Early December

 We've had such light snow falls that it's just piled up nicely on the little picnic table. So far it's easy to gauge how much snow we've gotten! I have a feeling it won't stay that way.

 Chelsea pulled out the Johnny Jump-up all on her own, hooked it up to the rocker, and proceeded to climb in and, well, jump! (I like how Brie is holding three babies. She's really getting into babies!)

 I love these goofy expressions!

 Yes that is a headband around her neck. She wears it that way sometimes because Brie likes to wear it that way, and she thinks it's pretty funny.

 I love my kids!

 Double peg leg Chelsea. I was afraid she would be stuck once she walked, but nope. Her little feet just popped right out!

 Here Brie is demonstrating her favorite way to wear headgear: around her neck. Tiaras end up around her neck as well. (She loves necklaces as well. And they actually belong around her neck!) She's recently started putting her outside hat on, backward, but otherwise properly. She's too cute all bundled up. I'll have to take a picture of her looking like a marshmallow in her snowsuit. Chelsea insists that she's a snowflake, not a marshmallow.

 Family home evening tonight. (Yes, I said tonight! I'm blogging these on the very night they were taken! I can't be any more caught up than that, right?) We had a lesson on sharing. (Sometimes I'm lazy and just redo my lesson from nursery. Tonight was no exception.) Then we made cookies shaped like little bears. We are going to share them with Daddy's home teaching families tomorrow.  Nice how that all fits together, right? Sometimes I feel like a good mom, hehe. (The lesson went really well and the activity was well enjoyed and smooth.) Life is good.

 Remember that photo of Chelsea wearing my pajama pants? She decided to put on Daddy's pants this time. 

 Yes she is nearly naked. Again. But this time it wasn't just for fun. We had spaghetti for dinner tonight, and I'm working on teaching Brie how to use a cup instead of a bottle, so I stripped Brie down to her diaper. Chelsea decided she wanted to be "all naked" too. She's still got underwear on, but that's it, hehe.
She looked like a little mome rath running around like this. Remember those little thingies from Alice in Wonderland? Strange cartoon. Oh, and do you notice all the ponies watching TV? Chelsea makes sure they are fully entertained.

 Here is our bedtime snack: eating some of our cookie bears! Yum!

 I was trying to get a decent picture with both of them with their cookies, so I took a couple shots. Chelsea was so sweet and accommodating and "smiled" over and over even though she was quite eager to munch. Brie wasn't so patient.

Aren't they cute?

All of November

Brie was climbing on the shoe rack one night and decided to weigh Daddy's shoe...with her teeth...Yuck!

She got hung up here for awhile, poor thing.

Check out the stockings and shoes. And there's Brie going through the cupboard in the background.

She hasn't yet become camera-shy.

No, Chelsea is not wearing pants. She's kind of weird that way. She's always liked being barefooted, but recently she's preferred pantsless as well. I don't know where she gets that. The rest of us like wearing pants just fine. =)

At least she's looking at the camera. Nowadays she likes to say cheese but look off to the side.

Behind the couch (she's headed there) is sometimes a fun place to crawl.

I don't remember why Chels brought her pillow and blanket out. But both girls liked resting their heads. Too bad they bonked noggins. They were being so cute sharing a pillow!

Chelsea is eating her lunch nicely.

And Brie was walking around hugging and patting this bottle of lotion like she would a little baby. 

I'm pretty sure this was Thanksgiving Day. I didn't take many pictures that day. We had planned to go to the Hornbacher farm to celebrate and pig out, but we had gotten snow and were expecting much more. So we stayed home. The snow storm was a disappointment and we totally would have been fine driving. We missed seeing the Hornbachers, but we still had fun with the Kelly Clan.

The day after Thanksgiving Chelsea got to make cookies with Auntie Beth.

While they did the cookies, Brie unloaded Grandma's cupboard. This cupboard is regularly gone through, emptied, rearranged, etc. Brie's newest thing is putting a plastic tub on her head or face and looking through it. Goofy girl.

Frosting time! I accidentally deleted one of Chels adding sprinkles. I'm too lazy to re upload it. Just imagine her face in deep concentration, similar to the one here, and you'll know prettymuch how it looked. Daddy got in on the action a bit as well.

The finished product! They are great cookie bakers! They turned out tasty as well as beautiful!

The girls got a kick out of Daddy squirting them with water.

Brie out cold. What does she look like immediately upon waking?

Just like this!

By the way, she did have a blanket to start out with. She must have thrown it out of the crib. She does stuff like that.

Brie isn't the only one that likes to put things on her head!

And it's time to decorate the Christmas tree! Chels is pretty good at helping to put ornaments on.

Brie is pretty good about taking them off again.

Nice earrings, Daddy!

So there's a concentration of candy canes. The perfectionist in me wants to spread them out, but I've resisted so far. I'm trying to leave them alone. =)

Brie is cute snuggling the little nativity figures that Chelsea lined up so nicely.

The finished product. Brie nearly cried when we stopped her from taking things off the tree/touching things on the tree. But she got over it. Now she is very good about leaving the tree (and the presents!) alone.

Why she chose this location to color her picture I don't know. It must have been comfortable. =)

Fall Festivities 2010

Mommy sometimes plays video games. *cough* [Lego Harry Potter] *cough*

The kiddos like to pretend they are playing as well. Though Chelsea does actually move her character now instead of just jumping in one place.

Do you like our cute pumpkins this year? Sadly, they've been buried in snow, frozen, thawed, and started rotting already. So they went out on our last trash day. But the memories live on.

Chels likes to color with many different colors.

Auntie Beth is reading a story, so cute! The girls absolutely LOVE books. Chelsea is starting to be able to spell cat and dog, and she can sort of sound out the letters of simple words. Any letter she's not sure of gains the sound of "ah" whether it is one she actually knows or not. Sometimes she second-guesses herself. She's not good at putting the sounds together to make words yet. But we aren't really pushing it on her. She'll get it when she decides she wants to read on her own.

Brie is a great copy cat. She's combing her hair here, even though she has very little to comb. At least she knows what to do when she does get more hair!
This is a fun bed tent, designed to fit/hook onto a twin size mattress. We don't own any beds of that size, so we put it on the floor with the little mattress inside. Chels had a blast sleeping in it, but she kept waking up Brie, so it went away. We'll probably set it up downstairs when eventually I finish cleaning the carpets.

Brie squeezed into that tiny space back there, planted herself on the Dora chair, and played in the dollhouse until Chelsea came around and I got the camera. Fun times!

A better view of the tent. (and a decent Chelsea smile for a change)

My hamster: cheeks full of grapes.

I had a cute video of Brie making this face and sucking in a noodle, but I accidentally erased it. But don't feel TOO deprived, most of it ended up in the video that Rick made for Greg. The only part that got cut was the actual slurping of the noodle. It's on facebook for those readers that are blog followers but not facebook buddies. *hint, go on facebook and ask to be my friend if you are one of those* 

Big sister Chelsea follows little sister Brie's lead. Brie is officially the leader of the two. Yes, Brie follows Chels around and wants what she's got, but more often it's the other way around.

Halloween!!!! Rick was the Tin Man to go along with Chelsea's Dorothy costume. I was looking for a flower costume to go along with Brie's bee costume, but I couldn't find one. I did however find some bee wings and antennae, so we still were able to coordinate. 

Aren't we all just cute?

Posing.

I couldn't even get Brie to look at me much less pose. There was too much going on, too many interesting people to look at.

Our family wasn't the only one inspired by the wizard of Oz. Incidentally, Chelsea has never seen the movie and has no idea who Dorothy is, but she was still excited to be Dorothy for Halloween. 

Bean bag toss. Auntie Beth was running this one, so Chelsea was really excited to play it and get her prize. She is a candy liker, that's for sure. Suckers (which often MUST be referred to as lollipops) are definitely high on her list of faves.

Brie didn't toss bean bags. She was content to carry around the basket. You can also see Chelsea's pal Evelyn in her cutie witch costume. You'll notice her cute face paint. Auntie Jennifer did face painting for the whole party. I wasn't sure if it would be in high demand because I figured most people are dressing up and would likely do their own face makeup. Not the case. We didn't even have a chance to visit with her she was so crowded with kids to paint. She was a big hit, and they all looked so cute!

I never realized how poplar Dorothy costumes are. I personally have never been Dorothy in all of my ALMOST 30 years. There were...several....Dorothys at the party. :)

We did a fun trunk-or-treat after the shindig at church. This one was MY favorite one. If you put your basket under the tongue, the creature barfs a candy which slides down his tongue into your stash. Ha! I thought it was great. Chelsea didn't want to get too close to it for long enough to get her candy the fancy way (that's her head at the bottom of the picture) but she still got her piece.

She had to try out Auntie Beth's fried egg costume after the party. Notice she's got a sucker in her mouth. She ate more candy than I probably should have let her. But I figured, if she eats it all up right away then she won't be bugging me constantly to eat it for very long. Good logic, eh?

This is just Brie being all cute and stuff. If you've seen the facebook video you've seen the highlights of this already. But I've had this whole post uploaded (including the video I accidentally erased) for nearly a month. I've just now gotten to writing the captions. It was new when I uploaded it.

We were just sitting around waiting for Daddy to get done doing something or other. I don't remember now. But aren't we just cute? I love Halloween with little kids.