Holiday Picture Shoot x 2

Josh was kind enough to come to our house not once, but twice to take pictures for our holiday card. These are some of our favorites. Not one pic has all 4 family members looking at the camera, but we thought this one was the best of the bunch. We hope to have cards out before Valentine's day. Wish us luck!

Kira and Dad have a date...

Ben and his friend Will took their older daughters to the Nutcracker in what they hope becomes a yearly tradition. It fell right during Kira's nap time, so we were all surprised that she lasted to intermission. She has been "dancing ballet" every day since!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Kira is just starting to get the real idea about Christmas this year, and loves anything to do with Christmas. We must have spent 10 minutes playing with the fake reindeer at the mall.

Elise is ready for Santa!

Elise is officially "cruising" the furniture and loves it! We have always called her "the stiffest baby in the world", so aren't very surprised that she prefers having straight walking legs to bent crawling legs. We are as excited as we are terrified to have her mobile; it just seems early.

Kira also had some pretty big opinions about how the tree should be decorated. From where the lights should go to directing every ornament, she had a say. You can see that all of the ornaments we let her put on the tree by herself are grouped rather close together!

Parade of Lights

Grandpa J came and babysat Elise so the rest of the family could brave the cold to watch the Parade of Lights. Kira loved it, and the hot chocolate that came afterwards.

Christmas Picture Attempts

We have learned to never put the dresses on until you are actually ready to take pictures. It takes only seconds to spit up on, spill on, or otherwise sully dresses.

Even with man-to-man defense, getting a picture of the 4 of us is impossible. We took more pictures with the help of a photographer that we don't have back yet. Christmas cards are likely going to be Happy New Year cards this year.

Grandma Marcy Visits

We really did do a lot of fun things and just didn't take many pictures...mainly because we have 4 kids under the age of 3 and corraling even 2 of them for a picture with Grandma proves difficult.

Lunch with Grammy K and Grandma Marcy

 What do you do when you have 2 glasses for milk? Pour them back and forth, of-course!

 Yep, that's Kira using a fork for her goldfish in a snack trap!

First Snowman

We got snow the first of December and Kira couldn't have been happier. I think she would have stayed out until she was frozen if we'd let her. The snow was dry and didn't pack well at all, but she had to have a snowman, so we used slush and put snow on top of slush balls. She checked her snowman daily until he was completely melted.

 

Kids

 Kira really likes variety!

 Elise loves the swing

 Getting a good shot of both kids at the same time proves challenging

Zoo Lights and Santa

We went to Zoo Lights with the Harrison's and Kira met Santa for the first time. She was scared until her big brave friends convinced her Santa is cool.

Daddy does Toe Paint!