3 Years, 3 Months, 1 Week, and 4 Days

Ruby & Charlotte are 3 years, 3 months, 1 week, and 4 days old today. They give their stuffed animals, dolls, and even pajama feet unique names as of late, without any guidance from us. Names like Ennis, Poof, Chambers, Pocus, Snowflake, Packus, and Aggie have joined Parties the horse in our home. We had another fabulous Christmas here in Illinois, without snow this time. We have very generous family & friends, so we divided gift opening between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning again. Enjoy the photos!

Obligatory family photo in front of the Christmas tree:

Ruby & Charlotte worked hard at creating ornaments to send to family as gifts (these are the pony bead & pipe cleaner wreaths):

Popsicle stick snowflakes decorated with buttons:

Opening gifts on Christmas Eve:

Magnifying glasses from Aubrey & Hudson are a bit hit:

As are the remote control cars from Uncle Trevor & Marissa (though they wondered where Uncle Trevor & Marissa were when they saw the presents from them, since they were able to visit us last year around this time):

After Santa visited our home:

Stockings generated more excitement this year, as they both had fun reaching in to pull out various items from Santa:

Dress up jewelry was quickly layered on before the actual gift opening began:

Ruby pretended to be a present by sticking a bow on her head while Charlotte was intent on opening the gifts:

Grandma Sueli made them snails from a pattern she used when Bob was a child:

Grandma Doreen & Grandpa Bob came through with the biggest hit, the hard to find Leappads. We've raised them without the majority of technology for so long that it was surprising to see how quickly they figured out how to use the tablet computers:

Ruby layered on her Bumble chapstick repeatedly:

Charlotte really likes the new Richard Scarry books:

They made sticker mosaics for Grandpa Jay & Grandma Peggy. Bob drew the guitar and dachshund, and after the stickers were placed we framed them:

The aftermath of Christmas morning:

We sent out 2 different styles of holiday cards this year, both using photos from our amazing visit to Starved Rock State Park:

3 Years, 3 Months, and 4 Days

Ruby & Charlotte are 3 years, 3 months, and 4 days old today. We have been quite busy with school and preparing for Christmas. Enjoy the photos!

They love their stuffed Bumbles:

I spent a fair amount of time creating favors for their winter party at pre-preschool:

Bob designed the name tags for me:

We gave snowman sticker books and a jingle bell to all the kids in the class:

I made Peppermint Chipper cookies and soft gingerbread with white chocolate cookies (with carefully placed snowflake sprinkles) for the party:

They performed Jingle Bells at the party:

Ruby sang proudly (and loudly):

Charlotte was not interested in participating:

They did a few crafts:

Once we returned home, they were excited to go out and play in the small amount of snow that had fallen overnight:

They made 2 small snowmen with Bob's help:

We decorated our Christmas tree:

Ruby was very cautious when putting the ornaments on the tree:

Charlotte's favorite ornament is a Bumble one:

39 Months Old!

Ruby at 39 months old:

Charlotte at 39 months old:

3 Years, 2 Months, 3 Weeks, and 6 Days

Charlotte & Ruby are 3 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, and 6 days old today. Dancing is becoming more popular here, though Grandpa Jay has been teaching them bizarre moves (the "whirly-jig" is one example) in my absence since I am working 40 hours a week now. I have high hopes that I can replace the strangeness with the flawless rhythm of the Jackson 5 after the holidays when I won't be working so much. Enjoy the photos!

Hugs are plentiful here:

They even made up a game of running at each other in order to hug:

They think that using the dust mop and Swiffer are loads of fun:

We had our 1st snowfall of the season (maybe an inch) last week and we ventured out to explore for only a few minutes since the windchill was down into the low teens:

Charlotte kept trying to gather up enough snow so we could make a snowman, but it was not meant to be:

Ruby inspected the snow for snowflakes:

We exchanged Christmas gifts with Ava & Jacob:

They had their first Santa experience this month at Bob's work.

Charlotte went up shortly after we arrived to meet Santa Claus:

Ruby waited until we were about to leave before reluctantly going up to him in order to get a candy cane like Charlotte had: