R E F L E C T I O N S

Okay, so it's not super photo-tastic, but i LOVE It! We were sitting on a bench across from this store window enjoying a cookie and the cooler temps, when all of a sudden she noticed her reflection.

She was was intrigued and kept walking up to it and dancing around watching herself. I had to take a photo. I did manage to get some of the reflection and the words in the window read: Holiday Classic! She also managed to kiss her reflection too. I suppose I would have too!

SANTA & ABIGAIL!!

Well, here we are...about 3 months away from her 3rd birthday and we actually didn't have a crying photo with Santa! She loves Santa. He was awesome too! She did a great job so we went over to the Nestle Tollhouse Cookie store for a cookie to celebrate afterwards!!

A DAY OF THANKS

We were invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with our dear friends the Greiders. Here is a cute pic of Ava and Abigail enjoying some turkey dinner! What a sweet blessing!!

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost....Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

And so it starts...

The day before Thanksgiving we decided just to put a few things up related to the beautiful Christmas holiday. Abigail enjoyed seeing the different villages and snow and people. We had a few things break, but nothing a little glue gun couldn't fix!!

We bought a nice nativity scene at Home Depot believe it or not and set it up. I had searched forever for the one I wanted, but could never find it and Matt found it! I didn't want the extravagant kind or really embellished and such, just the simple kind with a baby Jesus that would remind me of the kind my Grandma had in her nativity scene.

Abigail really liked hearing about Baby Jesus' birth and so we'll make sure to continue the story so she understands this is the real reason for this season. We've always talked to her about it and this year she is really taking an interest so we will be sure to take advantage of that!

Loyalty

Despite what we say about our doggie: she's a swiper, a crazy dog, a magnet for all grass clippings outdoors and on and on...she's LOYAL to her littlest owner. Oree loves Abigail and Abigail loves Oree. No matter what, Oree takes it with a tail wag. She just wags her tail to all Abigail has to say and do. Here she is with Abigail insisting she needs to read a book to Oree.

ON OUR WAY TO SEE SANTA'S ARRIVAL!

Santa came to Watters Creek for the Season of Photos! We went to see his arrival and it was just fabulous. Complete with fairy dust to sprinkle over a 100 year old oak tree that was lit up for the holidays. Santa was mobbed when he got off the carriage and everyone was trying to touch his coat or grab after the glow sticks he was handing out! It was like we had never seen a Santa before. He was magical though and watching her watch him made it even more magical.

First Sweater of the Season!

Now that's just picture worthy I think!! :)

LETTERS TO SANTA!

So, this is the first year we noticed a fascination for SANTA! Not sure how it happened, but it did. We saw this little letter booth area at Macy's one day and so she "wrote" down the things she wanted Santa to bring her! She was very excited. And from this point on, she wanted to hear Christmas music, talk about Santa and VISIT him too! Oh how fun!!

THE BARREL BINS AT SPROUTS

So, Sprouts is a nice little grocery store with organic type food and such at real good prices. We raided the bins one day and bought lots of goodies like almonds, M&M trail mix, pistachios, orange-flavored dried cranberries. Which one did she devour? Not the one you may think...PISTACHIOS! And she just loves them!!

While She Doesn't Like Getting There, She Enjoys it Once She's There!

See, bath time can be fun! My little bubbling beauty!!

The Wrap-Around Braid

I wish I could take credit for this exquisite work of art...

Every day or I should say, on most days, we will pick up Abigail from school and she'll have the most adorable hair style! Her assistant teacher, Ms Gabi, plays hairstyling with the girls and well they just love it! I must admit so do I!

FOUR MONTHS!!

Here we are at 4 months! Little Baby Wolf is growing! We hope to find out a good guess of what we're having. Do you have a guess? Visit www.ExpectNet.com and enter the game name on the top left - BabyWolf-2 and enter your guess! We're so excited...4 more weeks and we're half way there!!

The Joy of Learning... It's so fun and amazing to see children learn. Over the last month, we've seen some incredible moments of learning and discovery. She loves tracing letters and numbers and her little arts and crafts projects at school, and doing mazes, and singing and dancing, but her most favorite thing is coloring. She loves to color. She's really done so great staying in the lines. Sometimes she doesn't hold the crayon on the end, but she'll adjust it. Most of the time she has her tongue sticking out of her mouth in deep concentration (which I love to see). In the photos below, she's coloring a little turkey picture she got from school. She was upset to not finish it at school when daddy picked her up so they let her take one home to work. She started coloring it as soon as she got home. Which reminds me...I picked her up earlier than usual one day this past week (week of 11/15) and the teacher had just told them to go to the table and it was time to start coloring. They all ran to the table and rushed to sit down. The teacher saw me at the door and said, "Oh Abigail, your mommy is here." She turned around and saw me and threw her head onto her hands on the table in a very dramatic way. She was sooooo upset I was interrupting this fun time. She was crying out no...I want to color. Okay, so that had NEVER happened before, ever. I'm usually greeted with her running up to me, opened arms...so, yes, she's in love with coloring. Pretty much all artistic things. I need to find a chance to capture some video of her singing her favorite song...Do, Re Mi from the Sound of Music!

I love watching her learn, discover and take interest in things. :)

OUR HALLOWEEN PARTY!

This year, we had our Halloween party on Halloween Sunday. It was from 3-6:30pm. We wanted to have it early in the day and wanted an early end since mommy was rounding out her 1st trimester and couldn't last till midnight + like usual! ha! It was so fun and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. The kids got to play outside in the playset and were all in costume along with parents. Pics below are of the winners. Star Wars fans - the Alvarado Family and Michael Ghose won the children's category in his cool homemade costume of a special cartoon character. Can't remember the name!

We dressed as the Wizard of Oz...Daddy was the Scarecrow, Mommy was the Wicked Witch of the West and Abigail was Dorothy! Oree was dressed in her homemade costume of a Ladybug. We bought all these after Halloween during the sales last year. Glad they fit...especially mine since it needed to accommodate a 13 week pregnant lady! It stretched whew!

We had about 40 guests and I took about 400 pics so I figured I'd crash the site if I loaded them all so I didn't. ha!

Halloween Parade at School

Daddy got to take Abigail through the Halloween Parade at school this year. She was Snow White and just loved getting all the candy from the different classrooms. She especially loved that her teacher was also dressed as Snow White so it made it so very special!

THE ANTIQUE SALE 10/10/10

There were tons of neat things, but we only bought one thing and it was something Abigail wanted. She was standing at a table for a while looking at it and I kept wondering what she was looking at. Then I noticed it was a little piano music box.


She loved it. She brought it over to me to show it to me. She said, I want this mommy. I told her we’d have to check to find out how much it was first. Mommy did a little negotiating with the guy who overpriced it I thought and we managed to get it for $5. I know, still might be over priced! She was really drawn to it and she loved the fact that she could see the little mechanical part move and make music…barely. It needed some oiling or something. It was pretty dusty and I showed her a couple of other jewelry boxes that I thought she’d like more. One was pink and another white. Neither of them played music. We went to lunch afterwards and she insisted on taking it down and having it on the table. I can’t remember the little song it plays, but I really like it.

I loved the way she was attracted to it and it was the first time I saw her look at something like that. She didn’t ask me to get it like she does when she sees anything Disney Princess or candy; it was different. Anyway, it was just too cute of an experience not to share. In the attached are a few pics.