Yesterday, Jen posted pictures of the hoodies she had made. I thought I might follow up with a few extras and outtakes from that photoshoot. First, a few close-ups.
And here are a couple extras of Leah looking cute with her hood up and down.
read more »No surprise, after I made a Hangout Hoodie dress for Leah, Molly requested one too.
For Dad’s Day at preschool. Leah requested that Chad wear his new hoodie shirt to match her hoodie dress. Molly got in on the hoodie action and wore her new dress to school too.
Now, I just need to make a Hampton Hoodie for me and we'll have a family of Mom-made hoodies!
Despite a storm that was not as bad as the forecast, we have had two snow days already this week (Monday and Tuesday). Tuesday, the girls headed outside to have some fun. Here they are making snow angels in the little bit of snow we got.
Mommy even got involved in the fun. Here she and Leah are zooming ahead of Molly on the sled.
Now it’s Molly’s turn to ride with Mommy.
Leah’s really skidding to the side here.
Made it to the bottom. Lots of fun.
Who needs a sled? Leah’s happy to slide down the hill in our back yard without one.
She made it to the bottom. She wins!
This year, our church participated in the day of service on MLK day. They had a bunch of service opportunities, both at the church and around the community. We opted to stay at the church, as they had a bunch of kid-friendly activities to participate in there.
Molly and Jen helped package meals for Kids Against Hunger. Molly’s job was to measure and pour the mixed vegetables. Our church packaged a total of 15,606 meals for those in need in the DC Metro area.
Leah wasn’t keen on the hair net, so she and I made cards to cheer up those away from home.
Once they were done packaging meals, Molly and Jen joined us in the card making room.
If you give our girls a choice of service opportunities, they’ll generally choose the creative ones if they exist. So, after making cards, we moved on to making bookmarks for Operation Christmas Child.
While Jen and the girls may excel at drawing, coloring, cutting, and the like, I do not share that talent. I mostly let them make these sorts of things, but I did contribute a single bookmark. Rather than putting a simple ribbon bow on it like the others, I gave it some curly hair.
It was a great day of service. Thanks to all who helped organize and put it on.
On January 6 (yes, I know it took me a while to post this), we finally got enough snow to break out the sled, though just barely at about 3 inches. Leah was not interested in playing in the cold, but Molly and I had a bunch of fun. First, sledding of course.
Molly is crazy when it comes to snow. She likes to just lie in it and play. She laid like this for 5 or 10 minutes just piling up snow under her and eating a bit of it.
If you love to roll around in the snow, snow angels are lots of fun.
The snow managed to stay on the ground for more than a week thanks to temperatures in the teens, but no real accumulation has happened since then. Hopefully we’ll get at least one good snow to play in soon.
I won’t spend time on how crazy it was for Jen to get home from her trip, since she’s already talked about that. However, after she did get back (and got a little sleep), Leah had something to show her.
While Jen was away, Leah built her new Lego Dolphin Cruiser. Leah wanted to surprise Jen with it, so we covered it with a blanket until she could reveal it. After a busy day, she finally found time to do just that.
Leah had to show Jen all the details. Note that the upper deck is even removable to allow access to the main level.
Here’s Leah with her complete ship (and jet ski towing a skier). It took her 3 days to build the 612 piece craft.
Note that maintenance is sometimes required.
And Leah wasn’t the only one with a surprise. Jen surprised the girls with a king cake from Nonna Randazzo’s. They knew she had an edible surprise, and kept guessing what it might be throughout the weekend. Once they finally found out what it was, they were not disappointed.
While Jen was out of town, the girls and I headed to the local bowling alley for some cosmic bowling fun. Molly’s pretty good now. With a bit more practice, she won’t even need the bumpers.
Leah started out bowling granny style, but had trouble getting much speed on the ball. Twice we had to get someone to retrieve her ball that had stopped midway down. Shortly thereafter, I had two independent strangers come up and suggest she try a bowling ramp. So, an employee brought one out for her to try. She loved it. I thought it felt like cheating, but if she loves it then I’m not going to take it away.
She got quite a few strikes once she had the help of the ramp.
The girls had lots of fun. We bowled 3 complete games each over the course of 2 hours, and they might have gone for even longer if I had let them.
Opening presents is fun, but playing with those new toys is even more fun. So, once we got home, it was time to play. Molly opened up and built her GoldieBlox dunk tank. Then it was time to start tossing the ball. Nacho the dog is ready to get wet.
And, Nacho’s making a splash.
Leah received 6 Lego sets this Christmas, which sounded awesome to her. She’s a huge Lego fan, and would happily spend much of every day building.
There wasn’t too much time to play though, as extended family from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina were due to arrive in Maryland on the 26th.
After opening presents at home, we headed to Grams’s house for breakfast and more presents. Leah’s got a big one here. What could be in it?
This girl loves her Legos. And over 600 pieces doesn’t scare her.
Leah’s not the only one. Molly loves her Legos, too.
Good things often come in small packages.
Wow! A jar of Jam!
After these two movies, we should be able to train our own dragons.
Grammy got some fancy kitchen towels, handmade by Jen.
These minion mittens had to get the award for cutest gift.
And here’s Grammy and me after all the fun was over.
When putting the girls to bed on Christmas Eve, I gave them two rules:
Neither Jen or I slept well that night. It seemed like there was a lot of people up throughout the night. At 4:30AM, I heard the door to my office open, which I assumed was a girl (likely Leah) getting a phone or iPad to play on. Crazy early, but kids get excited about Christmas.
At 6:30AM, I went in the girls’ room. Leah was asleep, and Molly was playing on the iPad, so I assumed Molly was the culprit. I asked her when she had gotten up. Her response - one something. Yes, as in 1AM. I didn’t believe her. I asked if she had gone to get the iPad at 4:30AM. She said she had, because she had gotten her phone at 1:30AM and it’s battery was dead at 4:30AM, so she switched to the iPad.
So, Molly got a stern talking to about how that was way to early to wake up. I had trouble coming down too hard on her, both because it was Christmas and because she had technically followed the rules. When I suggested playing games if they woke up early, I was thinking about waking up at 6:00AM, not 1:00AM, but I didn’t say that.
Despite her lack of sleep, Molly was wired and ready to go. Leah, on the other hand, had to be woken at 7:00AM. But she soon was caught up in the excitement as well.
The girls went through their stockings quickly. Then they of course helped others with theirs. The girls are really excited about the socks Santa brought G’Mom.
After stockings, it was time for presents amongst ourselves. We got the girls these fun animal chairs to go with the table in their room.
Molly gave Leah a stuffed elephant that was so soft she had to touch it to her face.
Nice calendar, G’Mom.
Hmmmm… What could this be? We had to explain Operation to Leah, but I think she’ll like it. She did get scared the first time she tried it and touched the wall with the tweezers, but it didn’t scare her off from trying again.
Molly’s very excited about this new GoldieBlox set. What could be more fun than building your own dunk tank?
Leah gave Jen some of the most exciting gifts possible - a tailor's ham and a seam roll. What 5 year old doesn’t want to buy their mom ironing accessories?
That was just the beginning of the fun on Christmas Day. We were soon off to Grams house to keep things rolling.
