Santa!

We've had a pretty low-key weekend with a few highlights tossed in there.

My girls, still in their pajammies, are currently playing with Anna, Elsa, and some other Barbie-type dolls driving them in a school bus and a Little People chariot because that's how we all should travel, of course. Violet thinks she can run now since she started walking less than a month ago, so it's funny to watch her try to push the chariot or the bus along as fast as she can! The Steelers game is playing in the background, Andrew is playing Xbox online with his friends and George is sleeping. The sun is shining and even though it's 37 degrees, it is much happier than the rainy weather we have been having the last couple days.

Friday night, I had planned on taking the kids to the Children's Museum Christmas event to see a penguin and a reindeer, but it had rained all day long. It was still raining when we got home from Lily's school and a few errands and it was cold.  The thought of dealing with traffic, parking and downtown stuff resulted in a "let's stay home" decision.  We all ended up in bed pretty early Friday night anyway.

Saturday, we went to a local nursery near our house to visit Santa.

Lily isn't in the screaming phase anymore, but still isn't crazy about going up to him.  Andrew decided to go over to Santa first to help his little sisters see it's ok.

Lily thought Violet should go first before her, so that's what we did.  I stopped to get Violet a cookie first to keep her occupied and maybe she wouldn't really notice I'd set her down next to someone...
It didn't work out quite that way.  She held on to her cookie though!

I asked Lily if she was ready and she said no. I picked Violet up and of course she was completely fine. I sat down next to Santa for a minute and Lily came over next to us comfortably. Baby steps, I suppose.

Lily asked Santa where Rudolph was and seemed satisfied with his answer. She replied that she wanted Frozen toys when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  She wanted to talk to him, just not be right next to him and Violet, as you can see, was content again.

Lily and Andrew had their cookies and it was time to leave.  As we drove away, Lily exclaimed excitedly, "We live near the North Pole!"  I love that magic!

We headed home for the girls to nap before we were going to another local light up night event that evening. This one was in our old, old neighborhood before Lily was born, but it's where she goes to preschool.  I was helping out with some crafts inside Lily's school for her teacher who was in charge of this entire event. You know, after just having given birth 5 days before!

Violet loved just walking around and trying to run inside Lily's school!  The kids "painted" puffy snowmen made of shaving cream, glue, and glitter, colored in coloring books, and made candy canes. Andrew helped cut the red stripes for the candy canes to be glued on.

We headed outside to listen to some kids sing and watch some others dance before strolling by Santa and waving from afar. :) Violet was clapping along and "singing" too and both girls were dancing along as well.

Soon the evening had come to a close and it was time to go home. While the kids waited for me to get packed up and into the car, Lily could not take it anymore and zonked.

When we got home, I put the girls to bed, and watched the rest of my favorite Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" on tv.  George has been working a lot of overtime lately, so in addition to it being tough with the overnight shift he works, he's been going in early too.  It's simply the season we are in and I'm grateful for such a hardworking husband.  I miss him too!

Steph's Snippets

Funny how the intent of sitting down and being able to blog is always there,but the reality is, it isn't happening much.  If I try to accomplish this at any time during the day while the other people who live in my house are around, there are one million stops and starts and there is no fluid writing at all whatsoever.  And by the end of the post, I simply just want it done!  That's no good.  Waiting until after bedtime is ideal except we've been so busy and I'm exhausted, so writing hasn't happened much then either.  All that to say, I have a ton of posts in the works!  Actually, I'm going to continue writing about our summer and other events, activities, and birthdays that have since passed as well.  I know you simply cannot wait haha!  In the meantime, here's a snippet of life lately.

~We are gearing up for band concert season in the next few weeks! Reagan began rehearsals tonight and her very first concert is in a couple weeks. Andrew's last one for 2014, is next week.

~Wednesday night, I took Andrew and Reagan downtown to see the local kid Chris Jamison who is on NBC's The Voice, perform a local show that they were also doing some hometown filming of for next Monday's show!  Chris is a 2012 graduate from Andrew's high school, so we've been watching this season from the beginning and rooting him on! Andrew laughs at me for cheering and clapping in our family room like I'm at the show. Well, lo and behold, when I saw yesterday I really could be at a show cheering and clapping for him, I decided we were going! I tried to win tickets on the tv station's website with no luck. I won them on the radio that afternoon!  Andrew, aka, The Grumbler, immediately said he wasn't going. This was one of those things where I told him he wasn't being given a choice.  Turns out, as always mama knows best and he had a good time!  This was Reagan's first "concert" ever!  Even though there was a lot of waiting and reshooting going on for the tv show, it was still fun and Reagan thought it was "really cool."  We were standing near Reagan's science teacher and a kindergarten teacher from her school --both of whom had Chris Jamison as a student in elementary school.  Andrew saw a bunch of friends from school and Reagan saw some of hers also. Chris sang the songs he's done on The Voice and then he and his band played 2 originals.  I love his version of Uptown Funk! It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we went! George dropped us off and picked us up at the venue and he and the little girls hung out at home.

~I have a couple giveaways coming up next week! Be sure to check back for those.

~I have Violet's and Andrew's birthdays to get up on the blog--photoshoots and parties. I love them and can't wait to share about them!

~There's some stepmom stuff that's been going on I'd like to write about, some inlaw stuff, and some friend stuff.  So in addition to what we've been doing, I do have a little heavier stuff to write about as well.

~Recently, I took some maternity pictures of Lily's preschool teacher. She's also the owner of the school and over the last year plus, we've become close friends. I think the world of she and her husband and I was so happy to be able to do these pictures for them!  As her due date came and went, I had my phone turned on all night to be able to go and take pictures of their baby when she arrived. This past Monday was that day! What an honor to be there as their daughter entered the world! It was miraculous and I couldn't be more happy for them! I'm so glad they let me continue to work on my own skills. :)  They are first time parents and doing amazing! I hope to finish edits by the end of the weekend!

~We had a busy, happy Thanksgiving, Andrew's birthday weekend. Can't believe I have a 15 year old!

~Lily went back to the eye doctor this week for a check up. I'm so glad she loves to go! Update with her eyes coming soon.

~I'm personally gearing up for this winter weather.  I don't love the cold and feeling trapped in my house for eons.  We've already had a little bit of snow which I actually love still, but the cold zaps me.  Here's hoping winter flies by!

~A few months ago I started watching Sons of Anarchy for the first time.  I binge watched late at night to get caught up to watch this final season with George, who has been watching the show since it started.  There's only one episode remaining.  I love this show and just like I did with Dexter, I liked being able to binge watch since I didn't watch from the beginning.  Sons of Anarchy ending, Parenthood ending...my favorites.  Scandal better keep on!

I'm off to feed Violet lunch.

Happy Friday!

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas

We decided not to go to Pittsburgh's Light up Night on Friday night due to traffic, crowds and the cold.  The girls went to bed early that night anyway, so it worked out for the best. Since we missed it, Saturday night we went to a local light up night for Lily to meet Frosty the Snowman.  That was our main objective!

The weather had warmed up a little bit Saturday. We were happy about that! As we were walking from the car, the fireworks started which made for a nice kick off! The kids were excited to see them and as we got closer, we could hear that there was Christmas music playing along while the fireworks were going off.

When the fireworks ended, the crowd headed into the area where Santa would be. We headed over towards the outdoor Christmas tree to take a couple pictures and to look for Andrew's friend, Jake. We found Jake pretty quickly for the crowd size! 

While we were hanging out there, I spotted Frosty coming out of the library.  We made our way over to him. Lily was so excited! 

 Violet did pretty good with Rudolph!

 And of course, Andrew had to be with The Grinch! hahaha

We lucked out catching them all quickly!  After our photo ops, we headed into the library to make some crafts. Andrew requested we skip the Frozen karaoke though.  First up was a picture of a Santa hat. Lily was excited to glue a "snowball" {cotton ball} on the top. She also loves to write her name, so she made sure that was on there even though she started to high on the hat and ran out of room at first. :)

Next, was a Christmas tree card that she got to glue the pieces to make the tree. Although it won't look like this exactly when Oma gets it in the mail because the old lady "helper" didn't think Lily had enough glue, so she "fixed" it.  Here's a lesson lady...it's better when it's "imperfect" done by the child. While we were at this station, we ran into another of Andrew's friends' dad and little sister.  It's been awhile since we've seen them and it was nice to catch up.  Andrew and Jimmy have been friends since we moved here when Andrew was in 2nd grade and although they haven't gone to school together since 4th grade, they've remained friends since.

Not to avoid all things Frozen, the next station had Frozen coloring pages and Lily was pretty happy to be there for quite some time! She colored the snowflake, but we convinced her to take Olaf and Anna home with us, so we could go find her a balloon!

We left the library and headed over to the middle school where the other activities were being held and got in line for the balloons. We grabbed a cookie while we waited. 

The girls both got flowers and Andrew got a sword! When the clown tried to hand Violet her balloon, she wanted no part of him. She looked at me with a pretty scared look and turned her head! She happily took the balloon from me though. :)

Our final activity was cookie decorating.  Lily loves sprinkles so this was a great activity for her! She made Andrew one first and then did one for herself.  She wanted to do one for Violet too, but Violet was still working on her first little cookie. I think Lily just wanted to use more sprinkles!

I'm never one to miss a photo opportunity that is presented to me, so despite this little penguin being too narrow for anyone's face ever, we took it. 

We decided to skip Santa and wait for Daddy to go with us, plus Lily was sure that The Grinch was Santa anyway.  She keeps calling The Grinch, "The Arch".  Not sure why, but that's what she thinks his name is. 

So, lastly we headed to finally take the picture in front of the tree before going home.  We had a fun night and I'm glad that even though I often drag my teenager out with us for things like this, he still enjoys himself. 

This was the best I got.

Oooooh too bad Violet didn't look my direction...

 And well, these last few...this is what picture taking often looks like with this crew.

Trick or Treat!

Halloween 2014 is in the books.

For approximately year 4, we had cold, rainy weather. It makes for a not super fun trick or treating for the little ones, but we made the best of it!

This year Andrew's school football team had a playoff game on Halloween night, so the marching band did too. They made it a special night for the band kids by having supper for them before they had to get on the bus to go.  The kids also got to wear costumes instead of marching band uniforms. Off he went to the game as a piece of bacon!

We dropped Andrew off at band then came home to feed the girls a quick supper before trick or treating began at 6pm.  The girls thought these little jack o lantern quesadillas were pretty fun!

Then we needed to get outside for a few quick pictures before the sun went down.  Trying to get Violet to stand long enough for me to get a picture of her was tough. Lily was pretty cooperative. :)

Our favorite Elsa and the sweetest guitar!

 Daddy went as a hunter and helped out with Pippi standing and smiling! :)

Oma snapped a quick family picture on her phone for us too! 

(Violet and I are shooting lasers with our eyes!)

Lily did a good job remembering to say trick or treat and thank you this year. She didn't need any help going up to each door and she loved ringing the doorbell--even if someone was standing there waiting haha! My girl is too big, too quickly.

Violet grabbed some Cheetos at her first house. :)

The rain picked up a little more, it got colder and we were ready to head home. Our neighborhood didn't have a lot of trick or treaters, so our girls ended up with a TON of candy for just being out for about 45 minutes to an hour. 

We got the girls out of costumes and warmed up to snuggle up and read a couple new Halloween books and soon it was time for bed.

Since I wasn't able to get a picture of all 3 of my kids together on Halloween, I had them all costume up for a few pictures the next day. :)  Oma was here this year too!

Happy Halloween!