Christmas 2009 Extravaganza Part Two!

I thought it would be better to break the Christmas post into two because there are so many good things to show! Yet again the girls got so many wonderful gifts. Santa must not have been looking when they threw that fit at the grocery store.

Morgan was able to open all her gifts- and believe me she wanted to open them all the minute she saw them. Elizabeth needed some help and spent most of Christmas morning sitting with me. After an hour she gave up and started playing with some of her new toys. It took her until 1pm to want to open anything else.

I thought I would share some of their favorite gifts via picture.

The girl's got matching footie pajamas from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa O. Sadly they weren't able to see them because Great Grandpa got the flu and weren't able to leave Buffalo!

Morgan got a Crayola Color Explosion thingy (now that's technical) that lets you draw scenes in 3-D! It took me forever to figure it out- But she loves it.

Elizabeth got a new Leap Frog Reader. You just put that white gadget on the books and it reads it for you. She especially liked the Curious George book. She even dances to the music it plays.

Morgan got a whole set of Polly Pockets and a carrier to put the dolls and their clothes in. She really liked them and before the holiday was over everyone played Polly Pockets at least once. Even Greg!

I'm sure he will just love that I shared this picture!

Elizabeth got a Sponge Bob Round Pants doll. I didn't even know there was a Sponge Bob Round pants, but not too long ago I actually saw the episode this doll is based on. Basically Sponge Bob shrank all his square pants and then had to buy round pants because that's all the store had. ( I know you were all wondering about that!)

Both girl's got a Barbie. The Barbies can pose now and it actually freaks me out a bit. They look to jointy, but the girl's loved them!

Elizabeth got her first baby doll. To date she has just been stealing her sister's but now she has her very own. And she takes very good care of it- she feeds her, changes her and puts her to bed. Thanks to Greg and my dad her baby now has a bed. They made Elizabeth a baby cradle for her dolls. I'll try to remember to post pictures.

The girls got a couple of different board games. Elizabeth is showing off er Connect 4 skills. They haven't quite gotten the idea down yet but they love to put all the chips in together. We also now have Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Trouble. But again I warn you- Morgan doesn't play fair, and neither does Elizabeth!

The girls also got sleeping bags which they love! They use them constantly when they are watching TV, and they have even started using them in the middle of the night. For awhile they were tucked away in our bedroom and in the middle of the night we would wake up to find Morgan or Elizabeth asleep on the floor in their sleeping bags. They know we don't let them in our bed in the middle of the night, so they take the next best thing- a sleeping bag right next to Mommy and Daddy!

The other truly great gift we got was a family membership to the Children's Museum. The girls love it and we have already been twice! Don't worry that is a whole post to itself! Thanks again to everyone that helped the girls (and us) have a wonderful Christmas.

Christmas 2009 Extravaganza- Part One

Shortly after Thanksgiving the girls became aware that Santa Claus was coming to town. I blame this mainly on Morgan because she has been around long enough to know what happens when the Christmas decorations start to come out. So she quickly clued her sister into the greatness of Christmas. Now even though she knows that Santa brings her presents, she isn't quite old enough to understand the idea of a Christmas List- so for a solid two months Greg and I were bombarded with "I want that!" when a commercial came on TV.

We knew we would get them some board games because Morgan has finally reached the age where we can play with her so after buying some Christmas gifts we also decided to buy some games that we could play while on vacation. Since Greg and I both took the week of Christmas off work we knew we might get cabin fever! I let Greg pick out the games and he came home with Jenga. I was afraid Morgan wouldn't really want to play but to my surprise she did!

She actually wasn't too bad at the game, until the idea of physics came into play. She couldn't quite understand why it was a bad idea to pull the last remaining block out from under the tower. So her answer to many of the tough plays was to put her hand on the top of the tower and hold it steady. So I warn those playing with Morgan.....she doesn't play fair!

Our week off with the girls was pretty fun! We had to make lots of preparations for Christmas since most of the family comes to our house (which is very convenient!). We cleaned, played games, had a movie night and rested up. Once everyone arrived the girls became pretty frustrated with the idea of not being able to open their presents. I honestly thought Morgan might go insane! Greg and I only put the presents out for other people since Santa brings all the presents for the girls, so it took awhile for their gifts to arrive from out of town family. Greg's family in Florida mailed up some presents and Morgan figured out which ones were for her. When I tried to tel her that there were no presents for her she said "No Mommy- this one, see it says M-O-R-G-A-N!" She had me there.

We made them wait---forever--to open presents (really just until Grandma got to town), but in the meantime Morgan and Elizabeth figured out other things they could do with the presents.

Morgan took each present she could find and started stacking them.

She made the tower as tall as she could.....

And then Elizabeth came and pushed them down. (We made sure there were no breakable items before she started doing this!) This process went a couple of times before they got bored.

The other all important task before Christmas was to make COOKIES! I made a couple of batches before Christmas for Morgan's and Elizabeth's teachers but I still had to feed the family. So Morgan put on her new apron (a gift from the neighbor) and helped me make cookies. She is quite the baker!

One the cookies were made, cut out, baked and cooled we got to do the fun part- DECORATE! Unfortunately Elizabeth did not join us for decorating. She was taking a nap. And it worked out better, because the previous batches of decorated cookies was a true nightmare. Let's just say Elizabeth was one giant sprinkle by the end of it.

So Morgan, Grandma, Mimi and I got our icing and sprinkles out and started making some of the most beautiful cookies ever! First we had to get our icing.....

Then we had to squeeze it onto the cookie....

Then we had to get some sprinkles (yes we washed our hands!)....

Then they were done!

Every good chef has to taste their goods!

Some of Morgan's cookies had slightly more icing or sprinkles then others and surprisingly those were the cookies she chose for herself when it was time to have one after dinner.

The sugar from the cookies made the girls bounce off the walls, floors and ceiling. And for awhile I thought they were going to be permanently addicted to sugar. At times they got very upset when they couldn't have their sugar fix.

But they were quickly reminded that if they weren't good then Santa wouldn't stop at our house. So their moods improved dramatically....

Overall Christmas 2009 was a huge success! Lots of time with family and friends (which will come in a later post) and plenty of new toys to play with. We hope you had a Merry Christmas too!

Halloween 2009

Sorry it has taken so long to get the blog updated. But it has been a busy couple of months as you will soon be able to see! So I'll start back in October and get everyone updated on the happenings at the Clark House. On October 26 the wonderful Miss Elizabeth turned 2 and she was lucky enough to celebrate twice! The first time was on her actual birthday. I made cupcakes for her and we opened some presents. She is still young enough to not really understand that it is her birthday- but she sure did enjoy the cupcakes!

The second time she celebrated was on Halloween, because we decided to have our friends Kate and Seth over and we invited our new neighbors who also have two little kids. It was my excuse to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday again and Morgan and Elizabeth would have built in trick-o- treat buddies. Everyone came over and we had dinner and then we indulged on Elizabeth's second round of birthday cupcakes. I even decorated them according to the holiday.

Then it was time to get CANDY! I did my best to corral the kids so I could get some pictures, but while I was doing that there was lots of tripping, bumping into each other and candy stealing. Elizabeth even tripped over her costume a couple of times. But she did take a moment to pose for me so I could capture the moment.

This is Elizabeth and Noah who is dressed like a monkey.

Finally I got all the kids to sit still for a brief moment and I took the best picture I could.

Since Noah and Elizabeth were still pretty new to the trick-o-treating game they spent most of the time riding in the wagon. They did however climb out when we got to the house so they could get their candy.

Morgan was really excited about trick-o-treating, mainly because she understands that this event means a pretty much unlimited stash of candy for her. And I pretty much got this same face everyday after Halloween. It was followed by a "PUUUHHHHLEASE can I have more candy."

For the most part they all walked nicely from house to house.

They lasted about a block of non-stop houses in our neighborhood and then were pretty tired. It is hard work raking in the candy!

A post about Elizabeth

It wouldn't be fair if I didn't do the same kind of post for Elizabeth. So here goes. Elizabeth has embraced her second year of life and all that comes with it. She understands the idea of "the terrible twos" and doesn't let us forget it.

She is very stubborn and when she wants something you might as well go along with her, or else you are in trouble. She is getting much better at school- she had a slight hitting problem associated with the always wanting things her way- and she seems to be retaining some alphabet knowledge. She points to letters and calls them 'A', so something must have stuck!

She is learning the letters and numbers and does plenty of crafts at school. She is learning to use the potty and she is pretty excited about her successes when she has them.She loves reading books and we read one every night before bed. Most of the time it is the same book, but every once in awhile I can sneak in something different.

Elizabeth also loves her sister. She always wants to do whatever Morgan is doing- without fail! If Morgan is done with dinner, then Elizabeth is done. If Morgan wants a snack, Elizabeth wants a snack. If Morgan has to go potty, then Elizabeth has to go potty....you see where I am going with this. It is pretty cute, but I don't think Morgan understands that Elizabeth really wants to be her friend. Nor does she understand that she is teaching her sister plenty of bad habits.

It's getting late and those are all the updates I can think of. I'm sure I will think of more and I will be sure to post about them. But I thought I would end the post by saying that all the pictures in this post were taken by our good friend Kate. Kate went to high school with Greg and she recently started her own photography business and this is the second year we have used her to photograph the girls. We even snuck in some family pictures. I thought I would share a few more of my favorites.

A post about Morgan

It has been awhile since I updated everyone on the girls themselves and since I have great new pictures to share I figured I would kill two birds with one stone.

Miss Morgan recently moved to a new class at pre-school. She is now in the Junior Kindergarten II room. It is essentially the same level she was in before, but now she is in the older class. So instead of being with three and four year olds she is with all four year olds. She thinks it's the grown up class if that tells you anything.

Her class is going back through the alphabet and they spend two weeks on a letter. So far they are up to 'O'. She can easily write her name and spell it for you, and it working on writing small words. She can use scissors, paint, markers, crayons etc. and seems to be having a blast at school. We recently signed her up for a dance class. The teacher comes to the school and teaches several classes throughout the week for all the different age groups. Morgan was very excited because all her friends take dance too. Hopefully soon I can sneak up there and watch a class!

She is becoming much more independent and likes to play by herself. We have fully entered the doll phase of life. Morgan loves playing with dolls (Barbies, My Little Ponies etc.) The other night I watched her play by herself and have conversations with the dolls for over 30 minutes! She does like to play with her sister from time to time, as long as Elizabeth does what she is told. Sometimes Elizabeth doesn't like that though. She also loves playing board games. So far she is a pro at Memory. I admit that the first couple of times I let her win, but now she beats me fair and square.

At the moment those are the only big updates I can think of on the Morgan front. But I thought I would end the post by saying that all the pictures in this post were taken by our good friend Kate. Kate went to high school with Greg and she recently started her own photography business and this is the second year we have used her to photograph the girls. We even snuck in some family pictures. I thought I would share a few more of my favorites.

Thanks again Kate! www.kshdesignsonline.com

Morgan's First Party

One day when Morgan came home from school I realized that she had mail in her pile of papers. It was her first birthday party invitation! In her classroom there are maybe 8-10 girls, and one of them, Abigail was turning 4. So her brave parents invited all the girls to Abigail's birthday party. Morgan was pretty excited.

The party was being held at Bounce U and Elizabeth, Greg and I were allowed to come too. Morgan waited patiently for the day to arrive and when it finally did Greg was at Ball State's homecoming that day so I braved the trip with both girls! We made it to Bounce U and headed into the place and from the moment we walked in Morgan was in her element. She had all her little friends and they were all full of four year old enthusiasm. The party started by getting all the girls together so they could watch the safety video.

They all sat very still and watched the video. You would have thought it as a major motion picture!

Finally it was time to bounce. The great thing about a party at Bounce U is that you get the entire bouncing room to your self. So there were about 10 kids and their parents in a room with several bouncing toys. So there was no waiting or bumping into each other. It was pretty fun. And they even let the parents play!

This is Morgan and Elizabeth in the boxers ring. They had giant boxing gloves that you could put on and box. The only problem- the boxing gloves were about the same size as Morgan so I don't think she could have put them on even if she wanted to!

Elizabeth didn't seem to mind the fact that she was crashing the party. She was the youngest kid there by far. But she had her own fun.

At one point I finally found Morgan in the boxing room. She was having so much fun with her friends!

Before the party moved to the lunch room (which then opened the room for another party to start bouncing) all the girls got together for a picture. The girl to the right of Morgan in the picture is Abigail.

After bouncing the kids were pretty hungry and by this time it was noon. So we headed into the party room to enjoy pizza and juice packs.

And of course there was cake!

All in all Morgan had a great time at her very first birthday party. And then two weeks later we went to her second birthday party for our neighbor's daughter. It appears that my daughter is quite the socialite! I guess I better start keeping a list of attendees for her birthday party next summer.

It's Potty Time!

Over the last couple of months Elizabeth has shown more and more interest in going potty! Which is great news. I decided not to push the issue and if she is into it then great- otherwise I will wait. Well she sees her big sister go potty and thinks it's a great idea.

Every night we have to read "A Potty For Me". I've read this book so many times that I can recite the thing by heart. For the first few weeks Elizabeth just seemed interested in sitting on the potty. She knew exactly what to do and would get the toilet paper when she was ready to be done and then we flushed the toilet and washed our hands. So one night when she said "I wanna potty." I figured we were just in for another trip of sitting on the potty but she surprised me! All the sudden I heard a tinkle and I looked at her and she must have realized how excited I was because she smiled so big!

It caused an immediate party of clapping, cheering and candy eating. Elizabeth was pretty proud of herself. Later that night she asked to go potty again and actually went! Since then we have been having sporadic success. Most of her issue now is timing. She will tell you she wants to go potty- which actually means she just went in her diaper.

For now we are going to keep working on it and I will need to stock up on M &M's which are her favorite reward!