Santa-Phobia

The Santa picture is not happening again this year....

Trying to do the convincing....I even offered to sit with them.  Taylor even offered to hold her hand *gasp*!

She may as well have been covered in double-stick tape; she was not letting go.  And wouldn't even smile at the camera.

Not our Christmas Card

You'll have to wait until the 23rd-ish of December to see the real card.  And if you think you aren't getting one and want one, send me your darn address!

Cinderella Weekend

While Andy enjoyed his first opening weekend with my Dad (and other male members of my extended family)...the girls and I camped out with my Mom.  We went to the local high school production of Cinderella, and as a special bonus - there was a Cinderella Tea on Saturday afternoon.  The girls got to decorate their own crowns, take pictures with Cinderella in her pumpkin carriage, listen to a preview of the songs from the cast, and meet any character they wanted to.  They liked the Step Sisters a lot - but did not want anything to do with the Prince or the King.  Guess that's good news for Andy for now :)

Decorating the crowns while Joy the ugly step-sister visited.

Orneriest princess in the whole place.  While the show was going on  - and it was quiet in the atrium area - Connor passed some gas while sitting on my lap.  Then said "Poop!!" as loud as could be.  I'm sure my face was the color of those red chairs.

Only one Princess was willing to stand with the giant pumpkin at this point.

With Cinderella in her Carriage.  Connor was pretty apprehensive at first, but Taylor was an excellent big-sister and held her hand so she would do it.

Little Miss Serious intently watching one of the preview scenes.

The girls with the Step-Mother & Step-Sisters.

Learning how to waltz.....

So they could dance with each other - cause you know they would have nothing to do with dancing with the prince or anyone else!

Taylor's Pumpkin Patch Birthday

Authors note: (haha- author is me - haha)  It just took 42 minutes for blogger to upload these pictures.  I do not feel like organizing them in order.  Captions will be short. Deal wit it...

I call this "Life imitating Scarecrow"

 All the little kiddos at Taylor's 4th birthday party munching on some cake.

When T opened this gift she exclaimed "Oh Quentin! It's just right!"  Quentin would be the little blondie to her left.  Such drama....

The gift of the coveted hula hoop.  

Little pumpkin cakes - ala my mom.  Delish.

"If the scarecrow looks right at mom's camera, then we should look the other available directions. Of course!"

"Hey, I'm almost 3 feet tall finally!"

Cannot open eyes all the way for pictures.  

Candy & Trombones

I know - it's a weird title. It may even attract weird people to this blog.  But those are the only two things Taylor seems to care about when it comes to parades.  We went to the annual Maple Leaf Festival parade last Saturday, and yes, we have plenty of candy now and we even saw some trombones. We rode the carousel, and ate a little fair food.  We even learned that Connor has a 'trick': Put an entire tootsie roll in your mouth - finagle it around in there - and spit out only the paper - still in one piece.  Yep, she's got talent.

All in all, I think everyone was happy.

*Special thanks to Allison for capturing these photos.

Belated Birthday

I promised myself I would post pictures of Connor celebrating her birthday before Taylor's birthday.  But in all fairness, having two kids born in the same month is crazy.  Anyway, for Connor's birthday this year we had two family parties.  The first celebration was a 'Pooh-l' party at my parent's house on Labor Day. Obviously, we wanted to use the pool, and we had a 'Pooh' theme.

 She couldn't wait to get her little hands on her 'Bee-hive' cake.

Pool hair

Taylor is a fish in the pool...but was freezing when we took a break for cake

I just love T's face smiling up at Connor in this one

Oh yeah, she blew out her candle on her own...first try, no spit even!

Opening gifts

Snuggling new clothes

I love that they want to play with everything we opened

Connor is actually a really good present un-wrapper.  I know, that probably does not come as a surprise at all.

Oooh!  A shoe box!

Clothes! Yay, let me take them to the person who gave them to me.

And show you how they fit....

Reading cards

I had to explain what a 'piece of paper' inside of a card meant to Taylor.  She got the concept when I said we could take it and go buy something at the store.

Oh boy - babies!

Taylor & Evan checking out her new Princess books

Another baby! - A Princess Baby even! OH MY!!!  (Taylor was a little jealous, Aunt Steph told her she would take care of it ;)  )

And this is how she spends most of her time with her babies, carrying them around in her little arm.  

The day after Labor Day, we had Andy's side of the family over for dinner.  I did a terrible job with the camera, so there are very few pictures of Andy & Connor opening gifts....

Allison and Connor were having a staring contest, apparently.

Musical cards!!

Trying on her new Elmo baby Jayhawk shirt!

Shop till you Drop

Mid-snack, she finally passed out. At least Target has super sturdy straps to hold her in.

Taylor & Connor...Unplugged

Friday morning I was woken by a hot, sweaty almost-two year old around 5:00am.  I picked her up, and realized that our fans weren't running.  Then flipped around and looked at the clock - to notice it was also black. A nasty storm had started the night before, and apparently knocked out our power.  In an all electric house with a well, you don't get to shower when there's no power.  Daycare called around 7:10 to let us know they were also without power - so we couldn't even let the girls escape our hot house.  So - without power, AND water and all of us at home (because you know Andy shouldn't go to work without showering!) we went to Quick Trip for breakfast and bathroom breaks in the morning.

Donuts & milk from QT

She is the fastest donut eater I've ever met.

Coloring extra boxes...surprisingly entertaining.

Playing dress-up...or dress-down I guess. They thought sticking those sticky jewel things to their stomachs was so much fun.

And once we convinced everyone to put their clothes back on, Connor thought she should model Taylor's shoes.  Shes got a lotta growing to do....

Power finally came back on at noon, but not soon enough for our milk and about everything else in the fridge. That made for a reeeeeally fun afternoon.