Decorating for Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving we turned on the Christmas music and decorated for the holiday.  Gwenevere and Papa did all the work, I took pictures and played with Grace.

Gwenevere was a great helper

She tested the ornaments 

And helped Papa organize them

We hung the stockings and talked about snow

We put up window stickers and talked about the birth of Christ

James stayed up late and made a popcorn and cranberry garland.

I think it makes our tree look perfect.  

I just love this time of year.  I'm busy making crafts, mailing Christmas cards, and counting down the days til James finishes school.  Merry Christmas!

Ballerina

Gwenevere's first day of ballet class.  

Here she is showing me her moves before class 

kicks and spins that's all you need to know 

Here is the pretty Ballerina with her Papa

James took her to ballet since I was busy that morning.

And this is "My little Ballerina"

Happy Halloween

I wasn't sure if we'd get around to carving pumpkins this year.  Life has been busy.  But we did.  Gwenevere really didn't like the feel of pumpkin guts she preferred watching Papa.  And since we wouldn't let her use a knife (she was very disappointed) pumpkin carving was left to the big kids.

Gwenevere enjoyed taking the pictures for us

From left to right:  Mama's pumpkin, Papa's pumpkin, Gwenvere's pumpkin

Gwenevere dressed up as a monkey.

She wanted to do her own face paint

We went to Ward's trunk or treat

Grace was a Mouse

Gwenvere a Monkey

Mama a Panda bear

Papa Shaun of the dead (a soon to be zombie)

James's costume was perfect.  After the truck or treat James went on a Zombie run.  

The goal was to run a 5 k run without being caught by the zombies.

James's picture prior to the zombie run

James after the run

It's not real blood it's zombie blood.

Alisha dressed up as a basketball player and went to the ward Trunk or Treat with us.

A few days after Halloween Gwenevere dumped her candy all over the floor.  I gave her 30 minutes to pick it up and even tried to help her pick it up, but she didn't want to.

So after the 30 minutes I gave up and decided to give all of Gwenevere's Halloween candy to Alisha.  I wasn't too excited about letting my 2 year old eat a pound of candy and I didn't really want to drag out having Halloween candy in our house for four months.  So it turned out to be a win win situation and Gwenevere hasn't asked for her Halloween candy since.  

Over all we had a very fun Halloween.

Daddy Daughter date

James took Gwenevere on a Daddy Daughter date on the 29th of October.  They went to a piano recital  at James' school.

 Gwenevere loves the piano and enjoyed sitting on Papa's lap listening to the music before she  fall asleep.

During intermission Gwenevere woke up and asked to get ice cream, so they left the recital early to go get ICE CREAM  (a daddy daughter date must).

Gwenevere loves her Daddy Daughter Dates

Growing Gwenevere

Gwenevere is 2.5 years old (34 months)

Weight 31lbs

Height 35.75 ins

Night and Day Potty trained

loves to talk and most people can understand what she says

enjoys being a big sister but doesn't smother Grace

Gwenevere is scared of Ghosts, and shadows

Gwenevere has an imaginary pet Mouse that she plays with in the car.  

Last week Gwenevere started pretending to be a puppy.  We call her spot.  And the picture below is Spot in her dog house.  It's been fun to have a puppy around the house.

Lately Gwenevere has been very interested in cooking.  She usually gets upset if I start cooking something without asking her if she wants to help.  Here she is helping me make my Mama's special rolls.

buttering the rolls was her favorite part because I let her do it all by herself.

Gwenevere still enjoys Preschool.  I'm so glad to have Tanya here, she is teaching me so much about this age. Yesterday Tanya taught the girls about the color Orange and the number 5.  For snack time they ate 5 crackers and and Orange.  Gwenevere's favorite part about snack time is we allow them to pore their own drinks.  

This is the Orange pumpkin Gwenevere decorated

On Tuesday we discovered the Tacoma nature park.  A new favorite place for our family.  Gwenevere had so much fun playing in the water, and exploring with Papa.

I was super excited when Gwenevere started climbing the rock.  She's pretty cautious about everything physical so when she took the lead I had to take pictures.  I'm so proud of her.  When she gets older I plan to take her rock climbing.

Sleep tight

The other night James put Gwenevere to bed and we watched a movie in the living room.  Gwenevere talked for about a half an hour and then fell asleep.  When the movie was over we went into our room and found this little girl in our bed.

Little miss trouble

This little girl has gotten into so much trouble lately; I swear I'm loosing my mind.

Here's what she's done today

1. dumped out the entire shampoo bottle I had just bought.
2. opened Grace's diaper rash ointment and started dumping it out on the carpet, luckily I caught that one fast.
3. dumped out the entire bottle of conditioner (a different incident that the shampoo bottle).  grrr

So when i heard Gwenevere say "Grace is upside down."

I panicked.

Thankfully Grace was safe in  her swing.


Please excuse me; I now have to go get Gwenevere down from climbing the book shelf.  '
Thank goodness nap time is in 1 hour.  I need a nap.  :-)

gwenevere's first day of Preschool (Sept 13, 2011)

Yesterday was Gwenevere's first day of home school Preschool.  I think I was more excited about it then Gwenevere at first but now she's pretty excited to go to school like Papa.

Tanya and I have decided to take turns planning the preschool lessons.  Tanya taught this week and she did an awesome job.  First the girls learned about the days of the week, the seasons, and the weather.  Then she taught them about the letter "A" and the color Red.  Then she taught them a poem about two red apples.  After that it was center time.  The girls painted with Apples, beaded Apple jacks on Angel hair pasta, ate Animal crackers and Apple juice played "RED rover red rover" and read a book about Apple pie.  It was a fun day.

gwenevere's first day of Preschool (Sept 13, 2011)

Yesterday was Gwenevere's first day of home school Preschool.  I think I was more excited about it then Gwenevere at first but now she's pretty excited to go to school like Papa.

Tanya and I have decided to take turns planning the preschool lessons.  Tanya taught this week and she did an awesome job.  First the girls learned about the days of the week, the seasons, and the weather.  Then she taught them about the letter "A" and the color Red.  Then she taught them a poem about two red apples.  After that it was center time.  The girls painted with Apples, beaded Apple jacks on Angel hair pasta, ate Animal crackers and Apple juice played "RED rover red rover" and read a book about Apple pie.  It was a fun day.

trains

I walked into the kitchen and found Gwenevere playing in her Syrup.  I asked what she was doing and her response.

  "I'm making a train."

I love imagination

And on another bright note, I love sunny mornings.

Gwenevere's sayings

Look into mine Eyes

Last night I was teaching Gwenevere that she was a child of God.  She than grabbed my face looked straight into my eyes and said "Look in mine eyes, I Child of God."  

who needs help
Then this morning while saying morning prayers,  Gwenevere was repeating what I said.
 Mama: "Help me to learn the gospel."
 Gwenevere: "Help Mama learn dah gospel"
 I was meaning Gwenevere but I guess I need help too.  It was so cute.  

SUN

Today while standing in sunlight coming through our window Gwenevere declared.  "I'm touching the SUN."

It was a very exciting moment.

We all scream for Ice Cream

On our way to the park, we drove by Baskin Robbins and Gwenevere said "Yumm,  I love Ice Cream."  I think she was trying to give me a hint.  

The Magic of Money 

Gwenevere:" Look at this Mommy."

Me: 'What is it?" not looking to see what Gwenevere is playing with. 

Gwenevere: "It's called money and it's in between my toes."

Sunshine and Friends

And of course the shoes had to come off