Pre-Soccer Photo Shoot

I have about 25 pictures in this series - I'm considering doing a flipbook and bringing it out for their first dates...

Christmas 2012

Okay, finally getting a quiet moment to get caught up with a little blogging...I have some really great videos I will post soon - but first things first. Christmas. It. Was. Awesome. (and just wrapped up for us last weekend) The first night at Pa-Pa Jim's Chaney said, "I must have been a VERY good girl!"...flash forward 5 Christmas's later, we have so much new stuff in this house it is ridiculous. So part of the Christmas tradition (at least for the last three years) is father/daughter shopping with Chaney and PJW. They go to mall, take pictures in the photo booth, pick out mom's gift (and this year sissy's too) and have dinner. This year Chaney wanted Jimmy Johns for dinner; PJW couldn't have been prouder. And yes, she ate the entire sandwich.

A couple days later it was KiKi's turn to go with Daddy...and they ended up at Blues City Deli (make a note all of you non-residents, a great place for a sandwich next time you are in the City). Blues City is one of those places where a line forms outside 15 minutes before it opens. Apparently KiKi led the line in a "let us in" chant that morning...

A couple more pics from the festivities - Santa saw this after Halloween and couldn't resist...

I love this picture. KiKi was falling off the stool and C reached over to try to hold her up. Ahhhh...see they DO love each other (most of the time).

And finally, my party girls striking a pose...

I'm Going to Miss Santa

So how long do you think we can continue to use Santa as leverage over behavior? I'd consider doing a Christmas in July just to be able to use the naughty list as a motivator. It would be worth whatever money I spent on toys. Sigh. I'll miss you Santa. Happy New Year everyone. Pictures to come of an awesome Christmas with two, mostly nice, girls. (once mom can get them downloaded from the camera) Until then, something from the old Blackberry to tide you over. The standard, "played with the box more than the toys" picture....

The Power of Granny B

So the hubby has been casually reminding me that its been a long time (yes I know its been 3 months!) since my last blog post. I even got a "Have you abandoned the blog?" text from Jabet a few weeks ago...I have been meaning to, I really have, but lately my evening computer time has been spent on a work project so it wasn't until a recent trip to Forsyth when I mentioned I've been neglecting the blog that a simple "I've noticed" from Granny B moved it up on my to do list. So here we go: OCTOBER - the girls were Unicorns for Halloween. We went trick or treating and they thought it was awesome all you had to do is walk up to someone's house and they would give you candy. Mom and Dad thought it was awesome that we ran into our new neighbors and instead of kids in their wagon they had a beer to share.

We also hit MU Homecoming - what a difference a year makes. Lets just say we went last year and almost lost our mind. This year was great. We even did House Decs in Greek Town which the girls loved.

NOVEMBER - well, what can we say about November. Job security for us lobbyists I suppose. We did have a great Thanksgiving. And in the first time in a long time we weren't traveling on Thanksgiving day so we went to the parade. It was so great; weather was perfect, girls had a big time. This pic is from a photo session at Nannys. The dresses were really a lot less Amish in person.

And finally December...more to come...

Catching up.

I feel like I have a lot of blog posts entitled "Catching Up". Oh well. So much to share from the past few weeks; here are some highlights. We started school a couple of weeks ago. Chaney and Keaton both go two days a week from 9-2. Sigh. So far they have done great; more tears from mom than them on the first day.

Lola and Regan also came to visit. (They brought their parents too) We went to the zoo - slept in pallets in the floor - had ice cream at Jerimiah's and then proceeded to run in circles for the next 20 minutes. (literally)

On Saturday we went to the GreenTree Parade in Kirkwood...

..then Chaney, Mom and Dad met back up with everyone in Columbia for some tailgating and Tiger football. (Ki Ki got some QT with Yia Yia and Poppy) Its funny what you accomplish when you do pre-game with a toddler. We did the "Tiger Walk" - my first time ever to line up and high-five the players as they crossed the bridge to the field-who knew this existed? We watched Marching Mizzou warm up - the drumline was Chaney's favorite. And we were actually inside the Stadium in time to see the players (and most importantly Truman) take the field. Huh, I feel like I accomplished more at that one game than I did in all I attended during my collegiate career.

And once the fun was over, as you may have expected, we had two sick little girls. No school tomorrow.

Nerds.

The photographer sent this picture with the subject line "nerds". Truer words may have never been spoken...

Text Santa & "She Started It..."

This morning Chaney suggested I "send Santa a text message" to let him know she would like an Ariel princess for Christmas. Also this week, I got my first "she started it" from Chaney. Sigh.