Happy New Year!

Grandpa Don & Grandma JoJo!

My parents were in KC for the weekend to celebrate a belated birthday for my Dad.  His birthday was 12.12.12 as you might have seen from an earlier post!   Anyway, we were all so excited to see them again - here are a few pix of my mom with the girls.  For some reason I have no pix of my dad from their visit.

But, I promise he was here - he even played "doctor" with Molly!

{3 Generations}

Cabin Fever!

We have had a full blown case of what you might call Cabin Fever this week!  After all the fun of Christmas, Daddy returned to work Wednesday-Friday and with me still avoiding running errands with both girls (unless it involves walking with the double stroller to the neighborhood grocery store) - we were going a little stir crazy at home!  Did I mention it is BITTER cold outside!?  We invited our neighbor and friend, Ellie over to play yesterday and the girls (I mean Tinkerbell & Minnie Mouse) had so much fun building forts and laughing . . .

 

Christmas Morning . . .

Just typing in "Christmas Morning" brings a smile to my face.  Christmas was so very special this year.  We feel so blessed to be celebrating Kate's very 1st Christmas and Molly - at age 3 - now totally gets into the giving and receiving of Christmas as well as the REAL meaning of Christmas and was so excited to go to church to see and hear about Baby Jesus!  

After the excitement of seeing that Santa came and looking through each of our stockings -  we had monkey bread and hot cocoa for breakfast and then exchanged gifts as a family.  Molly & Kate each got their own personalized crowns along with the book, The Crown on Your Head from Mommy & Daddy. 

 

Molly had to keep taking "breaks" to JUMP on her new trampoline!

Molly gave Kate this stuffed Rudolph she picked out for her at the store and wrapped herself.  She was SOO excited to give it to her - pretty darn sweet.  Love to see how excited she was to give the gifts SHE had picked out for me, daddy and Kate.  

Ready for Christmas morning mass!

We were the first ones at church - LOL!  It did give us a little time to check out the Nativity and sing Christmas Carols before mass started!

Not the best family photo - but wanted to capture us all together on Christmas morning.  I think I had 4 minutes to get ready - Molly's eyes are shut and Kate was crying - but we were happy - oh yes, we were feeling blessed. *smile*

Singing Happy Birthday Baby Jesus on the drive home from church!  

Merry Merry Christmas!!  

Santa Came!

Christmas Eve Excitement!

We arrived home the afternoon of Christmas Eve and Molly was over.the.moon excited to get ready for Santa to come that night!  Here she is laying out cookies - a mixture of snickerdoodles we made and gingerbread cookies that my friend Gretchen made us!  

And carrots for the reindeer . . . 

She asked Daddy to help her pour some milk for Santa . . .

Pleased with her work . . . 

She also wanted to write a note to Santa and asked me to help her.  She spent a LOT of time on it - it was so fun to watch her!

After a couple books, it was time for bed.  Molly has never been so eager to go to bed!  She was sooo excited!  Kate was just as happy as always and didn't know what all the fuss was about!

Pre-Christmas Celebration with McGinnis Clan!

We road-tripped down to Rogers, Arkansas to celebrate an early Christmas 3-Day Weekend with the McGinnis Clan!  Mike's brother, Jeff lives there with his family.  We all (even Jeff and family) stayed at the Embassy Suites so we could spend lots of time together and the kids could go swimming!  

Molly LOVES her cousin Vaughn (age 6) and follows him everywhere!

Kate got LOTS of snuggles and love from everyone and loved sleeping in Grandma Pat's lap!

Kate was just staring and coo'ing at Grandpa Pat.

Gift Exchange at Jeff's House!

Molly though it would be fun to wrap the ribbon in between her toes.  

Mike was a little (too) excited about Molly's gifts.  *fun daddy*

In our hotel room . . .

Molly said she LOVED the hotel - her favorite part was eating pancakes every morning . . .

Playing chase with her cousin . . .

And swimming at the pool!

Checking out the Nativity with Grandpa Pat after mass . . .

Santa (Happy) Baby!

Sweet Baby Kate is so JOYFUL.  If you walk by her and smile and she has her binky in her mouth (often) she smiles back at you so BIG that her binky falls out.  Her smiles are full.body.smiles.  Her arms (both) lift up, elbows out, shoulders shrug, head tilts and her eyes sparkle.  I have never met a happier baby.  I feel so lucky to get to be her mama!

Playing in the Snow!

I think we only got 3" total - but with the high winds we did get some pretty decent snow drifts to jump in . . . AND since we got NO snow last year and this was the 1st snow of the season -- Molly was excited, which actually is a huge understatement.  Daddy called and said he was on his way home from work  to play with Molly in the snow and Molly could hardly get her coat, boots, gloves, and hat on fast enough!