New Year's Eve

Amelia put on a good program for us on New Year's Eve

Snow!

Amelia had a great time with her new sled (thanks Uncle Mark).

She ended the day with a show.

Christmas Day

We had a lovely Christmas.  Grandma Becky, Grandpa Jim, Uncle Mark and Ralphie the dog came down from Minnesota and Grandma Marilyn joined us too.  The girls had so many gifts we were still opening presents at 5pm!

Freedman Christmas

The Saturday before Christmas we braved the slightly dodgy roads and went to Muscatine for the day to celebrate "Freedman Christmas".  Amelia had a great time playing with cousins Tom and Abby (and their toys) and Amelia and Tom put on a show for us after dinner.

Zoe Chatting

Time for a Zoe video.  She's been chatting for a while (generally a lot more than Amelia did at this age) but she gets stage fright whenever the camera comes out. . . as you can see here when she notices the camera is on her :)

Christmas Preparations

Well, Christmas is getting closer and we've had a fun few weeks getting ready so far.  The tree is up.  Christmas card pictures have been taken (although cards haven't arrived yet. . . so you may get a New Years card), and the girls have visited Santa once or twice.

Kate's Bell Choir has performed a few times too.  Below are videos of our Jingle Bells Flash Mob (who knew it would be so hard to memorize Jingle Bells), and parts of Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  We won't be playing on Christmas Eve this year so we are done until January.  

Christmas Program

Amelia had her Christmas program at preschool this week.  All the kids are dressed as snowmen with their own winter hats (Mummy crocheted Amelia's).  She got to start off the program by playing bells, just like Mummy.  Then the entire class did a Christmas Story and Amelia got to play the part of dancing "two by two".

Horse Riding

Amelia attended a horse riding birthday party!

Dancing at the Mall

Amelia had her first dance "show" at the beginning of December at one of the local malls.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we took our first road trip with both girls up to Minnesota.  They both did very well considering we only had a few stops along the way, although we discovered that Zoe does not like traffic jams.  It was a nice long weekend.  We saw our first snowfall of the season.  Ralph was a hit, as always, with Amelia.  We ventured to the Mall of America the day after Thanksgiving, although no shopping, just rides.  Amelia was very brave and went on the high swings and the log ride (with her hands over her eyes).  The trip ended with a trip to see Santa and two of his reindeer.

Our attempts at a Christmas card picture were met by this attitude from Zoe :)

Looking through the Black Friday ads.  

Tour de Lights

As the weather wasn't too cold, we took the girls to the Tour de Lights this year.  It's a charity walk around the Jolly Holiday Lights the weekend before they open to cars only and is a great way for us to kick off the holidays.

Halloween

It's a little late, but we wanted to share our pictures from Halloween.  Candy Corn Amelia and Daddy went around the neighborhood while Zoe, Mummy, and Grandma Marilyn were in charge of handing out goodies.

Amelia had her fall program at pre school around the same time.  Unfortunately our video camera broke just as her program was starting, so we used our cell phone video camera.  Since we couldn't zoom in on the phone we put a white box about 10 seconds into each video highlighting Amelia.

Zoe's 2 Months Old

We said it last month but time is just flying.  Zoe now smiles a lot more, especially after a nappy (diaper) change.  Amelia loves to read to Zoe and hug her lots.  Zoe's not quite so sure about being a little sister.

Which One's Which? (answer at the bottom)

Family picture after pumpkin carving

Answer: Top - Zoe; Bottom - Amelia.  Zoe's 4 years and 2 weeks younger than Amelia but a bit bigger than Amelia was on the same date four years ago.

More Orchard Trips

We made use of our passes and the nice weather and had a couple more trips to Center Grove Apple Orchard this month, with friends and Daddy to pick a pumpkin.  We're getting to know the corn maze a little better.