Paige at 17 months

Time is going so fast, and I don't want to forget the little, sweet things our littlest, sweet girl is saying and doing!

Paige still has her happy disposition. She is really into Thomas the train (she calls him "Tawesome") and Elmo ("eh-MO!") these days. The girl could sit and read for hours; although, of course, she loves to run around too!

Paige's vocabulary is truly exploding - she will copy everything anyone says. She's very polite, saying "scuse me" after she burps and "bless you" when anyone sneezes. In the past week, she started saying I love you ("Uv Oo.")

Paige is quite LOUD like her big brother - poor Meredith can barely get a word in ;) If you don't acknowledge what Paige is saying right away, she'll repeat it louder and louder until you answer her! (Yes, we are working on this!)

Paige is enjoying the Christmas season, pointing out "tree" anywhere we go, and she does try to be gentle when touching ornaments, but she's just so curious! :) She also loves snowmen, and says "noMAN" whenever she sees one.

Paige is such a busy toddler! I turned around a couple weeks ago after teaching Russell how to do a math worksheet, and found that she had discovered the butter Jason had left on the counter, pulled the stepstool over, and was biting the butter stick; I had only taken my eyes off of her for 5 minutes! Sheesh!

But of course, I had to snap a picture - thankfully, I had my camera on the counter :)

One of Paigey's favorite words to say is "awesome" - and that's just what you are, sweet girl!

Paw Paw and Kacki's December Visit

We had a fun and relaxing time while Paw Paw and Kacki were here for the last week! 

We fit in several of our Christmas traditions, including making a gingerbread house:

And we went to a "breakfast at the stable" at the church where we have CBS. We had pancakes and sausage, did a craft, and watched a chidren's play.

 Meredith and Kacki and I made from-scratch sugar cookies, and then Russell and Meredith decorated them - so much fun. My family did this every year when I was little.

Jason and Russell started making a motorized race car:

And all the kids enjoyed lots of snuggles (also Meredith didn't want to be pictured):

Unfortunately, it's also the season for viruses, so Paw Paw and Kacki were exposed to an eye infection (Paige), a stomach bug (Russell), and a terrible cough (Russell and Paige - Meredith already had it). Hopefully we didn't give them a going-home gift. 

We were really thankful for their help and their company!

Gobble gobble 2014

Thanksgiving picture dump ;) We all had a blast with Uncle Jef and Aunt Sejal!

Apple/Cheerio/olive turkeys:

Pinecone bird feeders:

Quality aunt and uncle time!

Skittles turkey (R looks SO BIG!):

Coloring/eating crayons when Mom isn't watching :)

Outside fun

We gave Uncle Jef and Aunt Sejal their Christmas presents:

Meredith loves to cook; she helped Jef mash the potatoes:

We made a pumkin pie-stuffed chololate cake (YUM) and a pecan pie:

Our Thanksgiving group for 2014!

Halloween!

We didn't do much of anything for Halloween this year, although we did Trick-or-Treat! Our church is very small (as in, 60 adult members) and doesn't have a "fall festival" or anything. On Halloween day, we had a small party with our homeschool group - which I have no pictures of, since I was trying to keep a curious toddler busy ;) - and at night, we went for a very short Trick-or-Treating walk in our neighborhood. Very short because it was about 30 degrees and insanely windy! Even with coats and hats everyone was cold! (It's just as well in my opinion; I'm not crazy about Halloween anyway!)

Anyway, our kids did have some cute costumes, which they picked themselves. Russell wanted to be Turbo the snail (from the Pixar movie), so we had to make that costume, as it's not readily available to buy:

Meredith wanted to be Tinkerbell - we were able to find that costume at a consignment sale (although it was a bit big) - score!

And Paige was our little ladybug (in a costume I found on clearance last year)! She liked the costume and especially liked holding her pumpkin bucket!

A few more pics:

The great thing about the weather, of course, is that we don't have too much candy hanging around, but the kids still got to have their fun!

Pops and Mimi visit!

We had such an awesome visit with my parents a couple weeks ago. We miss them SO much. We got a lot of quality time, especially with Mimi and Bogie!

We went to Giordano's, of course, so my parents could get a taste of real deep-dish pizza:

We also spent some time visiting my mom's family, and we got to check out another children's museum (for free because of our reciprocal membership) - the kids had a blast.

My dad had heard about an event called Open House Chicago, where 150 buildings were open for free to the public. Of course we stopped at the bean:

and we stood on stage at Millennium Park (the kids pretended they were famous dancers and musicians):

We hated to see them go! Paige especially got attached to Mimi :)

We miss you!