Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas! Christmas was a wonderful day! What better day is there for a child when you can open up presents, eat great food, and then play with your new toys, all day while still in your pjs? Andrina's excitment for the day really brought out the kid in Tom and I and we certainly enjoyed having Christmas through our child's eyes. Unfortunately, Tom's Auntie Theresa passed away on the 20th and he was gone out of state for very long funeral services and didn't get home until Christmas Eve. Also, I had a feeling when we saw Auntie Theresa on Thanksgiving that it was going to be the last time I would get to see her. But her sweet nature was definately with us on Christmas and we will always love her.

Christmas Eve with Shellie's family

My Mom & sister Reenie

Me, Andrina & my Dad
I love it how we still hold up our presents like we did when we were kids!

A Thomas blanket from Grandma & Grandpa

Christmas Morning, opening Presents...
Andrina's ladybug pillow pet

and Thomas ride-on toy!

exploring new books

playing with a new Thomas playset

playing with a dollhouse from Santa

Andrina had so much Christmas that she actually took a nap AND fell asleep!

With her new Thomas blanket from Grandma and pillow pet of course!
She really is a sweetie!

After her nap, Andrina dressed up in her "Bob the Builder" costume... ...and played with her dollhouse in it!

My very well-rounded daughter!

Merry Christmas!!!

"Cookies with Santa"

Gymboree had a Christmas party this year called "Cookies with Santa" to raise money for St Jude's Children's Hospital. I took Andrina and they had the most amazingly authentic Santa I have ever seen. Really. When I first saw him, for that moment, I believed in Santa Claus. I'm not exaggerating. Take a look at the photo!

Andrina with the "real" Santa Claus!

and I have to get a picture with my beautiful little girl too!

Andrina had such a great time. She got to talk to Santa twice and even got to say goodbye when he left. It was so adorable. There she was with many other preschool age children standing at the window saying "bye" and waving to Santa. I hope they do this again next year and the real Santa Claus can come again too!

Letters

This morning while watching "Meet the Letters" I had Andrina put together the upper and lower case letters using letters from her educational toys. She did great for all 26 of them. She lined them up in rows and I was so impressed with her work that I had to take a picture of her with them! And now I also know that she does indeed know all of her letters!

Christmas Tree 2010

We actually put our tree up two weeks ago but since Andrina and I decorated it, I was too busy trying to keep her from breaking any ornaments while getting them on the tree to take any pictures. But I got some today while we put the candy canes on!

Andrina dancing & singing "Jingle Bells" along with an Elmo ornament

putting on a candy cane
Our completed tree, with many, many lights, ornaments & 3 dozen candy canes!

Christmas Cookies

Today was the first time Andrina and I made Christmas cookies together. She loved it, especially pressing the cutters into the dough and then putting sprinkles on the baked & frosted cookies. Here's our pictures:

It took f o r e v e r to get the table clean after we were done!

Andrina with the shapes she chose
Putting sprinkles on is so much fun!

an assortment of the finished cookies

Yum!

Poop!

Andrina just made her first poo-poo in the potty!!!! Yay, my little girl who only seems to pee in the potty at school, doesn't like to do it at home, just made her first poop in the potty!

Nativity

Andrina got a "Story of Christmas" book in her stocking last year. We read it then and I pulled it out recently along with all the other Christmas & winter books. She's wanted to read it every night for several days in a row now. Apparently, Baby Jesus is quite the hit! So I got her the little people Nativity set too. I remember really liking the large Nativity set we had I was a kid and wanting to "play" with the pieces but I couldn't because they were breakable. I'm glad I got Andrina one she can play with, without the fear of it breaking!

1st Visit with Santa!

The other day Andrina had her first visit with Santa Claus! She's definately a little kid now who gets Christmas and Santa Claus! She cannot wait for Christmas, everyday she talks about how, "tomorrow is Christmas". Nope, sorry Honey. That's a quote from The Muppet Christmas Carol, it's not going to be Christmas tomorrow quite yet!

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

We had two Thanksgiving celebrations this year. The day before Tom's Auntie Theresa & his cousins came over for dinner. It was so good seeing them again, especially Auntie Theresa. She is such a sweet woman and I've always really loved her. Plus it had been too long since we got together. On Thanksgiving day the three of us went to my parents' house for dinner. We just took a few pictures this time.

Auntie Theresa & Andrina

Jump Party

Last night Andrina went to a birthday party at a jumpy place. We haven't been to one of those in a while but now, like many things, Andrina is old enough to really enjoy it. She spent the entire night really jumping and playing like the little kid that she has become! I love it!

Arboretum Outing

Andrina and I have gone to the arboretum once before this year. Yesterday was most likely our last day there until spring as it was unseasonably warm! We were lucky we got to meet up with her cousins and both her aunties yesterday!

Cousins & Auntie April

I'm going to start calling Doreen "Super Auntie"! That's over 60 lbs of nieces!
I finally got Andrina to sit still and smile for a photo!

So Well Rounded

One of the many, many things I love about my daughter is how many interests she has and how well rounded she is. I think this picture says it well: she's playing with her train set while dressed up as a ballerina! And she picked out the outfit too!

Happy Halloween 2010!

Halloween is so much fun with a 3-year old! Long gone are the days when I'd dress up Andrina and take her trick-or-treating as a baby. Now she's a little kid and she really gets all of it! Andrina has been looking forward to today--getting to dress up as Thomas the Train again and get candy! Kids know what's best in life and they savor all of it! Here's some pictures from our day with our little girl:

getting the pumpkin ready to carve

Andrina & her friend Audrey trick-or-treating at the commons
getting dark out now

the fun of dumping out all the candy and seeing the loot!

our happy little family

and we forgot to get a picture of Andrina with her jack-o-lantern

so we had to take it right before she went to bed.

Notice her wet hair and jammies!

Andrina & a Baby Giraffe

I have adorable video footage of Andrina feeding carrots to a baby giraffe. But I can't get it to upload. I've tried several times without success so I will have to be happy with the best still photo Tom or I got of her feeding the baby. I wish it had uploaded. It's so precious to hear her sweet little voice saying, "here you go baby" as she puts a carrot in the baby giraffe's mouth. We've got a great kid who's a sweetie!

Here you go baby!

Gymboree Halloween Party 2010

Such a busy day! This was the last of the day's activities, the Halloween party at Gymboree. Andrina loved it, of course. She's such a happy kid that she is pretty easy to please. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that I get to give her 100% of me so much of the time. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had me to be with her at three different places today. I love being with her and going to her activities with her. Although, she's such a sweet and loving child that she makes it so easy to be with her!

playing bobbing for apples with Ms. Jessica

with Gymbo!

Preschool Halloween Party

It's been a very busy day for us. First there was a Halloween party to take Andrina to at her school. Then we went to a pumpkin farm, followed by a party at Gymboree. Here's pictures from Andrina's class party:

So happy to be dressed as Thomas the Train!

Going trick-or-treating with her class
Trying to get in on the mummy dress-up

Ms. Gina wrapping up Andrina as a mummy

and ripping out of the mummy wrappings