Friday, December 25, 2009

9 months

Sweet little one, you are growing and changing every day. We delight in you!
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Monday, December 14, 2009

The dresses

It wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't have hand-made dresses for the girls! Caroline still fits into the dress I made 2 years ago. I was so happy when she tried it on and it still fit. Three Christmases in a row is an awesome run for one of my favorite dresses ever! Sweet Pea will be wearing it next year, I guess. I'm pleased that this dress has gotten and will continue to get a lot of wear.

For Helen's dress this year, I wanted something similar to Caroline's dress, but not an exact match. I bought the same fabric (satin batiste) and matched the lace from Caroline's dress. I used the same pleated daygown pattern that I used for Helen's Easter gown and embroidered 3 sets of holly berries with leaves. It's simple and looks so sweet on her.

My daughters are just beautiful - no matter what they are wearing!



Helen is saying, "Please rescue me! I'm all done here!"
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Wee little tree

Last Christmas we had no idea what our living situation would be this year. We didn't know if we would be in an apartment or a home or if we would have tons of storage or busting at the seams. So we packed up 95% of our Christmas decorations, including our tree. (We do a prelit, artificial tree.)

Caroline said one morning, "Mommy, when are we going to put up our Christmas tree?"

I said, "Well, we put our tree and ornaments in the storage unit in Memphis."

"But...it's almost Christmas," said Caroline sadly. I was crushed.

Kevin heard about our daughter's lament and came home with a tiny tree. A $12 tree. It leans and has a huge bald spot. It's a Charlie Brown tree. I love it. And, in a way, it's perfect for this season in our lives. I would have never been able to keep Helen out of our big tree. This one fits on our window seat.

Caroline had the best time picking out a few ornaments and the colored lights. And there was plenty of room for her hand-made ornaments.


Caroline is thrilled to flip the switch that turns the lights on each night.
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December crafts

I love finding little things that Caroline can create. She really loves it too. All I have to do is say, "Caroline, do you want a project?" and she comes running to see what Mommy has planned.

This was a card-making activity. She dipped cookie cutters in glue, "stamped" the glue onto a card, and sprinkled glitter on the glue. She loved it. I supervised her for a while to make sure she had everything under control and then went to start dinner. I heard, "Uh-oh. Mommy, I got glitter on my chair." Luckily, it was not as much of a glitter disaster as I had envisioned and the vacuum took care of it pretty well. Caroline is a very neat child.




This project was making tree ornaments by stringing beads onto pipe cleaners. This kept her little hands busy off and on for a few hours.

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Snow

Caroline woke up one morning to something very exciting! She couldn't get through with breakfast quickly enough! We didn't get very much and it wasn't good snow to play in (too dry). It was freezing cold this day, so we were only out for a little bit. I'm sure there are more snowy days ahead for us here in the North. (You all know how much I love snow. Bleh.)


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