New Activities for a New Year

MiniM.E. has been doing the same activities for a while.  This year we decided to switch it up and try some new activities.

We will be taking a new music class starting on Monday.  We didn't do Kindermusic this year (even though we loved it) because at 3 kids have to participate without a parent, and school is enough to do without Mommy for MiniM.E.  This music class is a family class, so we can all participate, even LittleL.G.

MiniM.E. is also trying soccer for the first time:

MiniM.E. was a little intimidated as the only girl in a class of 12 other 3-5 year old boys, but she did a great job and is excited about next week.  We've been practicing our "tick-tock" dribbling around the house.

We also started ice skating yesterday with the brand new ice skates MiniM.E. got for Christmas.  MiniM.E. isn't so sure about it yet, but considering she couldn't even stand up off the ice at the beginning of class, we're making huge progress.

Go MiniM.E.!  Way to try new things in the new year!

The Difficulty of Photographing Kids

I used to think it was difficult to photograph MiniM.E.  The first few months were cake.  She slept and was still.  Even as she found her hands and started moving around, she was a baby and even if her arms or legs were a little blurry in a photo, its not like she could go anywhere, so most of the photos I took were decent.  Hence the thousands of photos I have of MiniM.E.'s first few months.  Once she was mobile it was a little more difficult to take decent photos and more often than not I would delete half the photos I took because they were blurry.  But still, a one year old isn't that fast, so I still had a pretty high photo-success rate.

Once she learned to jump and run, things were a little more difficult, and more often than not a photo had a least one blurry part.  But I learned to take LOTS of photos of everything, and usually I came out with a few decent photos where the whole kid was in focus.

Fast-forward to having a three year old and an (almost) three month old.  Caputuring a photo of both of them that is not blurry and where both are looking at the camera NOT making stupid faces is near impossible.  There have been countless times where I have spent 5 minutes trying to take a photo of them being adorable together and have looked at the photos later to find that EVERY. SINGLE. ONE is unusable.

Take today for example.  Uncle Billy sent an outfit for Christmas and I wanted to get a photo of LittleL.G. wearing it.  About 20 photos later, these are the best three:

cute of MiniM.E., Little L.G. ready to faceplant chair arm

cute of LittleL.G., MiniM.E. angry that LittleL.G. is grabbing her

the only photo where nobody is blurry

Bah.  I suppose it doesn't help that I'm using my iPhone for photos.  I probably need "kid-shutter-speed" But if I only used my "good" camera, I wouldn't have any photos because my diaper bag is already overflowing with a smaller bag for actual diapers, a potty seat, changes of clothes, snacks, water bottles, toys and a wallet.  No room for camera.  And I only got the iPhone because I wanted to always have a camera with me...

In other news, and illustrated by some reasonably decent photos, MiniM.E. and LittleL.G. spend every morning (and some afternoons) cuddling on the couch or in LittleL.G.'s rocker:

this is the best of 17 photos of them sitting in matching pajamas... can't say I didn't try

LittleL.G. is rocking tummy time:

MiniM.E. figured out that my phone has games and photos on it but can also be used by her to take photos:

And we went to a play date where MiniM.E. dressed up in a Belle outfit for hours, played princess and had the most adorable 3-year-old lunch date:

Happy New Year!

We have not stayed up for New Years since having kids.  This year, for the first time in four years, we stayed up... even PAST midnight!  We went to our friends' house and had a "sleepover" with our family and theirs- our three year olds' first sleepover.  The girls thought they stayed up until midnight with the help of Madagascar's countdown, and MiniM.E. could not have been more excited to stay up late and toast with "fizzy juice".

Cheers!

New Year's Day cuddles

 Since the new year, things have been quiet as we get back to everyday life.  MiniM.E. has been pretty upset that it isn't Christmas anymore, and I also have a bit of the post-Christmas blues.  I'm postponing taking down the tree to make the season last as long as possible.

At least having the tree up too long gave us a chance to get in our annual family Christmas photo.  And yes, this is the best one...

In other news, LittleL.G. made her debut in the jumperoo at the insistence of MiniM.E. and loves it for five minutes at a time:

And MiniM.E. got a stylish new haircut:

Feelings

MiniM.E. is a very emotional preschooler.  All her emotions come on hard and strong.  She can be super happy, is extremely empathetic, and is one of the silliest, funniest kids I've ever met.  But at the same time, her negative emotions are equally as intense.  The smallest disappointment can bring her to tears and if she's angry it's an all-out tantrum.

Auntie Jen bought her the best present, a book about feelings, In My Heart.  It's about feelings and I'm hoping it helps her figure out what she's feeling.  So yesterday she was having a hard time, it being the day after Christmas and all, and she had been pretty cranky all day.  She was especially sad last night and as we were reading our usual chapter book, she said, "Mommy, I feel sad, can we read the heart feelings book?" And so we did.  And for every feeling I asked, "When do you feel _____?" and she was so sad that it wasn't Christmas anymore, she said, "The day after Christmas" with a big pouty face.

Even though it was a bit of a let down that it wasn't Christmas anymore, MiniM.E. and Baby#2 had a good time playing with all the new toys and enjoying Grams' house.

bonding over a bottle

taking a bath: "... this isn't my whale tub..."

matching owl jammies!

Today we drove down to CT for our family Christmas, but unfortunately, I got whatever Bob had right before Christmas and I was hardly feeling well enough to be there, so no photos... Maybe next year- there will be four kids running around!

Tomorrow its back to NY to unpack all the toys (and find them homes) and get ready for the New Year!

Merry Christmas!

This Christmas MiniM.E. was far more excited than the previous three.  She's been looking forward to it since October, and the addition of Baby#2 made it even more exciting for her- lots of exclaiming over how exciting it was that it was going to be Baby#2's FIRST CHRISTMAS!

She tried to wake us up at 5 am, but after such a late night, I knew that she would be a monster by 11am if I let her stay up, so we convinced her to go back to sleep until 7:30.

Here she is (crawling?) down the hallway to see all the presents in the living room:

First we saw that Santa came and left MiniM.E. a really sweet note in response to this letter that she sent him on Christmas Eve:

(Dear Santa, More trains please, Molly)

opening her stocking

watching the action

yay! trains!!

So cute in matching pajamas!

Then we opened a few more presents before we convinced MiniM.E. to take a break for breakfast:

MiniM.E. was really excited for Baby#2 to open the present she picked out for her:

This year was the first year, possibly ever in my 31 Christmases, that all the presents were NOT open by noon.  MiniM.E. was really excited to open everything and play with it and even took breaks to play with toys that weren't new.  Baby#2 seemed really alert and into watching all the action, which was impressive because on MiniM.E.'s first Christmas she slept the whole day.

But then by the time we were working on opening the rest of the presents after lunch so we'd be done opening by dinner time, Baby#2 had fallen asleep and slept straight through the entire rest of the day.

We had a great Christmas dinner and MiniM.E. sang Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus (another yearly tradition).

Definitely the best Christmas yet!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Last night we drove to NH.  Bob wasn't feeling well so he decided to meet us in NH Christmas Eve.  The drive was stressful at the start as Baby#2 let us know she didn't want to be in the car by screaming at the top of her lungs for the first half hour.  Which, of course, upset MiniM.E.  Fortunately MiniM.E. didn't do her usual "screaming when the baby is screaming," maybe because our Elf on the Shelf, Toodalah, was riding with us on the rear view mirror.  After we stopped for dinner, things went smoothly and we made it here.

Christmas Eve is always a short day because we go to evening mass at 4pm.  This means that we have to start getting ready to go to church at 2:30 so we can leave at 3:30 before the seats my parents save for us get taken.  Baby#2 just hung around while MiniM.E. played with Gram and Grumpy.

The girls were adorable all dressed up for church:

After church we did our annual "Tree Photo".  MiniM.E. was really cute admiring the tree while we got it set up.

just the girls 

the whole family

just the four of us (this was a tricky one... this IS the best photo)

 After the photo, MiniM.E. and Baby#2 opened the traditional Christmas Eve gifts, pajamas.  Two sets of matching ones this year.

Then MiniM.E. tricked us by saying she was ready for bed... but after lying in bed for five minutes, she was too excited to sleep and ended up staying up until 10 when she finally fell asleep, excited to hear Santa on the roof...