New Year's Eve

Yesterday Lily and I took down all the Christmas decorations. We had taken the tree down the night before when Chip was home. Normally I like to leave them all up as long as possible, but it was so cluttered in here and the tree was so dead that I was actually itching to get it all down. Plus, since Lily's been born I've been getting it down earlier since I am out of Christmas mode and into birthday mode now! But it was a great holiday and I have only two regrets -- one, that I never got a photo of Lily and Santa. She was way too terrified this year and it was obvious that it wasn't going to happen without some major trauma for her and that would not be good. And two, that I didn't get a video of her singing Christmas songs. Thanks to the singing Elmo stocking and the Chipmunks Christmas CD I bought, she learned a lot of Christmas songs. Her favorites were "Up On The Housetop," "Deck the Halls," "Jingle Bells," "Frosty the Snowman," and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer." She'll also sing "The Christmas Song" by The Chipmunks. She is pretty good and learned them all so fast! It was so cute listening to her sing songs all season long -- I loved it!!!

All the Christmas decorations gathered and ready to be boxed up until next year.
Saying goodbye to the Elmo stocking. She did not want me to pack him up, but after playing with him all morning and saying our goodbyes she was okay with it, so we took a last picture before putting him in the box.

After all the cleaning was done we had to bake brownie cookie bars for New Year's Eve.

Then my wonderful angel demanded (I swear!) that I put Pearl Jam on so she can dance.

Crazy moves!!

Dancing with Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
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After that busy morning (and 2 hours of work while Lily napped), Lily, Chip and I went to Patti, Bryan and Emily's house to celebrate New Year's Eve!

Lily with her New Year's tiara eating her cupcake.

With a horn noise maker.

Lily and Emily with their horns.

They had set up camp in Patti's bedroom to watch Aladdin and Cinderella.

We weren't sure if we were going to actually stay until midnight since we didn't know how Lily and Emily would do that late. Emily was going strong, but a little after 11pm Lily was done and actually asked to go home and to bed!!! The cool part was that in Texas, with the Central time zone, all the TV is live with the East Coast feed. So we actually watch the ball drop live in NY at 11pm and then watch the Dallas celebration from 11-12. So we got to watch the ball drop at their house and count down with the girls. By the time we got home and Lily in her PJ's with her teeth brushed and a potty stop, it was 11:55, so Chip and I tucked her in real fast and got to watch the countdown and fireworks on TV. Of course in typical Lily fashion, she went potty in her diaper and I had to go back in and change her (she is still only going poo at bedtime), so techincally she did stay up for the New Year and I got my New Year's kiss from by baby right after midnight! :)

** As a side note we started 2010 off great too -- she slept in until 9:30 (which means I got to sleep in too!!)

Even MORE Snow!!

Yesterday afternoon we got more snow!!!! We didn't get any snow last winter and I was afraid it would be the same this winter since it is an El Nino year and the winter is supposed to be more mild (accd to the local weather guys), but this is our 3rd snow already in December. The snowfall was beautiful -- thick snowflakes falling straight down, instead of coming in sideways in the wind like on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately the temperatures didn't drop low enough and was all gone when we woke up this morning (except for my snowmen, who are even smaller, but still hanging on!). But we did go out and play a little last night while we had the chance:

Chip came home from work early in order to beat the snow.

Lily was napping when it started, but we went out to play around!

Lily woke up to find another winter wonderland outside.

That little lump is what was left over from the snowman I made last weekend with the Christmas Eve snow! He is a survivor.

Lily throwing snowballs at Chip. She loves to throw snowballs. She picks up snow and yells, "Snowball Fight!" and starts throwing. :)

I'm without any makeup, but I still like this photo.

Dashing through the snow.

Love that little stinker face.

Throwing a snowball at me.

The snow last night was perfect snowman making snow -- kinda slushy so it stuck and held together nicely (the snow at Christmas was real powdery and didn't hold at all). So I had this great plan to make a real, big, life size snowman. But no one volunteered to help and I realized it was a lot of work and this is as far as I got. :)

Post Christmas Chillin'

The last couple days have been pretty mellow. Sunday Lily and I hung out at home and cleaned up some (or at least attempted to clean up). Yesterday Chip took the morning off work and we returned some Christmas items -- Lily who is still technically 2 didn't fit into the 3+ bicycle helmet that Santa brought so we had to get her a helmet for 5+!!! That girl has a BIG brain!! Then we stopped for lunch at a hamburger joint down the street where we saw Chris Harrison, host of The Bachelor eating lunch with his family!! How crazy to have a semi-celebrity sighting here. After some minor research I discovered he is from the area and in town for the holidays. :)
This morning Lily, my Mom and I went to see Princess and The Frog. I really liked it! Lily was a little quiet the whole time and she just said now that it was a "scary movie", but I am betting tonight after her nap or maybe even tomorrow she'll get all excited about it again since she never said she was scared during the movie and normally she will say something if she doesn't like it.
Here are some random photos from the last 2 days:


All Lily's Princesses got stuck in the tree, so Lily and I had to rescue them. Some we were able to get ourselves, others we had to call Toodles in to help with. It is fun trying to keep up with her imagination!

Lily is a big fan of the New Super Mario Bros. game on the Wii. She is getting a little better with the controls, and I am sure if we let her play enough she'll have it mastered in no time!

Lily (and baby Ariel) and Grandma ready to go see Princess and the Frog!

Games, SnowBalls and Lights

We had nothing to do today and nowhere to go (except for Chip who had to go to work) and it was so nice to relax at home. Well, as much as you can relax with an almost 3 year old and a house full of new toys which is actually not much at all, but it was still nice. :)
We played all morning and tried out ALL the toys!

Trying out the new scooter (this photo is actually from last night).

First thing this morning, before breakfast even, we had to play with the new play doh ice cream maker. To my surprise it was really user friendly and Lily didn't have any trouble making ice cream that looked almost as good as it did on the box!

Next we had to play Chutes and Ladders. Lily got the Disney Princess edition which is super cute, but it only took about 2 minutes until she lost interest and just started playing with the princess game pieces. Oh well.

Then we played her Mouse KeTag game which is actually kinda cool. It was a random buy off amazon since it was only $3 and got good reviews. I liked it -- the big piece that Lily is holding gives a character name or clue to the character and she has to tag them. It registers when she gets it right and times her each time. You can play with 1-4 people. It is simple and fun and kept her entertained for a little while.

Then we played Hi Ho Cherry-O which was another random amazon buy the week before Christmas when they had prices slashed. This was by far her favorite (in fact she is playing with Chip right now as I blog) and we played this game the most! The funniest part is that she totally cheats, but she cheats against herself so that she loses and has to put cherries back on her tree instead of in the basket to win! Silly girl. So I win every time. :)

I was getting tired of playing games and wanted to take advantage of the snow that is still in the backyard!! So we went out for a bit to make a tiny snowman and have snowball fights. I know there are a TON of pictures of her in the snow, but I don't know when we'll get snow again and she is so cute. We had a lot of fun playing in the snow!

Throwing snow balls at Mommy.

So cool.

You can see how it is melted in half the yard, but the half that doesn't get sun is still all icy and full of snow.

My little snowman with dried tropical fruit features. :)

Seriously all she did was throw snow -- mostly at me.

Look at that face as she chucks snowballs at me.

She even lifts her back foot for maximum distance and speed.

(I warned you there were a lot of pictures from today in the snow)

Back inside we played Candy Land before nap time! She grasped this one better than Chutes and Ladders, but still cheated and went in reverse.

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When Chip got home we went to look at Christmas lights! We went a week or so ago around our neighborhood and the neighborhoods of some of our friends who live nearby, but I really wanted to go the neighborhood we visited last year in the next town over that goes all out. Last year we actually went twice -- the first time it was SO crowded that we literally didn't move for nearly an hour, so we went again right after Christmas. This year we learned from our mistake and just waited until tonight to go. There were still a few people there and they still had the horse drawn carriage tours through the neighborhood (doesn't help with the traffic problem at all), but it wasn't bad at all. In fact, worse than the cars was the occasional ice still on the street!

It is hard to tell in this photo, but the Santa, Soldier and Snowman in the window are made of balloons! It was so cool and I'd never seen anything like it! I wonder how many new ones they had to get over the season? The balloons we have always deflate after a day or so.

I was super impressed with their real snowman! Much better than my dinky guy and wearing a Romo jersey too! :)

And finally, the video you have all been waiting for. I know I posted this last year, but it is TOO great not to share this years display:

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