Jayda's walking!

Jayda sure is growing up fast. She's doing all sorts of new things this month. I think her official first word is "up" Whenever she wants me she reaches and tells me " up, up, up" She also started in the last day or so pointing to things and saying "wook" (look). She's always pointing at everything she sees. She started clapping a couple weeks ago, and she thinks its the coolest thing ever. And she also loves to play peek-a-boo with her sister. My favorite thing she's learned to do is give kisses. Its so sweet and she loves to give them out. Abby gets more kisses than anyone. She loves her sister so much. About a week ago, a day or two before she turned 10 months, she started taking a couple steps at a time on her own and today she's given up on crawling and just wants to walk everywhere(even if she falls every 10 steps). Here's a clip of her today.

For Christmas, the girls got a play kitchen and Jayda loves it. She plays with it more than any of her other toys. She gets more play out of it than Abby. Today, Abby made us Mac n' cheese in her kitchen and she gave us each a bowl, including Jayda, and Jayda played along right with us digging her spoon into the bowl and eating the pretend food. And then she started sharing and put the spoon to the bowl, and then to my mouth, back to the bowl and into Abby's mouth. She likes to share her food whenever we eat. This evening, she was playing around with a play cookie and she'd take a bite and then smack her lips and say "yum, yum, yum". I got out the camera a minute or so after she started so I kind of got it, but it was even more exagerated before this.

Snow in Cali

The neighborhood housing office threw a community Christmas party for our housing area last Friday. Santa was there, of course, and they had crafts for the kids and a Christmas dinner, but best of all, they had SNOW!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately for the kids the people driving the snow truck apparently resembled members of Al Qaeda and weren't allowed on base until the party was half over. Once they did get on base and got to the party, 200 kids made a mad dash for the snow truck. Three employees had to fend off all 200 of the kids as they made the snow. The poor guy making the snow was bombarded by snowballs from 200 eager kids. Oh wait, 197 kids because kids 198-200 (yeah, my kid and her two friends) were eating the snow. Don't worry, it wasn't yellow snow. Once the snow was completely laid on the grass, all 200 kids destroyed the three employees trying to hold them back. So after the ambulance left all 200 kids had a good time. As for the first half of the party, before the snow got there, Abby had seen her 37th santa of the holiday season (and gotten her 37th candy cane). This was an exceptionally stellar Santa as his eyebrows were spray painted silver with a bunch of overspray above and below the eyebrow. Too much eggnog for Santa that day. Ooohh they had really good food there.


The ice truck blowing the snow on the ground.


Abby and Gavin waiting patiently for the snow.





Abby and Gavin waiting not so patiently for the snow.

She loved making snow angels.

Jason having a snowball fight in shorts and a t-shirt.

Poor baby Kendall used as Cindy's shield.

Abby had soooo much fun. I loved seeing her so excited. Having all the snow on the ground and seeing santa walking around made it feel like it was really cold outside. I was actually shivering, but when we got in our car after the party we found out it was 60 degrees outside. I felt like a really big baby after that. I've been spoiled in Cali too long.

P.S. For anyone who doesn't know Jason and his humor...All 3 ice employees were just fine and there was no ambulance. I just wanted to clarify that.

Decorating the tree

We went to see Santa the other day and when Santa asked Abby, "What would you like me to bring you for Christmas?" She replied, " A Christmas tree!"

We didn't get our tree until last Friday. A whole week after Thanksgiving. Both Abby and I were very anxious to get it. It was so much fun this year to decorate it with Abigail. Last year, she did put a few ornaments on, but this year she was really into it and able to do a lot more.

Waiting for mom to get all the lights on.

Admiring the tree




















We took pictures of the girls by the tree, and then Abigail wanted to take pictures of Jason and I by the tree too. It took a few tries to get the aim down.

Here's some more random pictures from the week.

They love bike rides.