Christmas in Philly

(My apologies that in Ben's 1st appearance on the blog, he is wearing a wig.)

Stats

The morning of our drive to Philadelphia for Christmas, we took both girls to the doctor for well checks.  Both girls are healthy and around 70-85th percentiles for height & weight.  Emily got to have the nasal spray version of the flu shot and thus avoid a "poke".  :)  Adara was a trooper after her shots, and both girls did incredibly well on the 9 hour journey to PA.  (Christmas photo/video coming soon!)

Emily (at 2 1/2) is 37.5" tall and just over 30 lbs.  She seems to be about average at most of the physical milestones they check for, and still way beyond the verbal ones.

Adara (at almost 11 weeks) was 23.5" and just over 13 lbs.  I think she'll be moving into 3-6 mo clothes very soon, especially now that she's kicked the yeast infection diaper rash and can be in cloth diapers.  :)

Early Christmases

We did a little early Christmas celebration with my parents and Nick on Saturday afternoon.  It was so much fun to have everyone here!  I was too busy enjoying the happy chaos to take many pictures, but here's one of Emily in her new dress from GG Tavilla and rocking chair from Great Granny Ware's house.

This afternoon, I told Emily that we were going to do a little Christmas celebration "just our family."  When I asked her who that would be, she started listing grandparents & aunts -I love that she has that broad a concept of family.  I think her favorite gift was this monkey costume I stumbled upon on Craigslist.

And tomorrow morning we head to Philadelphia for "real" Christmas with the Groves!  :)

Smiley Adara

She is one happy baby.

Nativity

We've been reading a little Advent book and talking to Emily about the Christmas story. Lately she's taken to assigning parts. Usually Daddy is Joseph, Emily is Mary and Adara is baby Jesus. If Adara isn't around, her stuffed monkey is Jesus instead. This morning she arranged all of her stuffed animals to eat out of the "manger". ("Baby Jesus" is learning to grab toys!)

Emily is also very excited to be one of the angels in our church's little Christmas program. Our church is full of young families, and there are about 50 children (mostly aged about 2-7) involved...we'll have Mary, Joseph, some animals, and about 15 each of shepherds and angles. It's pretty funny, and very sweet.

Charlie Brown

Adara is two months old!

Our Christmas tree might not be the most beautiful you've ever seen, but we had fun cutting it down in our field. :) Emily loves the ornaments, and Adara loves the lights.

Adara Meets Great Grampy T

I forgot to mention the other important thing that happened over Thanksgiving - I was able to bring Adara in to meet my grandfather. My Grampy has always been such a strong man, it's hard to see him so weak. He went into the hospital a couple of days before Adara was born, so I hadn't been able to visit him yet. Very special to see how happy he was to meet his 6th great grandchild. (#7 - Abigail Claire was born today to my cousin Kristin!)

Thankful

I am sure I've said this 100 times here, but we are so thankful for the families God has given us. We spent Thanksgiving with my family in MA. It was the first time Emily & Rosalie shared a room and the first time they really played together, rather than side by side or taking each other's toys. It was so much fun to watch them (and not watch them, since they entertained each other so well, we could spend a little more time with the grown ups!). My nephew Daniel has started walking and talking since we last saw them three months ago, and he is so.stinking.cute. His new word of the weekend was "pie!". Adara was her usual sweet self. We did Thanksgiving dinner with "just us" and then Friday was our traditional day-after Thanksgiving soccer game, followed by the pulled-pork dinner with all the family, which at this point is a fair number of cousins on both sides. I actually think the day-after is my favorite part of Thanksgiving! And, because Adara was asleep & Emily was off playing with Rosalie, Alasdair & I were able to talk & play games with my cousins.