Seriously...is it really almost Christmas? I can't believe how fast this month has gone by. All of our shopping, baking, cards and wrapping are done and all that's left to do it pack for our visits and enjoy the time! Whew! I was going through photos and realized that we haven't posted a blog since Thanksgiving and figured I better do that before it's Christmas :-) We've had a busy month (as I'm sure all of you have had as well). The photos below tell the story of our days and weekends especially. As you can see above - we introduced Faith to Santa. It didn't go as well as planned. We really thought she'd do okay since she loves people and literally talks to every stranger we meet. We've been talking about Santa a lot prepping her for a visit. None of that mattered because when we walked up to meet him - she clung to daddy like glue. She refused to sit on his lap alone so we had a family photo with Santa. To her credit - he wasn't the friendliest Santa we've ever met. When he saw her clinging to daddy he said "I guess mom and dad will have to be in this photo". Thanks for trying to get her to warm up to you Santa?! So we took our family photo and then during one last try for her to sit on his lap she kicked him in the shin. Causing Santa to yell "OWWWW!" After a quick glance at each other about to burst out laughing Randy and I said "I guess we're done!" and then practically ran away. Oh well at least we have a good photo and a good story! Oh and the best part is that now whenever she sees a Santa (picture, figure or someone just talks about him) she says "lap". It's hilarious!
Here are few other tidbits about what our (almost) 2 year old!?!?!?! is up to these days:
-Her favorite part of every day is finding our elf, Ellie, every morning. When we get her up she is talking about Ellie before we even get her out of her crib. Too bad she doesn't totally buy into the idea that Ellie is reporting on her behavior to Santa. Maybe by next year.
-Remember when we said she wasn't talking very much? Yeah well that phase is over. She literally repeats every single word we say. Talk about having to really think about what comes out of your mouth! Some of her favorite words right now are Josh, Joey, Ellie, ok, cook (how she says cookie), da-daddy (her combo of dada and daddy) and no.
-She loves to say uh-oh - even when she throws or knocks something over on purpose. We've tried explaining that's not really an uh-oh, but she's got her own agenda.
-She loves learning peoples names. We have tons of pictures on our refrigerator of all of our cousins. Several times every day we look at the pictures and say each kids name. Apparently she was memorizing them because when we saw some of those kids on Thanksgiving - she was calling them by the right names.
-She even likes learning the names of strangers. Randy has a t-shirt from a Metallica concert with the four band members pictures on it. Whenever he wears it she points to each one and wants to say their names. So Randy taught her their names and now she points them out and sometimes gets the right names. Very proud daddy moment when that happens!
-She has funny endearing names for her grandparents. She calls her grandmas "Ga" and her Pop Pop is just "Pop" and her Pappy is "Popeye".
-We have been working on learning how to properly use the words "you" and "me". She was very confused for days, but has finally mastered the word me! She gets so excited to look in a mirror or see a picture of herself. We say who is that Faith? And she shouts ME! Or you say who are you? And she says ME!
-Of course her favorite word is NO, which she says about 500 times a day. Some days I can ignore it and other days I think "if you say no to me one more time I might loose my mind!". The funniest part is when she says "No-No" using the same tone of voice we use when she knows she is about to get in trouble for something. For example, she'll walk up to our tree and point to an ornament and say "no-no" before she even touches it.
-We've learned that kids are mirrors in ways we never imagined. Earlier this week she started using the word okay at the end of her questions where she wants a yes answer. For example if she wants another cookie she'll say "Cook. Mama ok?" After a half a day of her saying okay over and over I realized that I say okay to her ALL the time. "Let's go change your diaper, ok?" or "We're going to clean up our toys now, ok?". Now I know where she learned it, but it's much cuter when she says it!
-She LOVES jingle bells. We have lots of them all over our house and so does her daycare teacher Miss Marla. I can't even count the number of times she jingles them every day.
-Climbing is her new favorite activity. Chairs, tables, toys, bookshelves and anything else she can figure out how to get on top of. It looks like we will be spending our holiday time off attaching furniture to the walls. Fun, fun!
I could go on and on about all of the cute, hilarious, scary, and frustrating things she does all day, but this gives you a really good picture of our lives. We are so excited to celebrate Christmas with our friends and family. And the best part is that for the first time ever in the 14 Christmas's Randy & I have spent together, we will all sleep in our own beds on Christmas Eve and wake up as our little family of three to see what Santa leaves for us under our tree! But really - who needs presents when we have the best gift we could ever wish for running around the house putting smiles on everyone's faces :-)
Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas and holiday season!
Much Love,
The Groves
Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Happy Thanksgiving from the Groves
First haircut
Counting her toes in the bathtub
Selfies with mama
Story time with Daddy and Joey
Introducing Ellie!
Visiting Gaver Tree farm to find the perfect tree
We found it!
Faith and mama with our tree
Running while daddy carries our tree - Faith's most favorite thing to do
"Cheese!"
Showing off her haircut and her B Team shirt
Fascinated by the new train
Off to The Big Apple to see the Rockettes
Loving the train
Family selfie
Ready for the show
This is what she looked like during the whole show (except the 20 minute nap she took in the middle)
Watching the ice skaters at Central Park
Family Photo at Central Park
Pretty girl
Finally out of that stroller for a quick run through the park
Ready to play in the snow
First snow storm of the year
Catching flakes with daddy
First snowman
Learning how to make a snow ball to throw at daddy
She needed a little help walking in the snow
Posing with Sammy the Snowman
Someone had enough playing in the snow
Helping mama make cookies by pounding the graham crackers
A letter from SANTA! She just kept saying "lap, lap!"
Making sugar cookies
My little helper
After a taste test
