Happy Birthday Paul!

Lydia's first lollipop - sort of. Grace let Lydia have a lick on her sucker yesterday. Lydia couldn't wait to get more.
To celebrate Paul's birthday today I made his favorite carrot cake. To keep Grace occupied while I was making the cake, I had her paint a carrot cake too. She started with just orange paint, but insisted her cake need purple, yellow and red too.

By the time she was finished painting, we needed to get ready to have lunch with Daddy. It was a good thing we had to leave because by the time she was done the paint was pretty thick. After lunch, naps, dinner and real cake; Grace finally had time to put the candles on the cake. Then she "lit" the candles.

Finally it's ready for Daddy!

Blow out the candles.

Weekend with the Grandparents

Thursday morning we drove up to Grandma & Grandpa Schuh's house for a couple days. We celebrated his birthday, looked at my Grandma's new home purchase and just hung out. Here is Grace and Grandpa reading books. I think they are counting ladybugs in the book.
Then we dropped the girls off at the Borneman's so we could go to a wedding Saturday night. She must think she is in a little band. She plays the piano, one of her men plays the sax and the other sings.

Lydia likes to play the piano too! She is a little less focused; she just smiles at the camera.

Sunday we visited the Pedersens. At their house they can both play the piano together. It looks like I better sign them up for piano lessons.

Loser!

Thursday night we had cake at my dad's for birthday. Grace is usually borderline obsessive about being neat. It might all be a farce since here she is with her face covered in frosting. In her defense she was telling me that she needed a napkin because her finger was messy.

Movie Theater Seeting?

Lydia likes to push buttons on the DVD player while Grace is watching movies so I thought I could solve the problem by putting the ottoman in front of the TV and DVD player. It worked, Lydia couldn't reach the buttons. But Grace promptly put her chair on the ottoman since it was in her way. She told me she couldn't get down because it she now she was as tall as Tinkerbell. (I don't think she was even watching Tinkerbell).

What Grace Does While Lydia Naps...

It is so cold outside, but it is sunny. So Grace wakes up every morning and thinks we should go outside and play in the snow. This morning I convinced her that we could make a snowman inside. She put glitter in a plastic bag for his belly and we used candy corn for his nose. Here she is putting her jelly bean smile on the snowman.
Now the scarf. I think the project is complete.

Grace disagrees. Her snowman needs hair.

Now we are done.

Hooray! Good timing since Lydia was waking up.

What Lydia Does While Grace Naps...

Grace has been taking really long afternoon naps this week, which gives Lydia more time to play without getting knocked around. Lydia does what any little sister would do; she plays with all Grace's toys.

Cheers!

Grace likes to say "cheers" and clink glasses during every meal. She has been cheersing for a few months already, but Lydia recently got in on the fun. As if meal time wasn't long enough already, they have one more thing to keep them busy.

Back to Normal

Paul went back to work today after almost three weeks off. I had enjoyed being able to sleep in once in a while and not having both girls compete for my attention all day long. They quickly fell into our normal routine. I think it helps that our house has turned into a mini toy store.

Happy New Year!

Grace and Haley getting ready for New Year's Eve. Grace enjoying her "champage."

Haley was a bit more excited.

Even Diesel got into the festivities!

Three Kids?

Just when we were getting used to having managing two girls... ... we offer to babysit our niece, Haley, for the week. The girls think she is quite funny and can't get enough of her goofiness.

Most of Grace and Lydia's toys are quite babyish, but we inflated Grace's Jumpolene and the girls could jump.

With our niece around, we didn't have time to do much cooking. We needed leftovers. So a sheet of lasagna became three meals. Fortunatetly, Haley and Grace liked it. And Lydia really enjoyed lasagna.

Christmas with the Schuh's

We celebrated Christmas with Grandma Dawn, Grandpa Charlie, Mike and Haley on Saturday. Grace got Barbie power wheel. Our house soon became her very own little race track as she rode around in circles.

It took a little bit before she figured out how to watch where she was going.

Here she is trying on a pair of pants. What a little goofball!

Lydia is much more mellow. It was much safer for her to avoid the floor while Grace figured out her new toy anyway.