Tiny Dancer

Claire had her first dance class today at The Little Gym! She was a bit hesitant to go, but the promise of a McDonald's ice cream cone afterward got her in the car. We got there about 10 minutes before the class started, which is exactly when the boys' gymnastics class was ending. The little waiting area was seriously chaotic, and she was really starting to panic. Once the boys left, though, things got a lot better. She very willingly put on her tap shoes, stowed the ballet shoes in her special cubby, and got started. It was so cute to watch her and the other ballerinas in the class! I'll take the camera next week and get some action shots. They spent 15 minutes with tap, 15 minutes with ballet, and 30 minutes in the gym playing with the parachute, walking on the balance beam and swinging on the bars. She had a blast! The first thing she said to me when the class was over was "I want to keep dancing!" and then started to cry because she was so sad to leave! When we got home she showed me some of the poses the practiced today and actually let me take her picture!

A Beautiful Day

The weather at the end of last week finally allowed us to play outside again! Claire was happy to get to play in her fort, on her roller coaster, and just run free in the backyard. Madeleine was happy to get some cuddle time with Mommy in the Beco. And Mommy was happy to sit on the deck and drink a glass of wine. What a lovely evening we had!

Just Some Madeleine Pictures

Trying to get her to smile for the camera, but this is all she'd give me:


Sweet baby

Here's the last part of a smile for Daddy. This is the closest smile I've been able to catch. She's the smiliest in the mornings when J's not here, and as soon as I pull out the camera she wants to look at that instead.

Peju Vertical Dinner

We discovered our favorite winery-Peju-on our first trip out to Napa 6 years ago. (Wow, how has it already been 6 years???) We signed up to be in their "wine club" way back then, which basically means they automatically charge our credit card 4 times a year and we get a nice little wine surprise on our front porch. We've accumulated quite a bit of their wine, so we dicded to have a nice dinner the other night and hold a tasting of their 2000-2004 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Some friends from college came into town for the event, and the boys spent all afternoon cooking a fantastic dinner. We wanted to keep the atmosphere light, so we built a menu around kid's meals, but with a twist. For example, instead of corn dogs, we had beef wellingtons on a stick. Instead of Kraft mac and cheese we had pasta with a gorgonzola sauce. It was delicious and lots of fun. And even Claire got in the spirit of cooking:

What a great night it was!

Smile!

Madeleine started smiling this morning! She's been giving us little glimpses of what may be smiles for the last few days, and she finally did it today! I tickled her cheek right after she finished eating, and she gave me a grin. Then Claire came over, and M got so excited and practically started laughing her smile was so big. She also evidently thinks it's hilarious when I blow my nose. She opens her mouth and just looks so happy! Oh, she's just so sweet!

(And I'm working on pictures, but I missed her this morning, and now she's sleeping. Hopefully I'll catch one soon!)

COLD!!!!

The weather was so cold last week, and since I didn't want to get Madeleine out in that, the only times we left the house were to drop off or pick up Claire from school. That meant I had three full days to fill--yikes! Claire has recently become very interested in crafts, as well as puppets, so we took advantage of that by making our own paper bag puppets. I printed off templates from www.abcteach.com, and we got to work. She colored, I cut, and I think we had success!
We also spent a lot of time playing in Claire's room. And, of course, Little Sister loved watching Big Sister in action.

Bath Time

Claire's first bubble bath and Madeleine's first ever bath!

Madeleine is One Month Old!

It's hard to believe a full month has passed since Madeleine was born. She's such a sweet, laid-back baby, and has very easily joined in the hustle and bustle that is typical of our family. During her first month, Madeleine has watched Big Sister at her Christmas program, had her first road trip to the ranch, been to numerous restaurants, learned to love Target as much as her mommy and sister do, and enjoyed lots and lots of love and kisses from lots and lots of family.
Madeleine has also been growing and growing. She's already gained around two pounds during the last month, putting her at about 8 1/3 lbs. She's about to be too big for the newborn-sized clothes, and as soon as we're out of the newborn-sized diapers we'll move her up to size 1. Baby acne has been in full force for the last couple weeks, but hopefully it will start clearing up soon. She also seems to have some allergies that make breathing at night difficult for her. It doesn't seem to bother her, but she wakes up with a crusty nose and a goopy eye every morning. She still has a head full of light brown/reddish hair that gets a bit of a curl to it when it gets wet.
M's still sleeping in our room, in either her Amby bed or just in bed with us. She's a great sleeper, though, and we're going to move her into her own room soon. She only wakes up to eat, then happily goes back to sleep or just lies in bed looking around. She's going 4 or 4 1/2 hours at night between feedings and 3 hours on the dot during the day. Crying isn't typical from her unless she's getting a diaper changed or the car stops moving for too long.
One of Madeleine's favorite things is to watch Big Sister. Every morning M sits in the bouncy seat in the living room while C eats breakfast and entertains her. She's not a huge fan of the swing yet, but we're working on it. And Claire seems to have happily accepted Madeleine as a part of our family. She tries to calm her down when she starts crying in the car and is a great helper around the house. One of the most common sentences she says now is, "I love my little sister." We all definitely agree with her!

Magic

Our first Christmas as a family of four (!!!) was truly magical. Between spending lots of time with family, Madeleine's arrival, and watching the wonder of Christmas through Claire's eyes, this has been a wonderful season!

We started the Christmas festivities on the 23rd with Honey's family. Everyone came to our house in the evening for an Indian feast, then got down to the business of opening presents. And, as usual, we weren't finished until 2 in the morning. We gathered again at Honey and H's the next day for our traditional turkey meal (complete with crackers and crowns!).

After gorging ourselves on turkey, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for more eating. Both girls took super-long naps, so Mommy and Daddy had fun working on a puzzle with Aunt Jamey and Uncle Jeff all afternoon. After a delicious prime rib dinner, we opened more presents, then headed back to our house to get ready for Santa.

Claire has been excited about Santa since August. And since her first mention of him, she has maintained that he will be bringing her a pink piggy bank with white polka dots and her name written on the side. I had no idea where I could find something like that, but I knew I had to come up with it. Luckily, a friend of Aunt Lou's makes these exact piggy banks, and it finally arrived on the 23rd. Christmas had been saved! Claire woke up on Christmas morning and headed into our room, as usual. Daddy ran downstairs to get the video camera rolling. But Claire didn't want to come down. She was scared of the fact that some strange man had been in our house during the night and he might still be down there! She slowly came downstairs and stared at the goodies waiting for her under the tree. And she couldn't have cared less about the darn piggy bank. When I asked her what her favorite thing Santa brought was, her response was "chapstick". We'll keep that in mind for next year....

After we were finished investigating the Santa presents, we jumped in the car to head to the ranch and our final Christmas celebration with H's family. After another turkey dinner and even more presents, we said goodbye to Aunt Lou and Uncle Chris, then the boys got to work on the olive trees. The deer have been munching the leaves, and Craig had the (good? bad? We'll know soon....) idea of wrapping the trees with saran wrap. I think a mile of the stuff was bought, and each tree now has its own little green house. We came back home on Sat afternoon and enjoyed some long awaited peace and quiet. And sleep!