Photo Ready

"Just call me bruiser" (note a pretty banged up face ... he tries to start many fights with the floor, pool table, and pinball machine ... the inanimate objects tend to win...)

On our walk to the waterfall today, Charlie was so happy to be out and about walking around.

"Peekaboo!"

He was filled with so much joy, and was expressing it so openly.

I'm really enjoying him at this age!

Wow, that bike sure is ... purple!

Santa's big gift for Alli was the much-desired big girl bike which, we were informed, had to be purple. Oh boy, that it is, tassles, and all!

Alli will bike herself all the way to the waterfall and back, doing several loops over the bridge in between.

Between that and the roller skates that are occupying the other 50 percent of her awake time, she's going to be one in-shape 3 year old! She better sleep really well now!!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The kids had a great and fun Christmas this year. Charlie's still on 2 naps, so he slept through much of it, but it was so fun to see Alli enjoying every aspect of it this year. We went to Christmas Eve church service the night before. Charlie enjoyed playing in the daycare, and Alli chose to sit with Mommy and Daddy and loved singing along with the Christmas carols which she was well familiar with by now since I've had them cranked for a whole month by now! She made it through the whole service and we were really proud of her.

She left out specially decorated cookies for Santa, and carrots for his reindeer. The next morning they both had a ball exploring all of Santa's generosity, and were delighted with the thoughtful family gifts under the tree too. Here are a few fun pictures from the day.

Self Portraits

Self-portraits are so fun to watch develop...
Alli hasn't done a self-portrait for me outside of school.

The other day when I was putting Charlie down for his nap, she whipped this one up on her white board ...



... and then the next morning decided to add arms/legs/body/freckles...

Alli's First School Program

November 2 was my last post?! Good grief, you'd think I forgot how to do this or something.

In the coming days I'll try to catch you up on all that's been going on, but for now, here's the latest!

Alli's class ... well, she's MWF, and some of them are just TTh and they're all bunched in there together making it look much bigger than her class size really is...

Alli's first school program was a Christmas program last night that was super cute!
There were 7 classes that each performed 2 songs, and then at the end all the classes sang one last song together. Alli did great, and didn't show any signs of stage fright, and sang her heart out and did all the hand motions that the teachers taught them to do. Alli's class had a "king" theme (singing We Three Kings and Joy To the World) so her class dressed up as kings.

Here are a few fun pictures, it's hard to get good ones at night!
We did take video on the video camera but it may take a few days for Dan to get around to cutting it down to a small enough version for me to post it on YouTube, but as soon as we do, I'll let you know.