November & December

Okay, so it's been awhile since I've updated....again. I will make up for it by posting lots of pictures. We are busy, busy, busy getting ready for Christmas. As usual, I am the only one in the family who hasn't gotten all of the Christmas shopping done. Even Claire has finished her shopping. She wanted to get everyone in the family something special from her, so I gave her a small budget to adhere to. She did really well. She stuck to the budget & even bought her own wrapping paper to wrap the presents herself. I think she would have loved to buy out Toys-R-Us for Sami, Libby, & Joe, but she kept herself in check.

Sami started walking right before Thanksgiving. She loves to put shoes on her feet (and hands) and walk everywhere. She hasn't had too many falls, but her little legs are little bruised here and there. Here is a video of her the day she decided to take off....

Sami also loves to give kisses to everyone. Here is a pic of her kissy face. This is what she does when I tell her "no, no, no"...she puckers up



Thanksgiving Day saw my girls off to Morgantown to have dinner with Grandma Candy & Aunt Cole. I didn't go because Kerri & I had our annual Black Friday shopping trip to Columbus early the next morning. Here is a pic of the girls before they went to see Grandma...

My friend Amanda invited Tom and I to have dinner at her house with her family. I was a little nervous once I heard she had never cooked a turkey before, but it turned out to be well worth the risk. Amanda & Jan had quite the spread. It was a fabulous dinner! We had a great time hanging out with all of the little boys in the family.

Our hostesses Jan & Amanda...

The spread...

I thought it was cute that all of boys had on the same socks in various colors.

Alexander's feet, Vinny's feet, and Evan's feet.

Sami loves loves loves her books. She calls them "boos". She loves to read the same "boo" over and over again. Here she is checking out the "boo" by herself. Please note the foot to help hold the "boo"

Just thought I'd throw this picture in cuz it's cute. This was Sami's first time bundling up with the works: hat, gloves, & coat.

We got the Christmas tree up at the beginning of December. Claire and I decorated the tree while Tom kept Sami in another room, so we could surprise her. She started blowing on it when she saw it, as you will see in the video. She associates lights with hot and she blows on anything hot.

Mom, Cole, and kids came down to Charleston last weekend to help bake Christmas cookies. We had a lot of fun. Kerri's new kitchen wasn't quite ready for us to cook in, so we had to use my itty bitty kitchen, but it worked out fine. Libby had her first sleep over with us. I think she had a blast with Claire. Here are mom, myself, Sami & Claire with our aprons on ready to conquer the Christmas Cookies.
Amanda & Even came over to hang out with us. Sami & Libby enjoyed having Evan over to play. Here is a pic of Evan having fun in Sami's crib. How cute is he?

Libby was also in on the crib action...

Here are all 3 hanging out in the crib...this was Claire's way of helping keep an eye on the kids...lock em up.

I was determined to get Christmas cards out this year WITH pictures of the girls. So, I dressed them up to get a few pictures. I took over 200 pictures. Photographer I am NOT. Here are some of the pictures we did NOT use...

I thought it would be good to hold stuff up over my head to make Sami look at me, but that led to her wanting the stuff over my head.

I tried singing and that only made Sami clap

Then Sami wanted to give me kisses...

We got Dad involved which made Sami smile but not look at the camera

We tried giving Sami a candy cane to play with, but she ended up wanting to feed it to Claire

Then Sami started pulling Claire's hair out of frustration

Claire had had about enough

She thought it would be a better idea to leave Sami out of the picture all together

Of course there was crying

Finally, Sami was ready for a nap

We did get some cute pictures out of the whole ordeal which you should be receiving in the mail by next week sometime. Merry Christmas, everyone!