December? I barely remember...

Now that the christmas lights & decorations are long down and put away, and we're a couple weeks into January, it seems about time to post about December! Here's a mini recap:

The period from Thanksgiving through New Year's was kind of a blur, but from what I remember, we put up some lights, went out and got a real genuine Christmas tree, Jenna took Laina to see a Frosty the Snowman performance at the Parker theater, we drank some hot cocoa, went to see some lights at the Chatfield Botanical Gardens, and tried our best to teach Laina about the purpose for all the hubub: the birth of Christ - the invasion of God into the world under the lowliest and humblest of conditions, in order to restore us to him

I think Laina's starting to get it, she insisted that we bake a cake for Jesus' birthday. We brought it to our friends house for a dual family Christmas dinner. Good memories.

 

Of course the kiddos got some loot in the process, too.

 

Lia's working on standing up. She's a mean crawler now, unstoppable...

Laina taking advantage of some warm weather to try out her new skates

She LOVES her new keyboard from Great Grandma Sally. Good purchase, for sure. Lately, she's started making up songs and singing along with them. This video was taken the day after Christmas.

There was also a new year in there... so Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving in California

"I'm on an airplane!"

seasoned traveler

rocking out with the cousins

kicking it with Grandma and Grandpa Ali

Back home and swingin'

The Beginning of Winter and other Fun

Winter hit a few days ago with some snow (on my birthday, actually - what a nice present)! The girls (well, Laina anyways) had so much fun playing outside in it. Laina made a snow angel right away and wanted Lia to join in the fun, hence the pic of Lia laying in the snow.






Lia has started doing a modified crawl, and Laina loves to make her laugh. Here's a video of Lia eating and another one of Laina making her laugh!

Halloween

Here are some pics from our trip to the pumpkin patch before Halloween and then carving the pumpkin and then Halloween night. Laina was super excited to go trick-or-treating with our neighborhood friends.

Pre-Halloween Fun

First we made these delicious pumpkin cookies (recipe at www.lainaslaundry.blogspot.com).



Then the girls got dressed up in their costumes and we went on a "Trek or Treat" hike with our neighbors. This is Lia dressed up as a giraffe before we headed out.
On the hike, you couldn't see much of Lia because she was stuffed inside my mei-tai carrier.
Laina found this Dumbo costume at the consignment store and she makes a perfect little elephant. Her friends came too as Minnie Mouse and a pretty princess.
Then we made popcorn balls! This is a special treat that I haven't had since I was a kid. The taste is yummy but I didn't quite get the mixing and the distribution of the caramel right. Next time I will follow my mom's recipe which says to actually mix the popcorn in the pot w/the caramel. I followed a recipe I found online which said to pour the caramel over the popcorn and mix. I think doing it in the pot would have made a much gooey-er, stuck together better popcorn ball. We ended up with a lot of popcorn left in the bowl w/little or no caramel on it. Still delicious for us to eat, though!
I found a recipe to use brown rice syrup instead of corn syrup. It still had granulated sugar in it, though. I need to see if brown rice syrup all on it's own would caramelize. I'm trying to use brown rice syrup more b/c of it's low glycemic index. I did find some recipes with just the brown rice syrup and peanut butter. I just wasn't sure if I'd like the popcorn balls to taste like PB. I might try that next time though.

September

It's that time again - updates for our loyal followers in blog-land. September and the start of fall was full of fun. We had a visit from Grammy and Papa, Laina (and mommy) got to ride some horses, Lia started eating solids, and Jay took a full-time position with CDE (Colorado Dept of Education). Here are the pics :)

August

So it looks like I'm down to posting once a month. I will try not to let it get any longer between posts than that! During August we had my parents, my brother, my aunt and my grandma visit. It was great to see everyone all together and I'm so glad my grandma and aunt could make it out to see us in Colorado. And it was grandma's 80th birthday while she was here!! Below are some pics from their visit and also some random ones from the month.












Some other noteworthy things that the girls have been doing lately: Lia laughs and giggles a lot. She loves her playmat. She holds toys and can pass them from hand to hand. She loves "tummy time" and works hard at trying to crawl. She still loves to snuggle up with me and I've been using a mei tai lately with her (Asian-style baby carrier). And she will put all her weight on her legs and "stand" (with help). So we got her a doorway jumper so she can practice holding herself upright.

Laina is growing and learning and talking all the time. She likes to ask if she can touch Lia. She still loves to draw and color but is also entertained by movies now. We have watched a couple cartoon movies as a family and she seems to enjoy it. I think we need to implement a family movie night. The only problem is it ends up being a later than usual night and she can get cranky about going to bed.

Laina's also taking an interest in numbers and math and constantly asks about adding numbers. She really amazes me sometimes - the way her brain works and absorbs information and how eager she is to learn.

She also got to ride a horse today and she was happy, which made for a very happy mama! But that will be another post all unto itself (since it is September now after all!)