Little Sprouts - January 2013

 Allison & I went to our local 'Little Sprouts Club' this past weekend.  She planted her own bulb pot.  And then she carefully copied each of the plants in her pot!

January Sunshine

 The fog finally lifted from around here!!  And the first few days of it the sun came out in the middle of nap time.  It was pure torture.  So when both girls went down early for their naps on Sunday we were ecstatic to get some time to play outside afterwards.  In the fleeting sunshine.  Allison rode her bike to the park.  She's getting better and better but still has a ways to go before she'll be totally independent.

 Our Heidi-bug enjoyed the park thoroughly.  Riding in the swings (she finally seems to like them).  And she crawled around.  Only trying to eat the bark dust a few times!

And then she got to ride the slide.  Can you tell it is her favorite?!?  She took her hat off herself and refused to leave it on again so we had to leave with the sun setting and her shivering away!  Silly girl!

Swimming & Climbing

 We decided to get the girls out of the house this past Saturday by heading up to Salem to the KROC center to get some play time in.  Allison was very excited to get to try out her new goggles from her Christmas stocking.  She was pretty happy to have them doing her bobs!

 The girls had so much fun swimming, we had to drag them out.  The water was a bit on the cold side (especially compared to the 'warm' pool they take their lessons in) so Heidi's lips were looking blue and she was shivering.  Although I think she still would have liked to stay & play!

 Once we were dried off Allison tried climbing the rock wall a few times.  She didn't make it particularly far but we were proud of her for trying.  She actually seemed to enjoy 'falling' down from her second climb, that is always a good sign!

Best of Buddies

 We had the opportunity to catch up with some friends this evening over dinner - including Heidi's buddy Emma!  These two will both turn 1 in less than a month!!  And they are finally starting to notice each other.  It was fun to see how they approach toys / problems / life in general so similarly.  Besides that they are CUTE together!  We're thankful for good friends - especially 'good friends' for our kiddos (I'm not sure if you can really say almost-1-year-olds are friends but if any could be it would be these two!!).

A New Year's Hike

 The past few years we have spent New Years Day playing in the snow with our friends, the Wagners.  Unfortunately, this year there wasn't really any snow to be found so we opted for a hike.  Just before Christmas the Wagners moved into a new house with a perfect location for straight out into one of our favorite recreation areas, Peavy Arboretum.  Bekah made a map of where were headed for Allison, in case we got lost.  The girls were really good about keeping up with the Daddies to make sure they didn't get lost!

 We hiked up to the lake and the girls enjoyed a snack and throwing rocks into the water.  They had to coordinate their throws so all of the rocks went in at the same time.

Then we spent some time playing at the logging obstacle course.  This 'see-saw' made the girls a bit nervous and took quite a bit of effort to get moving!

The Heidi-bug was not so sure about her backpack.  When we first headed out she was quite distraught in fact.  So, we took a picture, of course!  Eventually I carried her (playing with my hair was comforting apparently) and that calmed her down.  Mark did take a turn and as long as I was out of sight she was fine (I guess she is still more of a Mommy's-girl than we realized).  She was tired and hungry by the time we were done, but thankfully I think she is at least somewhat over her fear of the backpack.  For now.

With all of the fog around here things were pretty cold.  Nate was the official hand-warmer for this trip (who knew we needed gloves!!).  It was pretty cute to see the girls hanging on to him!  We're looking forward to more adventures in 2014!  Hopefully some with SNOW.

Finished in 2013 No. 5

I finished one more quilt in 2013.  At the 11th hour.  Literally.  I don't actually have a full picture of this one because the indoor lighting has been so bad.  It will be on it's way to my sister-in-law in Alaska shortly as a belated Christmas present.  And I'm hoping I'll get more quilts finished in 2014 than 2013 - it wasn't a bad quilting year but I didn't get as much time at the sewing machine as I'd like!

Allison's Advent 2013 Calendar

I splurged this year and got Allison a Playmobil advent calendar.  It was fun to watch the whole scene come together (and I had forgotten about how much detail there is in a Playmobil set!!).  And the best part is she keeps playing with it after Christmas is over and packed up.