No crib for a bed

Abby made the move into her big girl bed last weekend, and so far she's done great with it. She loves her big girl pillow and her big girl quilt, and I love how absolutely precious she looks lying there in that great big twin bed.

She's sleeping just fine and has only found herself trapped between the wall and the bed once. We've also been very blessed that (so far) she's been extremely good about staying in her bed and not getting out until mommy or daddy comes in to get her (except for the time she leaned on the bed's guard rail and flipped the mattress...but she didn't do that on purpose, I'm sure).

The Christmas story apparently is taking on new meaning for Abby now that her sleeping arrangements have changed. One day this week after I put her down for her nap, I heard her in her bed singing "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed. Abby's got a big girl bed!"

I'll bet Jesus didn't have flamingo sheets...

Here comes Santa Claus

The anticipation is killing them!

Each year our town teams up with representatives from the North Pole to bring Santa and Rudolph down to ride on top of a festively decorated fire truck with horns blaring and wave at all the kids. We had advance notice this year, and we were ready and waiting by the front door so we could run outside when the fire truck went past our house.

Abby loved waving to Santa and even wished him an enthusiastic "Merry Christmas!" as he rode by. Caleb was rightly terrified of the sirens and the flashing lights, and may be scarred for life by the experience. Luckily for him, the next time Santa is near the children will be nestled all snug in their beds, so he shouldn't have to face the guy in red again until the time for next year's Christmas picture rolls around.

Deck the halls

Abby's really getting into the Christmas spirit this year. She loves to point out decorations and lights as we're driving around town, and it makes my heart happy to hear her in the back seat exclaiming, "Look at those pretty Christmas lights! Look at those lights...so pretty!"

So it didn't surprise me in the least when she decided to join in and help me deck our halls this year. After I finished hanging the stockings, decorating the mantle and lighting all of our Christmas candles, our festive little girl added some finishing touches with a few toys she picked out from her playroom.

Unlike her mom, Abby apparently thinks symmetry is important. She was very careful to line up all of her blocks and pegs in ascending order. I guess I'll have to wait until next year to teach her the art of being random.

All smiles

It doesn't get much better than playing peekaboo with dad inside an old beat-up cardboard box.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

To answer your questions: that's a dinosaur he's chewing on, that's an x-ray of his teeth in the background, and, yes, we took our ten-month-old to the dentist. Allow me to explain.

We don't actually love going to the dentist, although I know it's starting to look that way. Caleb had a minor mouth injury this week (short, stout and unbalanced is a bad combination) and the pediatrician thought it a good idea to take him in to get his teeth looked at. Since, thanks to Abby, we already have a pediatric dentist, getting him in this week was no problem.

Thankfully, everything looked fine on the x-rays, so no major dental surgeries for Spike any time soon. The dentist did point out that the poor guy has a whole bunch of teeth hanging out at the gum line waiting to break through any minute. Now at least I have something to blame his intermittent crankiness on.

On another note...anyone else have a pediatrician who ends your phone calls with "Talk to you soon"?

Five minutes of fame

Abby made her big Christmas Concert debut this year at Community Bible Study along with the other kids in the 2's, 3's and 4's classes. Since I had no idea what they'd be singing, I didn't practice her songs with her, so it didn't surprise me in the least that she failed to sing along with such unfamiliar tunes as "I'm In the Lord's Army" and "Go Tell It On the Mountain." She managed to get into "Happy Birthday Jesus" a little bit once she'd had some time to warm up, but mostly she surprised us by just standing on stage staring blankly into the audience. I've never seen her stand still for that long, and probably never will again.

Once she got used to the applause and the other kids singing and dancing around her she started doing some of the motions along with the rest of them. Marching along to "Go Tell It On the Mountain" seemed to be her favorite, so she marched for most of the concert after that. At the end, the kids recited the bible verses they've been learning this year in their classes. So far Abby has memorized:

• "Do not be afraid...your prayer has been heard." - Luke 1:13
• "Nothing is impossible with God." - Luke 1:37
• "The Father has sent His Son to be the Savior." - 1 John 4:14
  (They just started working on that one, so she's not 100% on it yet.)

It was so fun to watch our little girl up on stage in her first performance, and I know she was thrilled that Daddy came to watch her! I've always wondered why our parents could get so excited about watching old home movies of our school plays and concerts. Now I get it.

Click here to see the video of Abby's big debut.

Both knees

Santa's lap was full this year for our annual photo. Abby's tactile reflex kicked into high gear again this year, and she was far too interested in the fur on Santa's suit to smile for the picture. Caleb panicked the moment I sat him on that red velvet knee, and spent his few minutes on Santa's lap with his eyes darting back and forth between his parents and Santa's (apparently terrifying) beard. They managed to catch him in mid-pout, which was better than I had hoped for.

Forty-five minutes in line, $32 and about two minutes with Old St. Nick, and this is what we have to show for the experience. Gotta love the holidays...at what other time of year would you pay that much for a mediocre photo of your kids sitting on a stranger's lap?

In the wee small hours of the afternoon

We're not really sure when it happened, but sometime in the past few months, we realized that Caleb has become fun...as in play with me, tickle me, smiling, laughing, playing with friends, high fiving kind of fun. He interacts with us, he mimics our sounds and movements, and with his newly acquired speed-crawling skills, he even likes to play his own ten-month-old version of tag (and we're always It).

I'm sure when Abby did all this stuff we were just beside ourselves with awe and wonder. I'm fairly certain we called the grandparents and recorded every new skill on this blog. Heck, I even marked the date that each of her teeth broke through in my planner. But with the second child...not so much. (Recording anything he does in my planner would rely heavily Abby not hiding it and Caleb not ripping pages from it.) I love him just the same...it's simply too busy around here for me to notice much of anything, much less make a note of it.

And that's why my favorite time of day is right after Caleb's afternoon nap. I can count on his sister sleeping about a half an hour longer than he does, so for at least thirty precious minutes a day, I have him all to myself to cuddle and play with and enjoy. There's no crazy two-year-old running through the house like a banshee, no one to share toys with, no one to interrupt storytime. It's just me and my boy, hanging out, enjoying each other's company. I love those times, because without them I probably wouldn't know how much he loves to drop blocks into the little shoebox I cut a hole in the top of, or how much he enjoys pushing chairs around the room, or how much he adores a good game of peekaboo.

I know he won't remember these moments. But I'll never forget them.

Since we've no place to go...

Let's see...last time we had a big snowstorm, Justin and I were headed to the hospital in the middle of the night through sleet and snow for Caleb's birthday. This time around, the freezing temperatures and precipitation were much more enjoyable.

The skies dumped about four inches of snow on us, which proved to be just the right amount for making snow ice cream, snow angels, and a four foot tall snowman. We spent just about every waking daylight hour bundled up playing in below-freezing temperatures, and even a bit of time after the sun went down.

Caleb was kind of stunned by the flakes hitting his face, and had some difficulty sitting up due to the incredible amount of clothing he was wearing to stay warm. He did enjoy holding onto Justin's hands and walking through the snow. Time to get the boy some snow boots!

Abby's going to be pretty well hydrated for the next few days, seeing as all she wants to do with the snow is eat it. Maybe I could throw some frozen vegetables out in the yard...

Three little bakers

After more than a week away, Abby was missing her best buds pretty badly. So we invited everyone over for a cookie making play date. Abby Mae made quick work of eating as much dough as possible while Abby Jean tried to build towers in the dough with the cookie cutters. Three-year-old Maddie tried to maintain some sense of order by repeatedly flattening the dough the younger girls messed up and showing them how to press one shape at a time into the dough to make a cookie. It was a valiant effort, but in the end, fun and deliciousness won out and the girls gave up making cookies and instead treated my would-be cookies like playdough, rolling it into balls and then devouring them one by one.

We did manage to bake about ten cookies, though none of them were shaped like any of my holiday cookie cutters. Maybe next year.