One of the gifts the kids received this year were stuffed horses. Actually, a stuffed horse for David, and a stuffed unicorn for Isabelle. And these creatures are almost as big as they are! But the kids love them. Sometimes David will bring his horse with him into our room in the middle of the night, and then he kinda 'falls' into bed. You see, he also has his ever present zebra and a big bear, about half his size. So when he comes in at 4:10, with just a little light from the nightlight in the bathroom to guide his way, and arms full of animals, he can't really see where he is going, let alone maneuver up into our bed. So he kinda runs and 'falls' onto the bed. Once he's got them on there, he can right himself and start kicking us properly.

Isabelle also has a cute sweet stuffed animal behavior.Sometimes when she goes to bed, she asks for one or two of that days favorite stuffed animals. usually she just puts an arm over one and goes to sleep. Sometimes she tucks them in next to her, to make sure they are all cozy, then gets herself covered up for sleeping. And not so often, but still in the sometimes category, she brings her big unicorn to bed with her. When we say good night and close the door, she has it next to her and she's under the covers. Then I go in to check on her, maybe 30 minutes later, and she has put her unicorn right in the middle of her bed, got him all covered up and tucked in, and I see her all uncovered at the edge of the bed, making enough room for her unicorn.

This last week was all rain, so the kids didn't get outside to play much. So out came the blankets to make forts. We had a few bumped heads, but I guess that's all part of learning about indoor makeshift forts.

We've had a pretty crummy week for birthday celebrations. Everyone got sick, with the common cold, but which was worse for the kids. Julie had it first for a few days, then David, then Isabelle got it real bad, on her birthday no less! Little kids like ours sure look pathetic when they don't feel good. I think David spent most of 72 hours in our arms, or on our chests at night

By the end of the week, they were feeling a little better, but still needed to sleep a lot, and didn't really have much energy for birthday celebrations.  So we had to postpone the family gathering for a day.  We headed out to a new place for us, called Piatti's.  

 Pretty good food, and they had a buffet for Sunday brunch, which was also good.  Another good thing about that was there is always a lot to choose from so we're more likely to find something Isabelle likes and Davis likes.  One of the things the kids really liked was that we sat next to a big fireplace, with a burning fire.  It reminded me of my childhood when I would spend a lot of time just looking at the flames and changes in the wood as it burned.

After a good lunch, we headed outside to the patio for our gift exchange.

The weather was accommodating, and the kids also had a little trail of brick path to follow in a circle around the patio and through some bushes.  Nothing goes so well after lunch than a little adventure hike.  The hike, which was actually nothing more then a circular pattern about 20 feet (6 meters) in diameter, was also accented by a few noisy sparrows and a cat.  Unfortunately, both Isabelle and David got very tired, and then we had a few fall and general fussiness to contend with.  But lots of fun before hand made it worth while!

We still have a lot of hugs and crying though, because David is cutting his two year molars!

I have to say my grinchy part about Christmas... I don't like it. It's over wrapped, over commercialized, over done! However, since the kids, my heart has grown 3 sizes and now I enjoy it enough that I could carve the roast beast. Anyway... this year, I think I most enjoyed having a big tree with lots of lights and having the house decorated. David really likes that part too. 

We left the tree up way longer than we should have considering the needles falling off with any breeze of air. ( And I watched MythBusters... It's highly unlikely that a tree will catch your house on fire these days even if you leave it on all night with a ton of lights.) After we took it down and threw it on the curb, which feels really wrong, David asked me every morning for 3 days...

"Mommy, where'd our Christmas tree go?"

And I had to say " Christmas is over sweetie, we put the tree outside for the tractor to pick up."

Then he'd say " Mommy, that Christmas tree... sad, sad sad."

We're getting a fake tree next year.

The kids got a Frosty the Snowman video before Christmas which became a big hit, even though they have never seen snow and don't really know what a snowman is. Isabelle doesn't really understand what frost is either, so she related the name to something she does know about and loves! Frost- ING... so for a while until we corrected her, she talked a lot about Frosting the Snowman and Jack Frosting. 

I love her.