christmas, part ii

we are hoping the recovery period is almost over for my sweet parents. they are both perkier today. dad busied himself with delivering the altima for some car maintenance and mom got one tiny step closer to being her busy self again (but still not loving food, unfortunately).  not quite back to normal for either, but much closer than yesterday, poor things. with more glorious weather being showered down upon us, we hit the park for some playing this morning and then came home to open up our christmas packages.  we may have to do the 12 days of christmas next year and open one present each day - because once one present was opened, they were so into that one gift that they wanted nothing to do with the other packages at their feet. i loved it, actually, that they were so enamored with each gift individually, requesting to open it up and explore it right away. with a little coaxing and promises of assembly "in a little while" they eventually made their way through each of their packages. they may have actually both had just as much fun helping me play elf and delivering each package from under the tree to the appropriate pile, each heaving and hoisting packages that were sometimes too big and sometimes too heavy, but determined to get the job done.  we are so blessed and grateful with our beautiful life, and even more so many wonderful new things (new age appropriate things which capture their attention and set their little minds a-spinning) to explore. 
i must confess i am not thrilled with the quality of the images i captured, but i'm practicing shooting in manual mode. the tricky part is in our house a) its hard to get far enough away from the person i am capturing with the lens i am using and b) our house has a different lighting situation every time you turn so its hard to figure out just what setting i should be rocking. i'm working on it, but just wanted to explain why these pictures that should be so rad are sometimes fuzzy or "off" a little. i am sure you'll see dramatic improvement over this year. luckily i have a lot of beautiful subjects to practice on in this house...and more on the way! xoxo

her homemade bear from aunt char and her kitty from santa. all is well in betsy's world

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the razor jr. scooter from g&g nannen. yippee!!!

aunt elle & uncle matt rock - this is a favorite!

sweet fleece blankie from aunt kathy - she immediately covered up on the floor and got cozy

her very own helmet so she can get some action on the strider bike (and scooter if pete will let her)

plan toys airport was a hit! so was the parking garage - thanks korty and wittmus family!

exploring her doctor kit

listening for the train in deedee's heart

turns out, bumpahs are excellent at assembly!

co-play happening with the plan toys stuff - they are loving them!

merry christmas to my sweet littles. xoxo

practicing sewing with deedee (thanks annie, its awesome)

the great scooter test drive was a major success!

we skyped the nannen grands in for the viewing since it was a gift from them.

love this boy and his whole body full of J-O-Y.

christmas, part I

we woke up to a christmas morning phone call from wonderful reid and pete agreed to a nice long snuggle in bed this morning before investigating what santa had delivered (very likely the last year i'll get away with that stunt) so we could wait for everyone else to wake up and participate in the fun.  betsy came down to my room with a big grin and joined us in bed for half a minute and then we were all off to check out the stockings. unfortunately, bumpah was too sick to get out of bed and then deedee confessed she was sick too but she was going to tough it out to watch the stocking madness unfold.  the babies were delighted with all the goodness st. nick delivered. pete was most excited about his giant digger and his airplane candy stick. betsy was definitely in love with her new kitty and her bangles were a hit, but when she discovered that she too had a whirly twirly candy stick, she was pretty into that as well.  the poor grandparents spent most of the rest of the day in bed. so, when it came time for little lady bug to nap, i thought i'd give them some space and try napping her in her real big girl bed in pete's room. she was exhausted from missing a nap yesterday and went right to sleep and took a perfect nap. in the interest of letting her sleep, i let pete just watch a movie for his downtime (after a trip to the only store in town that was open on christmas day for 7 up and chicken noodle soup for the patients). it was almost 80 degrees today so once b was awake we went for a walk to the playground and dog park. pete brought his awesome digger along to do some excavating in the sand pit at the playground, but when we got there he informed me, "mommy, you missed something, you forgot my dump truck." and he was right, of course i had overlooked the fact that he needed something to put the material his digger was digging after it had been dug. nevermind the fact that this digger is huge and took up the entire top canopy of the double bob. i promised him we'd try to remember next time we came. pete walked the entire trip home from the dog park, pulling his digger behind him proudly. now i know its physically possible for him to cover the distance, i am less worried about having a double jogger and three babies in a few months. :)
anyway, we are hoping a good night of sleep and another 12 hours will be enough that the grands will be feeling a little more spunky tomorrow and we can open our packages and maybe go out into the world to do something fun together.
in the spirit of giving them a good night of sleep...both babies are sleeping in one room tonight. oh my heavens i can hardly believe its true. so far so good (knock on wood). betsy is loving her real big girl bed and is delighted with the room sharing. i think pete is onboard with it too, although he seemed a little confused about it all at bedtime and when we went into his room to put him to sleep he asked me a few times "is betsy in here?"....hoping they get a good night of sleep too!
merry christmas, every one!  merry christmas, to my darling husband. all of you "over there" are on our hearts and minds always, but especially at christmas. we love you so much and look forward to hearing from you again soon. xoxo

christmas tree coffee cake and scrambled eggs breakfast while skyping with the nannen family in hopedale

bad photo quality but this is the best one of my attempts to get them to sit together and take a christmas morning picture. i'll try again tomorrow on christmas part II

wearing her "vintage" apron and bangles from santa (deedee said she had an apron JUST LIKE that one when she was little. :))

putting her fox and kitty babies on top of her lady bug pillow....and then she laid down on top of the whole pile, lol

little boy heaven with a giant digger and a giant dumper in the dirt and mulch. and he's already requested a field trip to the beach for more quality digging. will have to be while the grandparents are here if we are bringing all this heavy duty equipment along. phew!

wild animal park

accompanied by deedee & bumpah AND team conklin with their grandma along too, we hit the wild animal park today. we were blessed with sunny weather...and were all overdressed, as the temps neared  75.  the tram ride through the park was a hit, but truly for our three year old kiddos, the favorite part of the park was playing at the playground and running full speed along the trails. deedee was today's hero pushing the double stroller up a lot of steep hills. she may need to ask santa for a massage in a last minute emergency e-mail.  i love LOVE having our friends here because well, i love them - but i really LOVE seeing our littles play together. its magic. thanks for sharing a wonderful christmas eve day with us!

a definite favorite :)

family photo yay!

show me your muscles!

getting his goat ready for the 4H competition ;)