Gwyn the bike rider, Annie the stair climber!

We celebrated two feats this week:  Gwyn riding her bike and Annie crawling the stairs.  Both make me nervous, Annie more so since she's already tumbled down once, poor thing, sadly she thought it was kind of fun which encouraged her even more!  Here she is racing after Gwyn, she is really fast, and we've now had to start using the gate, which really makes her mad.  Whenever it is put up, she walks over to it and starts crying and yelling since I've taken away her fun.  She has also started climbing up the ladder of the playset, and when she reaches the top she squeals like she is just so proud of herself, it is pretty funny.

We have got the Christmas spirit rolling out our ears here.  The kids LOVE their Christmas trees, they check them out every single day, rearrange the ornaments, scavenge our big tree for any unbreakable ornaments that they can put on their tree, put up their handmade ones from school or our daily craft at home on their tree, build barriers to protect their trees from Annie, let me know if they've found one light that needs to be replaced, and Jacob found a magic wand with a star on it and put that as his star on his tree:

They also love the Christmas village and they pull their stools over to sit at it every day.  You should see their faces when we talk about how it looks like the North Pole and what the elves are doing:

I hosted a Sip N See at my house for two dear friends who each had babies in early October.  We had a great time, and it was fun to do something special for those 2nd and 3rd babies!  They are part of my group of about 10 mom friends that get together once a month or so, and it was nice to catch up with everyone.

Santa also visited Jacob and Gwyn's school.  Gwyn did not sit on his lap, just stood and told him she wanted a baby doll and got her candy cane.  She told me I ate it all up!  I was surprised to find out about the baby doll since she has three already, but then learned another little girl ahead of her in line said that, so of course, she copied!  Jacob sat on his lap and said he wanted a Superhero car? I did take the kids to see Santa at the mall on Friday.  Gwyn surprisingly walked right up to Santa and gave him a hug, and sat on his lap.  Jacob has really been explaining to her how Santa gives you presents, which is apparently all the motivation she needed to overcome her fear.  Annie, not so much:

Poor little Jacob is surrounded by too many women.  He gets bossed by his mommy, his teachers, and his little sister Gwyn, who not only tells him what side of the car to get in on, but also wants to pick his clothes out for him too (which is a bit scary since you should see some of the things she picks out for herself, clashing polka dots and stripes are a big hit for her right now).  It is also so funny when I pick him up from school, I'll ask him if he ate all his lunch.  He'll give me this little mischevious look and tell me he's not going to tell me, it is a surprise.  So, when I get to the car, I'll open up his lunch box to find he's eaten every single bite.  He'll just smile and get all excited because he's so proud of himself! Here is a picture of Brian with the kids eating popcicles:

Here is Jacob and Gwyn making lemonade from lemons that came from my friend's tree, Jacob is big into helping me do anything and everything:

Here is Annie in the cozy coupe...this car has gotten a lot of use:

Gwyn is like her Mommy, she likes to be a goody two shoes, and she likes to follow the rules.  Every time Jacob gets in trouble for something, if she hasn't done the tattling, then she is the first to let me know that she hasn't done what he has done.  For example.  Me:  Jacob, get back downstairs.  Gwyn:  I'm not going upstairs like you said.  Me:  Jacob, sit up in your chair at dinner.  Gwyn:  I'm sitting up in my chair.  Me:  Jacob, get your hands off that.  Gwyn:  Mommy, I'm not having my hands on it.  Me:  Jacob, don't run into Annie.  Gwyn:  I'm not running into Annie.  Me:  Jacob, no yelling in the car.  Gwyn:  I'm not yelling.  You can see how this can get a little old when I hear it, oh, I don't know, maybe 30 times per day.  She is still a bit emotional, if she is upset, she'll tell you Annie is the one who hurt her feelings even though Annie is no where near her.  She is also in a licking phase.  Yes, we have the little girl who licks stuff...I hope this phase ends soon!  She is really sweet and loves to tickle Annie and make her laugh, but is a bit rough! She no longer naps, but still could use one.  Here she is the other night at dinner:

She is still working to perfect her sommersault:

Annie has taken to stealilng baby Jesus from our little Fisher Price nativity set that John and Claudia got the kids a few years ago.  We sit it out on the coffee table, and the kids love to play with it.  We kept missing baby Jesus and then I watched as Annie would go take it and walk off with it.  I've found it inside a shoe, in our jacket basket (yes, I'm that organized, I have a basket just for our sweatshirt jackets), in her drawer with the ziploc bags, inside the cabinet with all the tupperware, etc.  We are always on the lookout now for where she has gone off with it, and Gwyn gets so exited when she finds it.  She says, "Mommy, I found baby Jesus!" Here she is still at her ziploc drawer making a mess, I pick up ziploc bags and straws all day long:

Here the girls are in some Notre Dame matching dresses that Jason brought back from the Notre Dame vs TU football game a few weeks ago:

Our bedtime routine is brushing our teeth, taking a bath, getting dressed, picking out some books, telling a story, and prayer.  Well, it used to be that Jacob would ask for a story when Brian and I were little or about themselves when they were babies, but now they are making specific requests for stories with superheros and Gwyn likes to throw in Hello Kitty, Dora or Ariel.  This was entertaining at first because Brian and I had both ran out of stories about ourselves and about them (so much so, that we'd start to tell one and Jacob would stop us and tell us that he'd heard that one before).  So, I've had to limit it to them picking 2 characters each, since Jacob will make a long list of people he wants in it and then I can't even remember who is supposed to be in it as I'm making it up.  Anyways (for you dad), I told one story about how Batman worked at a Petstore and sold Hello Kitty a gecko who she named Slimy.  The Joker broke into Hello Kitty's house and stole Slimy.  Hello Kitty went back to the petstore to get Batman's help, who went to the Joker's house and demanded Slimy or he would call the cops.  Batman returned Slimy to Hello Kitty, and she invited him to stay for dinner, where they had chicken noodle soup and then became best friends.  Another one:  Wolverine and Hello Kitty were taking a treasure chest of gold to the bank in their boat.  Ariel swam up and said hello.  They asked Ariel to keep a watch out for the Goblin who wanted their treasure chest.  She swam away to keep watch, and ended up seeing the Goblin's boat.  She swam over and he caught her in his net and then went over to Wolverine and Hello Kitty's boat and tried to take the treasure chest, but Ariel got out of the net, swam really fast in circles to rock the boat and knock the Goblin down.  Wolverine and Hello Kitty then had the Goblin cornered and threw him overboard. 

It is pretty funny, the kids like to insert their own comments if they think I don't say the right thing.  Jacob wanted to make sure Wolverine had his sharp claws, Gwyn said that Hello Kitty had a sword, Jacob thought the sharks ate the Goblin.  You can tell they actually pay attention because a few days after I told the petstore one, Jacob asked to go to the petstore and get a gecko like Hello Kitty.  I've told stories about Dora and Spiderman being neighbors and having a birthday party, but I'm running out of ideas, and I'm thinking I might have to video conference the grandparents to tell a story, so be thinking Nana, Papa, G and Grandpa! 
I also have an announcement to make...drumroll please...Brian will be writing his first ever blog this month.  He says he is working on something good, so I'm sure he'll out do me as he always does, he's the creative one.

Some artwork from the week:

Funny things the kids said this week:
Gwyn:  I need a coke.
Me to Jacob:  Did you just kick Gwyn?
Jacob:  No, she got a little close and then my toes bumped into her (clever, I'll give him that!)
Brian to Jacob as he's putting the silverware away:  I'm proud of you Jacob for helping mommy put away the dishes.
Jacob:  And I'm proud of you for helping clean my room.
Jacob (every night now when I put him into bed):  When I wake up, will Santa have come with presents yet?
Jacob to me after I asked him to do me a favor and get one of the trash cans:  Here you go Mommy, and I don't want to do any more favors.
Me to Gwyn after she was bashing Tinkerbell into Jacob's toy box:  Maybe we should just give Tinkerbell to another little girl who will take better care of it.
Gwyn:  Okay, and I'll show her how to push this button to make the light come on her wings (that strategy didn't work, and she even asked me a day or so later what little girl we were giving her to...she's working the reverse psychology back on me and she's only 2!)
Me to Jacob after he said he liked school, but didn't want to go to church:  That hurts my heart Jacob, I want you to like to go to church where we learn more about Jesus who loves us so much.
Gwyn:  I like church and school Mommy, does your heart not hurt?

Here is a funny video from dinner, Annie is always doing something to make us all laugh: