What We've Been Up To...

Not much really. I finally got my camera out today and realized I had a few pictures I hadn't uploaded so here they are.

An example of Kaylie's bedhead

Kaylie with calmer hair amazing me that she could eat a whole apple at 21 months



And Emma at swim lessons this past month. I was amazed at how much she learned and how much fun she had! Our community pool has a great leisure pool that goes from 1 inch to 4 feet deep so the little kids could stand in the water and follow the teacher's instructions. They learned to put their faces in the water, go under water and pick up things off the bottom, float on their back (with help) and "swim" on their front (with more help).

They had parents sitting pretty far away so the pictures aren't the best quality. That's her on the left in front of her teacher.

And practicing with the teacher. She really thinks she can swim now!

Flipper Hands Part II

We are apparently destined to have kids who dramatically injure their hands. Emma burned her hands just shy of 18 months. Now Kaylie, also just shy of 18 months decided to attempt something similar and got her own flipper hand.

We no longer have a fireplace, but we do have a paper shredder. It sounds and looks worse than it was. She did get her hand jammed in it while hanging on to a paper that was getting sucked down into the shredder. But it only caught two of her fingers which now have a 1/4-1/2 inch gash in them. Not deep enough for stitches but big enough to keep bandaged for a few days. And since toddlers don't keep band-aids on well, the doctor wrapped the whole hand.


But it did hurt enough that she has not put down her little pink snugly for a few days. :( The shredder now stay unplugged when not in use.

Bedtime Stories and Dress-up

Kaylie crawled into Emma's bed today and Emma decided to read her a bedtime story. She has Goodnight Moon memorized so she got it down, read the whole book, tucked Kaylie in, and closed the door. I had to talk her into going back in to play with her.

Emma's newest love is dress-up. She has a number of princess costumes...

..and will also attempt to dress herself in whatever she thinks matches. Here we are with stripes, flowers, leggings, and you can't see them well, but there are a total of three hair accessories. The one common theme was pink or purple.

Girls' Trip

On MLK weekend Bert was wonderful enough to watch the kids while I flew to...

Seattle. And had a marvelous time. My friend Michelle and her family lives just outside of the city. Her husband was also wonderful and watched their son while we had a girls' day.

We walked Pike Place Market, had a conversation with a stranger about European cars (this trip was all about talking to strangers), and thought about getting hot chocolate at Starbucks until we saw the line. So we went next door to Seattle's Best Coffee. We hiked down Alaskan Way along the docks and ate some good fish and chips (but not at Iver's if you were wondering). We saw Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, it's collection of shrunken heads, and met Bernard (another stranger). We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, and had a random lady in the bathroom yell at Michelle for calling me fat (which if you've seen me you'd know that Michelle either needs glasses or was being completely sarcastic).

Us on the ferry (yes, it was raining the whole time).

Sunday we did church and gorged ourselves on homemade doughnuts, Michelle's spaghetti, and lots of brownies and ice cream. Monday we went for a walk in Federal Way en route to the airport. It looks deceptively sunny and warm. We were freezing.


Thank you Michelle for showing me a great time. I think girls' trip is now going to be an annual event.

Christmas

Here we go, lots of pictures of Christmas morning.

The kids' new princess tent. This is Emma in defiance mode after we said "smile!" Of course we found out later she had a high fever. Poor kid has been sick all week.

Opening presents

Bert's new hat


We had cute matching pajamas for the girls but Kaylie managed to have a blowout in them the night before.


Bert's pride and joy, he made an apple pie which was delish! I think I'll have some of the leftovers for lunch.