We celebrated Molly's 4th birthday today (which you'll hear more about shortly). For now, here's a very happy girl getting sung to and blowing out some candles. Enjoy.
For the third year, I hosted a Mardi Gras celebration with my MOMS Club. I enjoy sharing this New Orleans tradition with my Maryland friends!
The party favors were made...
And someone was very excited about eating king cake with her friends! I made a cream cheese filled, with cream cheese icing. Mmmm...
Molly welcomed everyone at the door saying, "Happy Mardi Gras Day!" The kids decorated their own king's crowns...
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then donned their hats and enjoyed a piece of cake.
Each child left with Mardi Gras beads and a bag of cookies. I hope I lived up the the hype, as according to one friend, "It's the best event of the year!" I had to laugh when another friend said she'd been waiting years to come and was "starting to feel like [she] should camp out for tickets!"
In her kitchen, cooking food to eat,
Rocking her baby dolls to sleep,
Tea time is very sweet,
All of these make her day complete!
Today, our sweet niece turns 2. Happy Birthday Emmie!
We couldn't make it down for the party, but I made another superhero cape and matching felt crown for her. Watch out Birmingham, here comes Super Emmie!
The day after Christmas we headed to Mooresville, NC for the Batson Family Christmas. We exchanged gifts with my immediate family at the hotel before the larger family gathering. Molly was jazzed about her new Disney princess slippers.
Emmie checking out her new felt bracelets.
Leah's ready to play with this wooden puzzle.
Everyone checking out Emmie's new baby stuff.
We all got together to give G'mom and Grampa a new camera. It's a Canon S90, and it's very snazzy.
Leah looking super cute in her new towel from Aunt 'Chelle.
Aunt 'Chelle, you look a little yellow!
The fam
Jen already talked a bit about Christmas morning, but here's a bit of video to give you more of a taste of it.
After Christmas at our house, we headed to Grams and Pop's for more celebrating. Aunt Caroline offered Leah a little pre-present reading.
I think Molly might be ticklish.
Either Leah likes this inchworm, or she's hungry.
Grammy, Grams and Pop were in on the action as well.
To end our day, Chad hooked up his parents new Blu-ray player and we immediately put in Molly's new Beauty and the Beast disc. Here he is watching with his little ones.
Christmas morning was exciting. The girls went through their stockings in a flash, then got to opening presents.
What could it be?
Her very own superhero cape!
Leah still needs a little help opening her presents.
This Christmas, Molly loved opening our nativity advent calendar. She was very excited to open the last box to find baby Jesus.
That evening, Leah had fun playing with Belkie, who still works after years and years in the family.
Our tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve continued this year. Molly wanted to open up her new Legos right away to start playing with them.
We braved the first minor snow and got our Christmas tree. It was our first time getting a "cut it yourself tree," though they actually cut it down for us. It was great browsing trees with a light dusting of snow on them.
Clark's Farm even had Santa on duty. Leah was scared of him, but Molly hopped in his sleigh to say hi.
That evening we decorated our Christmas tree. Since the tree hadn't been manicured, Chad had to invoke the "tree diet" and trim the tree to make it fit! Molly was an ornament hanging machine. She was especially excited to find our Disney-themed ornaments.
Leah wasn't into putting ornaments on the tree in the beginning. She hung onto this Minney Mouse ornament for a long time and had lots of fun decorating and dancing to Christmas music.
She did eventually catch the Christmas spirit after watching her sister adorn the tree.
To begin with, almost all the ornaments were hung 3 feet from the ground. Chad encouraged Molly to hang them higher, and then she decided she wanted to hang them all "really really high." So, Chad became the Daddy ladder.
Molly is quite proud of our tree.
