also thought the reindeer were pretty cool too. Then it was off to the carousel horses -- on a 97 year old carousel -- for a ride to Christmas songs before heading home. It was a late night for the girls as we left for home at 9:30pm. They were cold and tired but really enjoyed themselves as did Sonny and I. Here are a few pictures I took while we were there.

Christmas fun

We have a great little park about 2 minutes from us with a lake, historic buildings from the city, library, and an activities building. They do a Christmas display every year and we finally got to go on Saturday. The girls loved it and had a really fun time -- until we asked them to sit on Santa's lap. Cassie went into complete meltdown mode. And she was so excited to see him before we got there, we preped her and talked about it and from a distance she was fine with seeing Santa. Up close -- another story. Then of course Chloe fed off of Cassie's distress. It was ugly -- at least we were smart enough to wait to see Santa until the very end. Since we already paid for the picture when we paid to go in -- it was for a local food bank fundraiser so we couldn't use our own camera -- Sonny and I ended up sitting in front of Santa and Mrs. Claus with the girls on our laps. And mama ran out of time getting the girls ready and didn't do my hair and makeup. That will teach me to get up earlier when we have plans. And no -- I didn't include that picture. I couldn't get the girls to stand with their backs to any of the displays -- they were a little afraid of that -- maybe next year.

Because I'm the Grinch....

and having the tree knocked over twice in less than 20 hours of being put up was more than I was willing to take. So there. It's out there. I'm the Grinch. And I don't care who knows.

Didn't take long......

This was the crime scene at exactly 12:00pm. And what's with the purse smuggling?

Taking bets.....

on how long before the tree is knocked over. Chloe has already carried her little chair over to the table and 'stolen' ornaments. That was within 10 minutes of them decorating the tree. It might be years before we can have a big tree with glass ornaments on it.

Notice the many ornaments near the bottom. The girls put on about 80% of the decorations themselves. They had a ball.