Home for the Holidays

Ok, soon enough we will not be home.  But we have had a fairly relaxed holiday season thus far.  I have liked it.  Doesn't mean we haven't had fun though.  Here are just a few things to catch you up from Thanksgiving to today, Christmas Eve.

We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving meal here at home with all the fixins.  Well mom forgot the sweet potatoes, which dad was not all too thrilled about.  We liked the pumpkin pie….ok, the whip cream.  The next day we welcomed visitors.  Nana, Papa, and Rachelle!  Yay.  As always, we had lots of fun with them.  We even kicked off the Christmas season with some trips to see lights.  Including a Cinderella ride down on the plaza.  It was so nice out.  I may have been more obsessed with the horse behind us.

We have had fun with lots of Christmas activities including baking, putting up our Christmas tree, decorations, making gingerbread house, doing our nativity, and advent candles/calendar (socks), our annual Christmas party at the Ludlows, our first trip to a mini nutcracker performance put on by the big kids where I go to dance, and lots of our own singing and dancing to lots of Christmas songs.  SO much fun!!

they also have the coolest train set up there!

under the halo at church!

the bottom of the tree, may have been a little heavy on
decorations

And of course, let's not forget our visit to Santa.  I promised mom and dad that I would be good this year….and I was!  I smiled pretty and told him about the singing Elsa I want.  He is coming tonight, he is coming tonight…. I am just a little bit excited!   I was excited to meet him while we stood in line.  But then they wanted ME to sit on HIS lap.  No way.  I don't care if Amelia was suckered in to talking to the stranger.  I was going to have none of that.  I told mom it was OK if he doesn't bring me anything for Christmas, just get me off his lap!  

We also had a lot of fun at church this past weekend helping to pack over 280K meals that are being sent over to Liberia.  I have tried to offer some of my vegetables every night at dinner, but for some reason that is not the way they want their food (me neither!).  I had fun though and was a good helper, I kept my focus so I could do my job good!

  

Here are a few more pics of us just having fun playing with each other.  I love my little sister.  The feeling is mutual!

If you haven't caught on…we like to wrestle!  And give each other piggy back rides.

We also like to play Lady & the Tramp on spaghetti nights!

But don't try it with bacon in the morning.  Amelia has no self control and she WILL bite your finger if you don't move it out of the way fast enough.

I am sure there are a lot more updates that I am forgetting, but I am getting too excited for everything.  I got to go to big church with mom and dad today.  It is almost Jesus' birthday you know.  It was awesome, I especially like the part where we hold candles and sing Silent Night.  And Evan was there too!  We went to an early dinner with him and Zach (and their parents) before we came home and opened presents!!  More on that next time….as we don't want to forget that tonight is a big night.  I already made cookies with dad today while mom went to work for her LAST day of work.  (Yep, for better or for worse it is official and she is going to be spending more time with us.  Dad said after this morning with us he gives mom a week before she starts looking for a new job.  Thanks dad….).  Anyway, cookies and carrots are out and I have to hurry to bed…Santa has hit the east coast (we have been tracking him)…. Night, night..  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Amelia OUT!!!

Me Too!

iPad Selfie!!

I get to write this blog entry.  Why you ask?  Well, it has been almost a month and big sis has slacked.  That...and I have been ditched.  Want an explanation?  Me TOO!  Ok, that may be my favorite phrase these days, but it is the truth....I want to do whatever Amelia does, so I say "me too" all the time.  Well dad yesterday asks Amelia if she wants to go for a quick day trip to Lincoln to go watch our cousins play in the state football championship.  After she eagerly says yes...I follow with my "Me Too"....and crickets.  I am getting real frustrated with the "you're too little", "you're too short", etc. comments.  When do I get to join in on the fun?!  Oh well, I guess I can spend the 6 hours they are spending in a car having fun at school and with mom.  We went to the grocery store tonight.  And I got to do the shopping all by myself.  That was totally fun! 

I can't remember back an entire month....so I am just going to let the pictures jog my memory on all the fun times we have had.  Don't sue me if things are out of order:

Be ROYAL!  Yes, one final Royals reference given it engulfed our lives for an entire month.  My favorite player, Alex Gordon, came SO close to giving us a perfect ending to the World Series, but it wasn't meant to be.  Pretty cool that they were in Game 7 in the World Series.  You would have got me to bet away all my Halloween candy if you asked me that back when we went to games months ago!  Glad I didn't have to give that up though.  I love candy!  Anyway, speaking of game 7.  We did get to spend the evening with Zach & Evan and their mommy while the others went to the game.  It was so fun....they have tons of cool toys and yummy food.  Amelia even realized she liked oranges.  Actually, she is making progress and joining me in eating fruit lately.  Pears, oranges, apples...I know it only took her 4 years!  I had so much fun with Zach, that I may or may not have refused to leave his room.  They found me sleeping on his floor when they got back from the game.  Dad told me not to get in the habit of staying at boys houses. 



We had Halloween.  We got to dress up so many times.  First, we went to Avery and Mae's annual party.  Where I was Tinkerbell and Amelia was a pirate. I had a lot of fun...well until I saw this guy.  I did NOT like him.  And I could not get away for the life of me!  

costume winners was the Incredibles family

We also scored candy at mommy's work.  And then on the actual holiday we dressed up again (this time I was an Elephant - it was cold outside) for both school and the neighbors.  I didn't much like going to strangers houses.  Mainly because there always seemed to be scary dogs coming at me, but I already had a year's worth of candy so I didn't see the need.  So I headed back home with mom to stay warm and give candy to others.  Totally fun.

Moving right to the next holiday, last week we had our school's Thanksgiving feast.  I don't think mom and dad thought that that I was as good of a singer as Amelia.  In fact, I heard them say that they fully expected me to run off the stage.  Apparently, my usual lack of interest in learning or participating in organized things on request made them believe this would be the case.  Well, I surprised them.  I'm pretty sure I was the star of the show and did everything I was suppose to...thank you very much.  Then I got to watch Amelia, and she did so good.  She even sang a song in Spanish.  (that's right...she knows a lot of Spanish.  More than dad!)  I love watching her.  I got to watch her at dance one night too.  She is awesome.

 

Visitors:
- Aunt Brenda came for a quick visit.  We had fun playing with her in the morning.  We tried to talk mommy into letting us play with her all day, but it didn't work.  :(

Grandpa McLain also came in to see us.  Again, it was quick…but we had fun nonetheless.  He showed us pictures from his trip and we even went out to dinner with him!!

-Grandma Janice/Elmo came down for a visit on her way (ok, not really ON the way) to Arizona.  We likely won't see her for a while so we got to spend a few days soaking her in (and maybe vice versa!).  We played hookie from school, went out to dinner to mom's favorite place - where we got to see a real life choo-choo!  We colored and played a lot.  Amelia played teacher with us while mom & dad went to a movie so fun was had by all.  Luckily we have Skype so we get to keep singing and talking to her no matter where she is!

we may have got a nap in too.

More pictures:  The weather has been very up and down.  One day bike riding (check out my new ride), the next day Amelia was ready to go sledding (although not enough snow for that yet!).  So some in home movie nights happened too!

look at the buck that came to our backyard!

 

I'm back from my awesome daddy/daughter day trip and since Heidi fell asleep before posting, I can put my 2 cents in.  I was SO excited to get to spend time with just daddy.  We stayed with Tanja & BJ....which was so much fun.  Tanja even gave me ice cream.  I knew I liked her!  Then the next day we woke up and went to Nana & Papa's hotel and ate a 2nd breakfast (have I ever told you that is my favorite meal of the day?) before heading to the Go Big Red game.  It was so cool seeing my cousins play.  They may not have won, but they are studs in my book!  After the game we got to go out to eat with everyone before heading home, I wasn't ready to come back but am thankful for the little trip we had and chance to see everyone!

Here are a few more things that we have done that Heidi forgot about…family bowling trip, science experiment at home…mom and I went to church and packed a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child.  I got to pick out all these cool toys to send to a little girl, and I even got to color and write her a note.  Seriously lots to be thankful for.  As you can see, we have a pretty good life!


I have got to be so good at coloring that I am moving on to new challenges..

Look mom - no hands!

Just a couple of videos of us singing and being silly to end it all on!  We sing all the time, but you know usually stop when mom gets the phone out to record us! Until next time, Amelia OUT!