Let the fiestas begin! First up, Cousin Lily's second bday party on December 13th. Man, those two years have flown by! Lily is such a big girl and can talk like nobody's business. (Maybe it has something to do with her favorite show, Word World - notice the Word World cake!) Such a cutie!
The next weekend, we got all gussied up for the annual Christmas party at Lisa's Aunt Joy and Uncle Joe's house. It was the girls first time going and they ran all over the place, playing with everything in sight. One of Lisa's favorite things, though, was the Tom & Jerry made with Aunt Pat's homemade Tom & Jerry batter - yum!
A few days later was Christmas Eve and we spent the entire day at the Campbell's house (and actually also the night before in an attempt to avoid travelling through the snow).
We got to hang out in the newly renovated family room, complete with a game area (below).
It was very nice, fun and relaxing, and I enjoyed spending an extended time with my family. The girls also enjoyed the family time, but even more so, the presents! We got Lily this horse shaped bag (below), but all three girls took turns trying to ride it - silly girls!
Christmas morning brought more fun and more presents! For the first time, we spent Christmas morning alone at our house. The girls got some fun gifts from Santa. Abby was quite excited about this Cookie Monster doll!
They also opened some bigger gifts from Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Rich, like these strollers. The strollers are actually for the Cabbage Patch dolls they got from Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Mike, but the girls thought it'd be best if they tried them out first...
On Christmas afternoon, we headed over to Steph and Andy's also newly remodeled house (they added an entire second story!) for a celebration with Grandpa Rich, Grandma Gwen, friend Linda, Aunt Stephanie, Uncle Andy and Cousin Alex. Their furniture wasn't in yet, which actually ended up perfect because the girls could run around like crazy fools, which they enjoy!
Alex's new room was all set up, though, and the girls got to play with her and her train set. Actually, it was more like Alex watched in horror as the girls kept knocking apart the tracks and sending trains flying everywhere. Oops! Guess we're not quite old enough for train sets. Alex was a great sport, though, and all three girls had a great time playing together.
Another weekend - another party!! We headed to Eau Claire, WI to hang out with our friends and to celebrate New Years. On our way there, I turned around to peek at the girls and saw this adorable sight:
Hooray for holding hands! Ryan and I both just melted. Unfortunately, the girls spent most of their time in Eau Claire sick, but they did get lots of good snuggles with Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Rich while Ryan and I ran around the town. It was nice to have such a break!
The next weekend was another party - this time a birthday party!! Grandma Maggie threw a party to celebrate Claire, Abby, Lily and Uncle Greg's birthdays (all in Dec/Jan). We got lots of great gifts, like name plaques from Great Aunt Pat, snuggly clothes from Great Aunt Joy and Great Uncle Joe, books from Cousins Kim, Larry, Kirsten and Jenna, and lots of things with our favorite characters - Elmo and the Wiggles - from Uncle Great, Aunt Jill, Uncle Jason and Cousin Lily.
We even got a swing set from Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Mike! We were so excited, we started climbing all over the box. We can't wait to have Lily over this spring to play on it!
Then came another highlight of birthday parties, cake! Here's Claire digging in...
...and Abby, too!
Uncle Great and Cousin Lily agree...
It was a great bday party! Thanks Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Mike!
And even a couple times by ourselves!
The girls got to spend lots of time with Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Rich. They really loved playing at their house. That's Abby above pretending she's a monkey. They also came to visit us at CTV, where Claire found something that reminded her of Daddy...
And Abby had fun running under an easel!
The following weekend, we got together withSteph, Andy and Alex, as well as a couple of folks from Ryan's work, and went to 5 Guys Burgers and Chuck E. Cheese.
The girls mostly stuck to the cars that rock back and forth, particularly the one above with Chuck E. Cheese himself (next to Claire), the CLifford one below (Abby driving)...
And this school bus one (Cousin Alex at the wheel). The Chuck E. Cheese mascot came out eventually, too, and the girls were beside themselves with excitement. So cute!
Daddy also built us a fort in the sun room, which we've gotten to play in a lot on these warm November days. Cousin Alex came over to play, too, which Steph, Andy and Ryan did some painting on the Mays' renovated house. (They added a whole second story! Check out their blog at 
We got to spend Thanksgiving with our other cousin, Lily! Isn's she cute in her pink dress and new bob haircut? All three girls are sick (Claire has a cold, Abby a cold and an ear infection, and Lily a cold with a bad cough), but that didn't stop them from running around and laughing hysterically, especially when second cousin Blake crawled around them in cirlces.
We had spent Friday night at Cousin Lily's house and had a great time playing with her. On Saturday, our first stop was to visit Great Aunts Pat and Joy. We weren't quite sure how we felt about wearing costumes yet, but we put them on to show them off (Claire above, Lily and Abby below).
After all our photo shoots, Claire...
After a quick stop at my coworker Sarah Kurachek's house, where we also met up with our third coworker JV and her son Demetrius, dressed wonderfully as Mr. T, we headed home for some neighborhood trick or treating!
After we got that out of our system, we stayed up a bit longer playing with toys (Claire)...
Reading (Abby)...
And helping Daddy hand out candy.
While I'm sure most people did not enjoy it, the girls had a blast playing in the snow yesterday! They weren't quite sure what this crazy white stuff covering their little car was, but eventually got the jist of it and were running around squealing and saying, "Snow!"
We've also been having fun on little trips. A few weekends ago, we took a trip to Emma Krumbee's (about an hour away), where we looked at scarecrows, walked a rope maze, jumped in hay, rode tricycles, took a hay ride, and went down the big green slide. Here's Abby and I post-slide. Lots of fun!
It's been a blast running around and getting all our energy out before winter hibernation set in. Wake me when it stops snowing!!