Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

One of my New Year's resolutions...write in this blog more often!

We had a wonderful Christmas with Craig's family and a pretty quite New Years (I was the only one awake at midnight and I didn't even notice it was past 12 until I got in bed, I guess that's what happens when you have kids, lol)

So here are some quick updates...Over the past couple days Cooper has started waving. He waves his whole arm, his left arm! He has also started pushing up to all fours, ahhh. He does this plank move and sometimes puts his knees down, then he looks around to see if anyone was watching, so cute. He is really enjoying food, we are offering him things from our plate and he is enjoying experimenting. There have been a couple times when I have blended something up in an attempt to spoon feed him so there is not a huge mess. He simply won't let me put the spoon in his mouth, he wants to do it himself, so there are many meals where Cooper is feeding himself and I am spoon feeding Kylie so she will eat, just so silly. Coopie has also started "talking" more. Just about three days ago I was telling Craig that I didn't think Cooper was as verbal as Kylie was at this age, "maybe it's just a boy thing." By that afternoon Cooper was talking more, it was like he heard me and wanted to prove me wrong. It is so fun hearing his little voice. He communicates so well, just tonight he was chewing on some asparagus and I took the old piece from his hand to offer him a new one. When I took it from him he looked at me with this mad face and started to cry, I felt so bad. Cooper is an "everything goes in the mouth" kid, I don't remember Kylie being this way, it's a whole new experience for us. And boy does he get mad when you take something away that he was chewing on. He is also the type of kid that we will have to baby proof for. Just today I sat him on the bathroom floor while I took a shower. I put an entire basket of fun toys in front of him and jumped in the shower. Not two seconds later he is pulling the step stool over to himself, he pushes and pulls enough to tip it over. Then he turns around and realizes that if he leans far enough to his left he can reach the knob on the drawer below the sink. After opening and closing it about 20 times, he uses the drawer and pulls himself closer to the sink, close enough to reach the cupboard door. Opens and closes that about 20 times then starts to empty the cupboard, out comes the shampoo, body wash, lotion...all the time his toys sit untouched.  Guess it's time to baby proof!

Kylie is a joy (as always). Her make believe play is so fun to watch. She tells us about Don and all the kids, and after seeing Frozen for the first time over Christmas, she often includes Ana and Elsa in the stories. She still insists on hearing one day when she is eating, but every once in a while we can get her to tell us a story instead. She always picks out her own clothes and lately she found a drawer where I had been hiding summer clothes. We are planning a trip to hawaii so I didn't want to put all the summer clothes away, just wanted them out of her drawer so she didn't think they were an option when it is 50 degrees outside. But she found them and has been insisting that she wear them, I told her they were for Hawaii and now she asks us everyday if today is the day we get to go to Hawaii. A couple days ago I got her a calendar. We have been putting all the fun things we have to look forward to on the calendar (including Hawaii). Every night before bed we cross off the day on the calendar and talk about what we have planned for the next day. Today was Ama's Birthday and tomorrow is Hana's Birthday Party and Ama's Birthday Party, Kylie is so excited! When Kylie is done with a meal she say "So I think I'm pretty much all done." Which means I will eat a ton more if you feed me, but I am done feeding myself. She has also started saying really sweet things like "mommy, your a good mommy," "I love you," "make a happy face for me" (she often says this when I am upset at her for some reason and she doesn't want me to "have a sad face anymore"). And of course she is adding in a lot of "like," "you know," "like whatever," sometimes I think I am talking to a teenager.  She also surprised me today by singing all the words to "Rudolf the red nosed reindeer," I had no idea she knew the whole song! She can carry on a whole conversation and is even good at keeping it going. We were eating together the other day and I was not being super talkative, Kylie kept prompting me "so mommy, how's your day going?" "mommy, what should we talk about?" "you know I was thinking about..." Between the two of us, poor Cooper and Craig might not get much in :o) Kylie has officially learned about sweets, desserts, chocolate and all good things. We are trying not to fall to fast down the slippery slope, but it is hard when you have parents with a big sweet tooth. Kylie has also recently started playing more board games. She really like "Guess Who" but we got a few for Christmas so we are hoping to start a family game night so we can look forward to playing games every week.

I'm sure there is more to say, but time for some photos...

We went to visit the girls next door and Kylie got to taste her first candy cane. She loved it, needless to say. We let her have little bits at a time and tonight she finally finished it (only about two weeks after she got it).

 Bubba hanging out with Coopie while we were all out to lunch.

 Home made tree ornaments, we made them at breastfeeding group with all the babies foot prints, they came out cute!

Christmas morning.

 Christmas Eve, sleeping in their new pjs.

 Little boy in a big bed.

 Christmas Eve with Craig's cousins and their kids.

 "Good morning Baltimore!"

 Showing off her new Giants sweatshirt.

Today the girls played dress up at the big girls house.

 Late night performance time, she made up a whole song about hugging the Christmas tree. It's times like this when Craig and I are so tired, we wish she would just to go sleep like other kids at a normal time, then she starts to come alive and perform and all we can do is smile.

 They both seem to sleep better when they are together, so cute.

 Just today (after he got in to everything in the bathroom) I put him down for about 30 seconds and come back to this...

 Loving to chew on empty edemame pods.

 Lego time. The girls were so happy to see each other after all of us were gone for Christmas.

 This little guy actually falls asleep in the stroller!

 Super Cooper!

 Photos from our trip to Portorville. Dolly had 8 puppies, just two weeks old!

 Cousins Christmas.

 Putting candles on the cake for baby Jesus.

 New Christmas pjs and books. I just love their faces, it's like they saw Santa.

 Christmas morning.

 Coopie and his Ammy.

 Christmas!

 Gingerbread houses with the Worthley's. Kylie opened the white elephant gift of Barbie with two little barbies hot glued to her boobs. Kylie and Coopie having nannies at the beach, made us all laugh so hard. Kylie loved it!

 Coop, Ky and Madelyn Drew.