The Elf on the Shelf

We welcomed the Elf on the Shelf today! For those of you not in the know, he is a magic elf who reports to Santa every night about whether Charlie and Amelia have been naughty or nice that day. Every morning he returns to a different spot in the house, and the kids have to look for him. Charlie is thrilled to have a magic elf visiting us for the holidays, while Amelia is scared of him.

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Thanks Mom and Dad!!

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Unevenly Matched?

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Letters to Santa

Charlie and Amelia mailed their letters to Santa this afternoon. Let's hope they are a good boy and girl from now until Christmas so they get everything on their list!

Amelia & Vivian

Amelia with her BFF Vivian this morning.

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Christmas Parade

I took a break from the unpacking and mountains of laundry today to take the kids to the Christmas Parade. Here are some pictures:

Visit with Kristina

On Saturday before heading home we stopped by to visit my friend Kristina who has been battling stage IV breast cancer, but who still remains amazingly positive! I hadn't seen her since my wedding day & she had never met the kids, so it was a special treat to get to see her, especially since this morning she was re-admitted to the hospital :(

Here we are with the kids -- it was great to see you Kristina, stay strong!

Longwood Gardens

On Friday we spent the day at Longwood Gardens with Alex & Miki and the kids. Most of these photos are shamelessly lifted from Miki's Facebook album because, well, Mike, Alex, Amelia and I spent our whole time at Longwood Gardens looking for Miki and the kids... Don't ask...

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a great Thanksgiving this year with the family in Philadelphia; Amelia got to meet Uncle Alex, Aunt Miki and cousins Annie, Jay & Yoshi for the first time. Charlie and Jay got along famously, so much so that Charlie is now asking to take violin lessons and wants to know why he doesn't speak Japanese.

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving Day:

Dinner With Jessica

We had a great time with Jessica tonight, whom I hadn't seen since Amelia was 2 weeks old. We had dinner at Bertuccis and then walked around the mall, taking the kids on the carousel and into the Zoo Outpost store where Jessica spoiled the kids with presents, all for a good cause. Amelia took to Jessica right away, as she regularly talks on the phone to her, calling her "Sticky", mostly because I think it is funny, not because she can't say "Jessica". To top the night off I even got to take home some of Jessica's mom's fruit cake. Thanks Jessica's mom & great to see you Jessica!

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First Of Many Manicures!

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My Little Indian

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Warming Up

Amelia warmed up considerably to this week's story time session, dancing about to the turkey themed fun. Much better than last week's session when she wouldn't leave my lap!

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Amelia...

Watching Lion King in her blanket sleeper and a life jacket... Whatever makes her happy...

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All Bundled Up

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Amelia's Bedtime Neuroses

It is beginning to dawn on me that Amelia's list of bedtime requirements has become nothing less than, well, neurotic. Here is a list of things that she must have before settling down to sleep:

Her purple bunny pillow pal must be positioned just so with a polka dot receiving blanket folded around it. If she doesn't like the folding job she will have you refold it again. And again.
She must have two books in her crib, usually "Brown Bear Brown Bear" and "Getting Dressed" - the aforementioned book needs to be positioned at the top right of her crib and the latter at the bottom of her crib.
She needs a pair of shoes by the top left of her pillow - surprisingly it does not matter what pair of shoes, as long as there is a pair of shoes there.
She needs not one but two sippys in her crib which need to be filled with fresh water every night. Under no circumstances will she let the filling of the sippys slide. Also under no circumstances can you take both sippys out of the crib at the same time to fill them. You MUST FILL THEM SEPARATELY which thanks to the location of her bedroom necessitates two trips up and down the stairs.
She also needs you to blow her nose about 164,000 times.
Once you have done all of these things you are almost there. There are just a few more little things she needs.
She needs the bathroom light on to keep the "scaries" away.
She needs her pink blanket positioned over her absolutely perfectly right, which may take between 5 and 10 tries. Even if it is very cold she will have no other blanket in her crib - all other blankets are "scary".
She needs to have her stuffed "Bun Bun", her obsession with Bun Bun could fill another blog post and woe to us if we ever lose her.

Once you have taken care of the above list, you should be good to go!

Proof

That Charlie isn't afraid of all dogs.

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Tired of Blonde Hair

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Negotiations

This is what I went through this morning getting Amelia dressed. Come to think of it, every morning is pretty similar.
AMELIA: "Want Elmo shirt!"
ME: "It's too cold for Elmo, wear this one."
AMELIA: "Don't want that one, WANT ELMO SHIRT!" She starts smacking me on the arm.
ME: "Ouch, you're giving Mommy a boo-boo, do you want to give Mommy a boo-boo?"
AMELIA: "Yes."
I wrestle her into the shirt and start in on a sweatshirt.
AMELIA: "Don't want sweater."
ME: "Yes you do- look, it's a pretty pretty sweater."
AMELIA: "DON'T WANT SWEATER! WANT JACKET!"
ME: "You're going to wear your jacket too, your new pretty pink coat."
I wrestle her into the sweater and start on the sneakers.
AMELIA: "Don't want this one, want boots."

Mother Goose On The Loose

Yesterday I took Amelia to the first of a series of story hours that I signed up for at the Quincy Public Library, specifically for kids aged 18 to 24 months. Amelia became a living barnacle the minute we walked into the room and stayed in my lap/ in my arms pulling the I-am ridiculously- shy act the whole time, but nevertheless did seem to enjoy herself. The theme of the story hour was "Owls"; we read two cute owl stories and sang songs about owls, complete with owls puppets, stuffed owls, and various other props. The lady who ran it seemed utterly unfazed by the chaos of two dozen not quite two year olds, which I suppose is why she is able to do this for a living. All in all it was very cute, and I was happy to get out and do something just for Amelia - I am looking forward to next week's session, but thinking I will pre-medicate with ibuprofen first :)

First Report Card

Today was our first parent/teacher conference and Charlie got his first report card! I met not only with Charlie's kindergarten teacher but also with the reading specialist, whom Charlie has been seeing in a small group for half an hour a day, four times a week. Both were very positive, saying that Charlie is "sweet" and "adorable" and that he listens carefully, works well independently, takes rules very seriously and is considerate of others. They also said that his "phonemic awareness" has greatly improved since starting with the reading specialist - I can attest to this personally, as he is beginning to sound out his first words. On his report card he got satisfactory marks in all academic areas with a smattering of areas where he is "consistently exceeding expectations" such as recognition of letters, associating numbers with sets of objects, counting with meaning, recognizing and producing rhymes, etc.

Overall, a great report card - way to go Charlie and keep up the good work!

Charlie's School Picture 2011

Please excuse the obvious picture of a picture, our school's photographer is still clearly in the dark ages and didn't give us anything digital.

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On The Train

Amelia and I took the train into Harvard Square this morning to buy Harvard tee shirts for the Philly cousins. Here is Amelia happily riding the train like a big girl, complete with her Starbucks. (Don't worry, it wasn't actually coffee...)

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Bows & Boots

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Video Gaming Audience

Charlie's friend Patrick came over after school today; the boys' play date consisted entirely of Patrick watching Charlie playing Super Mario Galaxy. And here I thought they were going to be playing with actual toys...

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Random Monday Updates

We had a nice weekend; Mike and I got out Saturday night and had dinner at Hingham Beer Works and did some more shopping for winter gear at Old Navy. Everyone is finally outfitted with hats and gloves for the winter, at least until somebody loses something.
On Sunday we had a nice visit to Grammy and Grampy's although Charle discovered that the fishing in November isn't so good...

Amelia has been talking up a blue streak. She has started in on the questions so now all day long it is "Watchya doing?" "What happened?" "Where's (fill in the blank)?"

Charlie has been learning addition, thanks to a new dinosaur addition/ subtraction board game we got him, and is now adding numbers like a pro (okay well counting on his fingers, but hey I still do it that way...) We are about ready to brave the initial frustrated temper tantrums and teach him the subtraction part of the game. He has his first parent/teacher conference next week and first quarter report card, so that will be interesting... :)

Otherwise, not much is new - gearing up for our trip to Philly for Thanksgiving in a couple weeks!

Squirrel Watching At Grammy's