McDermott Christmas

We celebrated our first Christmas last weekend.  (Yes, our children are extremely spoiled) We had a wonderful time, it was so much fun to get the kids all together again.  We went out Saturday afternoon for sledding and hot cocoa, and then had Christmas dinner later that night.  Sunday morning, we woke up early and went back out in our pajamas to celebrate Christmas.  We did stockings, presents, ate a huge breakfast, and then headed back outside so the kids could burn off some of their energy.  Sophie played hard all day and was truly exhausted by nightfall- she ended up sleeping 13.5 hours that night.

 Santa put goggles in Sophie's stocking- she was thrilled!

 We gave Sophie a dress up kit, which had a firefigher's hat and ax inside. She wore the hat and carried the ax most of the morning. Despite all of my hard work, there are no princess dresses on this little lady.

 Cade was quite thrilled to spend most of the morning on grandpa's lap.  Grandpa let him goober his presents and eat all the wrapping paper he wanted.  Oh well, it's a good source of fiber right?

 Playing in the snow Montana style-hooking up sleds to the back of a four-wheeler.  Not exactly my idea of fun, but Sophie loved it! She kept saying, "Faster, Faster!"  She is not afraid of going fast...

Sophie showing off- she liked to lean to the side on the sled, and run her hand along the side in the snow.  We have a daredevil on our hands.

Christmas Baking

Making cookies- for the record, we didn't notice that Sophie was completely covered in flour until we were halfway through the cookie process.  It was only then that we noticed that we had gone through half a jar of flour...

 More and more flour.

 Sophie is Miss Independent right now and wants none of my help.  So, if you squint your eyes you can kind of tell what shapes our cookies are in.

Sophie did take the task of decorating very seriously.  She knew exactly what colors she wanted to "paint" each cookie and which color of sprinkles.  I thought that she would just decorate a couple with me, but she did such a good job that I let her decorate them all.  Near the end, she applied a little too much pressure to one cookie and it broke.  She looked very upset and close to tears when I told her that when one breaks we can eat that part.  She promptly picked up her knife, and using it in an ice chisel fashion, broke a cookie into many pieces.  Then smiled and ate all the little pieces.  Yup, that's my girl.

We made gingerbread boys one night and Sophie thought that that was a lot of fun too!  Unlike last year, where she didn't eat any of the candy, this year she sampled each piece before placing it on her gingerbread boy.

Decorating is a serious and tasty task!

 Stopping mid-decorating to sample the cookie.  Mmmm.....

Christmas Time!

 We did all things Christmas this week.  We decorated the tree, put the lights up,decorated the house, and made cookies.  It was exhausting but fun!

 Sophie was very excited to put the star on the tree.  It was hard for her to wait for Daddy to finish putting the lights up.

 Finally, let the decorating begin!   Notice, all of the decorations seem to be in one area.  Sophie is great at putting the ornaments up, but spreading them out is not her specialty.

Sophie's favorite ornament- an ice cream cone.  Is anyone surprised?

What was Cade doing while we decorated the tree?  Jumping.  He is quite the jumper!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We survived the plane trip to Portland.  Flying with kids is never easy, even in the best circumstances- but flying with 2 kids that have ear infections and having to change planes multiple times with long layovers is torture. But we made it!  Once in Portland, we took it easy and enjoyed being with Nana and Rosie.

 Our one major outing was to the Children's Museum, which Sophie LOVED!  She is just at the right age for it- she loves to pretend.  One of her favorite attractions was the slide, which you had to "rock climb" up.  Sophie decided that she needed a hard hat from the tool exhibit and wore it proudly (although backwards).  She started a trend, other kids wanted hard hats too.

 She's a cutie!

 Sophie really loves to help in the kitchen right now, so she was right in the middle of things while Nana was cooking.

 Helping Nana with the Rolls.

 One of my proudest moments, Sophie looking through the ads Thanksgiving morning.

 One of Sophie's favorite games right now is acting like a dog.  She even crawls around on the floor and barks.  She therefore loved Rosie's dog house and claimed it for her own. Rosie didn't seem to mind being evicted.

 Our smiley boy.

 Rosie loves kids and babies.  She stayed close to Cade and would often give him little licks on the head.  He didn't seem to care too much.

Back at home, Sophs was pleased to see her cars again and loves to race around the house.  She shared was nice enough to share a car with Cade.  As you can see, Sophie is thrilled to be racing with Cade- and he is thinking- "Seriously, I get the pink car?"

Food!

 Cade has been very interested in what we are eating so we thought that we would give him some rice cereal and see how he likes it.  He is technically a little young, he is 4 1/2 months adjusted, but it is so much fun to see babies learn to eat that we had to try!

 For the record, Cade was not a fan of the cereal.  He made faces at us everyday for a week.

 Seriously? This is what I get?

 After a week, he started warming up to a little, and now licks the bowl clean!

 It's hard to say what is more fun, eating the cereal- or chewing on the bowl?

 Blowing raspberries at us.  As you can see, most of the cereal ends up on his bib.

A look back at Sophie at this age- they look a lot alike, especially their chubby cheeks!

Seasme Street Live!

 We made a trip out to Missoula to go see Seasme Street Live!  We knew Sophie would love it, as right now she is obsessed with Seasme Street- or as she calls it- "The Street."  She did love going to the show, she sang with along with all of the songs, and cheered for each character when they appeared.  It was very cute.  The show did get a little lengthy- an hour and a half was definitely pushing it for her.  But overall she did great.  When we left she said, "it was so much fun to see all of my friends!" (Meaning Elmo and Abby)

Right before the show started, so excited!

Watching the show with her Elmo Wand.

The hotel had a pool and so she got to blow off some energy swimming with Daddy.  Both kids did great sleeping in the hotel.  Phew!

Pumpkins and Halloween, Oh My!

 We had a super fun Halloween!  Sophie was thrilled to have Halloween actually here, as she has been practicing Trick-or-Treating around the house for weeks now.

 Since Sophie is in the "Clean Hands" phase, cleaning out her pumpkin was not something she enjoyed.

 She did however, love carving her pumpkin and knew exactly what she wanted, a happy jack-o-lantern.

 She was so proud of her work that she carried it around the house for a long time.

Look who's sitting by himself!

Grr, Cade's a smiling tiger!

 Sophie is a fish.  I finally just ordered a costume for her since everyday she told me that she wanted to be something different- these ideas ranged from the letter A to a toaster.

Trick or Treating at last!

Pumpkin Patch

Our annual trip to the pumpkin patch went quite well this year.  Sophie's cousins came up for the weekend, and she was thrilled to play with them again.  We decided to take them all to the pumpkin patch, because really, that's what you do when it is freezing outside and starting to snow.  The kids all had a lot of fun, and were really well behaved.  We have noticed a big change in Sophie's behavior- what a difference a year makes!  She understands the concept of waiting in line, waiting for her turn ect. In general, the 3's are a lot easier than the 2's. 

 Vivi was very cute and would help us out with the little girls.

 Ellie and Sophie in the corn maze.

 The little girls on the bike course- it was super tough so Carl and Mac had to help.

 Feeding the goats- both fun and scary at the same time.

 The balance/rope course- and a shot of Cade, who is, of course, out in the freezing weather like all Montana babies.

 Jump, Jump, Jump...

And, after a long day of playing, taking a nap with Daddy on the couch.