Elephant

Ari got another birthday present in the mail today from Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma has been on a hunt for a tiny chair for Ari because Arianna LOVES chairs that she can sit in. She slumps all the way back in them and kicks her feet and has a look on her face that just tells you that she knows she's a big girl.

Grandma found her this cute Elephant chair so this is her checking it out for the first time.

barefoot boy

I rarely get a chance to actually scrapbook these days, but Sara's been running a challenge over at the paper pixie so I've gotten a few things done over the last couple weeks and this is one of my favorites. It's a canvas, probably 12x18 or something. It's hanging in the hallway outside Alexander's room now.

Arianna's birthday

Ari's birthday was like two weeks ago, I don't know why I haven't blogged it, apparently I've lost my mind. Anyway here are some top pictures from the day.
We didn't do a big party, since it is so close to Christmas, we tried to make it easy and fun. So first we met our Hopper side cousins at McD's and played played played.

and opened presents, presents, presents.
Then we went to Grammy and Pops house with out Buckner side cousins (and thier cousins) to celebrate Ari and Nehemiah's birthdays (his is 3 days after Christmas!)

Xander was helping Miah admire his present, no time to take it out of the box.

sleeping beauty

I took these pictures of Arianna today right before she woke up from her nap. She just looked so peaceful and beautiful laying there asleep.

girls

while technically Isabella isn't supposed to be holding Arianna, it does happen about 100 times a day, and that's hard to fight. So we've been trying to focus more on teaching her how to hold Ari. And she's doing pretty well.

Ari's hair

Her hair is getting so long that if I don't keep it pulled up it is just crazy, like this.
These were actually when she had just awakened from a nap, so she was ever so happy that I was taking pictures instead of holding her, but the hair was so crazy it just had to be done.

Tons of pictures

Here are some of the great many pictures that I took in the days following Christmas. There are tons more, they had a lot of fun with all their new things!

The girls in their matching jackets from GrandmaIsabella's pretty sweater

Faron started putting together the kitchen from Grandma and Grandpa thinking it would be a quick job, an hour later he had his doubts!

Still working on it kids, be patient

Helping!

Ahh, we can play with it now. The kids play with this a ton. They are always cooking up something. It has a microwave and stove, and cabinets, so there are lots of doors to open, which Ari loves, and lots of pretending to be had!

Isabella, playing in the box the kitchen came in.

Faron, recovering from putting the kitchen together, and counting up the pieces out of the directions. over 150!

Playing and playing!

Grandma and Grandpa also got the kids this keyboard, which Arianna LOVES!

A set of little bitty princess books that get read and read and read.

Ari loves little books!

Alexander's new ride. Grandma and Grandpa got him this and it is not often left alone. If Alexander is not on it the Arianna is, and they both love it.

Alexander, sitting in the baby doll's bed and drinking it's bottle.

This is the toy that Grammy and Pop got for Arianna and Xander, it's a mirror that makes you appear to be on a stage, it has some instruments to play and of course a microphone.

All of the kids play with this quite often. Ari knows how to make all the different songs play and she goes over and sits down with it all the time. I have also often found the older girls sitting in front of it watching themselves sing.

Grammy and Pop got the girls a "Star station", it is like a kereoke machine, but it also has a video camera, so they watch themselves on TV, while singing, and dancing, and running all over the place.

Faron, trying to pretend like he enjoys the loudness of two kids with microphones.

Isabella's watching herself on the tv, jumping on the trampoline.

Uncle Gabe and Auntie Angie got the kids a drum set for Christmas. Angie was very sorry, but the kids all love it and with all the musical stuff the got they now have a full little band. Here are the drums before they got transported to the basement to contain their immense noise.

Sophia's a rock star.

Arianna has actually figured out how to "talk" into the microphone, instead of just chewing on it. She still chews on it most of the time, but when she wants to she can make noise.

This could be mother pride, but I thought it was pretty impressive when Sophia was playing.

Arianna does play the drums too, and if she finds a drum stick on the floor she carries it over to the drums and plays for a while, but her favorite is the keyboard. She sits on the little stool most of the time and plays and plays.

I don't know when Alexander has ever really seen anyone play drums, but he had no idea grasping the concept.

There is lots of playing going on around here!

Winter Wonderland

Here are some nice snowy pictures.


Random stories...

I asked Alexander who took the lids off my ink pads and he had a hard time figuring out the tenses of his answer, it ended up like
"No, Not, Nothing...Nothing-body"