Thanksgiving Weekend

This year I am especially grateful for an amazing husband, two healthy and incredibly sweet daughters and the rest of my wonderful family.  We enjoyed our Thanksgiving weekend having a few large family dinners, making gingerbread houses, and playing with cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles.  Ricky and I even had a date night attending a friends wedding, while the girls were with Grandma and Papa O'Neill at the Forslin's annual potato sausage making!

THANKSGIVING

 Auntie Chrissy

 The girls

GINGERBREAD MAKING

(Bella actually really liked making them...you would never guess it though)

Our houses from front left circling around...

Timmy, Ricky, Lotsburg (yes his collapsed), Bella and Grandma's, mine

 

Gracie hanging out with Papa



Winter is here

We realize it is only November 20th, but snow is here...our tree is up and we are ready for the holidays.  Gracie and Ricky put up our tree when Bella and I were at school.  Then Bella and I came home and put on the ornaments.  I will attach another picture of our tree soon.  We have what Papa Tim calls a "Gracie free zone" located at the bottom of our tree.  This means our tree looks beautiful with only ornaments on the upper half.  Very....unique.

***SNOW FUN***

Getting two little girls ready to go outside = 15 minutes

Amount of time actually spent outside = 10 minutes

So worth it.

Watching Gracie experience snow for the first time was so fun.  She has not mastered walking in it yet...but she has mastered eating as much as she can fit in her mouth.  Bella loved going on the sled and helping Ricky shovel.

Our Little Princess

My little dancer

Bella had her first dance class this week.  She is now a "Broadway Baby" at Dance By Kris.  Here she is showing us what she had learned at her first class.  She loves the new leotard and ballet slippers.  She says, "I am a Princess Ballerina". 

Gracie's one!

On November 2nd Gracie celebrated her 1st birthday.  Oh how time flies.  She was lucky enough to have a few celebrations.  We spent her birthday at the Children's Museum (which is totally amazing-I would recommend it to anyone with children, we will be going back very soon) and then had a wonderful birthday party and Grandma and Papa O'Neills.  Here are some new photos.

 My big one year old enjoying her birthday gift from Bella.

 Playing at the children's museum.

 Brit and Gracie

The Birthday Girls

 Grandma Terri made Gracie's favorite for her birthday.  Spaghetti. 

Just cuddling with Grandma.

Halloween

We had a busy Halloween weekend.  Friday we spent the night at Bella's school carnival, Saturday we had a costume party for Gracie's birthday party for the Schreier family, Sunday we carved pumpkins and Monday trick-or-treated at Grandma and Papa's. 

Bella and Gracie doing the "BOO WALK" at school 

Gracie's costume party

 Gracie in her pumpkin outfit 2011 (1 yr) & Bella in her pumpkin outfit 2009 (8 months)

Carving our pumpkin

 

Happy Halloween

Fall Fun

We have been having so much fun this fall.  Here are some new photos of the girls!

Pumpkin Patch

 My sweet little witches...

 We waited in line for quite a long time for Bella to get her face painted.  She chose a cute little pumpkin and was so excited.  Right when we got in the car, she wanted it off.

Barney Live

 Getting ready for BARNEY LIVE.  Ricky and I took the girls and they were so excited.  Thankfully neither one was scared and they danced and Bella sang the whole time. 

GO PATRIOTS!!!!! (Yes I know...Gracie looks exactly like Ricky!)

Toddler Tuedays

Toddler Tuesdays at The Mall of America.  Sounds...well a little chaotic to me.  However, this particular Tuesday we decided to venture out to the mall filled with toddlers and other mom's to see Bella's new favorite character STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE!  The ad says, meet and greet Strawberry Shortcake 10-12.  Sounds great, we got there at 10:30 thinking we would have plenty of time to "meet and greet" do a little project and have lunch.  Much to my surprise it was packed.  After realizing we would have to wait in line for 45 minutes I was a little nervous about how my precious little angels would handle this.  I am happy to say the girls did great.  The staff passed out Strawberry bars for a snack and had a Strawberry Shortcake movie playing on the big screen.  After all the waiting we finally got to meet her...it was worth the wait!  We ended the day we a few rides and lunch.  No tears or whining the whole time.  Overall a great trip out!