Snowed In

The UNPLEASANT part of last weekend's snowstorm: digging our car out with a broom, dustpan, and borrowed garden shovel.
The PLEASANT part of last weekend's snowstorm: playing in the snow together.

I loved seeing the girls all bundled up. Unfortunately Laina didn't have snowpants and still doesn't because the four stores I have checked were out. Anyway, she seemed fine being outside until I set her down to take a picture and she did a face plant in the snow. Laines did a few more face plants (inside) before she got used to the boots. Unfortunately the face plants were all technically on my watch. It was Lizzie's first time sledding and she LOVED it. We didn't have a sled (still don't--all the stores are out) so Liz used a cookie sheet. It worked well.

It was also the first time Liz made a snowman. She enjoyed the the snowballs, snow angels, and snowman, but sledding was still her favorite.

Happy Ending

My brother (a.k.a. Uncle Robbie) came to visit us last weekend. Liz was beyond excited and we were all really glad to have family around. Rob was supposed to fly out Saturday. Naturally, with last weekend's snowstorm, his flight was cancelled. We were happy to have him around, but worried that extending his business trip to visit us would inadvertently cause him to miss an important family function the following Monday. Luckily it all worked out in the end. We had a nice visit and he was able to fly out Sunday night. Lainey was super classy for her uncle shot. At least she missed her nostril.

While Drew and Liz were otherwise engaged (boring work and school), Rob and I went to the Air and Space museum near Dulles airport.

While there Alaina spent most of her time trying to climb under the little fences surrounding the airplanes . . .

and pushing her stroller--for the first time ever. Another first this week: interest in books. Now she's bringing them to us to read instead of wandering away when we try to read bedtime stories.

While snowed in, we baked cookies, watched movies, played cards, and used our bread maker for the first time. Oh yeah, and we did all the outside stuff too. We sledded, made a snowman and snow angels, dug out the van, and went in search of shovels (no luck).

The girls both took to Rob right away. Lizzie wanted him to read her stories and play ponies (he did both) and Alaina also enjoyed his attention.Another Happy Ending: thanks to the weather, Lizzie's school was cancelled. We had intended to do all our holiday shopping this week while she was at said school. Luckily we were able to set up back-to-back playdates for Liz today (and even Alaina) and after a marathon shopping spree we are finished with our shopping. Hurray!

Now the Celebration is Complete

We finally had Andrew's birthday "cake" last night. Liz made of him purple frosting and put "a lot" of candles in (10 I think) "because Daddy's old."

Also part of his celebration, I took him to see Young Frankenstein at the Kennedy Center.

It's not like we don't provide her with toys . . .

she just loves the laundry baskets.

15 months old!

I finally got Alaina to her 15 month check up (just two weeks late). 7 a.m. appointment. Ouch.

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Stats: 15% for height, 20% for weight (20 lbs 5 oz), 60% for head circumference.

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She got gobs of shots and cried tons and I felt like a big jerk holding her down for them, so pretty standard.
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Alaina at 15 months: usually puts her binky in upside down, loves baths, likes to brush her hair, likes to wear shoes but removes them in the car, says "no" a lot (her main other words are uh-oh, hi, mama, & dada), uses baby sign to say please & thank you & food, enjoys pushing laundry baskets around, likes to put little toys on her fingers and wrists, dislikes wearing her winter hat and the babysitters at the gym, gives lots of hugs and sometimes open mouth kisses, is becoming attached to a little teddy bear, "dances" by spinning in a circle.

Birthday

Yesterday was Drew's birthday. We celebrated with a German pancake breakfast, a diaper-free weekend, some sleep-in time, and Liz made him a birthday poster with candy bars. It's her first and I let her make up the sentences so we ended up with stuff like "Happy Birthday KitKat" and "There is a Lemonhead at the door."

Last night the girls met . . .

Santa and Mrs. Claus (at the ward party)! Alaina was fascinated with old St. Nick.

And then she was scared.

It took some time (and cuddling) before she calmed down.