Christmas Holiday

I have written this post three or four times on my phone using the blogger app and all of them have been deleted.  If anyone has any recommendations of a different app that works on an iphone I'm all ears.  I'm sure the fourth time I write this post won't be nearly as creative as the three before it as I'm sick of writing it.

Cecilia has really been enjoying this Christmas season.  I feel like it is the first year she is old enough to get into it.  We pulled out the ornament advent calendar and she got a sticker one from preschool and we have a paper chain.  She remembers every morning to do them and it has become part of our morning ritual.  She also loves a book of Christmas stories my mom gave me several years ago.  She takes it everywhere she goes in the house.  Cecilia has also been talking about Santa coming.  We saw him in the mall a few weeks ago.  I was so proud of her because she walked up to him and sat on his lap with out any reservations.  When he asked her what she wants for Christmas you will never guess what she said.  Toys you might say?  Nope.  A doll?  Nada.  A little sister?  Has one of those.  No, she asked for "A Greenish-Blue Sweater." Yes you read that right.  A Greenish-Blue Sweater.  Where she came up with that, I have no idea.  She is so funny sometimes.  I can't imagine the things Santa must hear from kids.  Luckily Santa found a "greenish-blue" sweater to put under the tree.  Merry Christmas everybody!

Cecilia's first horse ride.

In November we went to Mexico to have an early Thanksgiving with the Ritchie's.  Mike and Shannon came up from Argentina.  It was so fun to see everyone!  While we were there grandpa got a horse ride arranged for Cecilia.  She got on and rode like a champ!  Mom was nervous about her being by herself but the horse was really calm and she had no problems.  Good job Cecilia!

GG with the GG kids.

My grandma Ritchie came to town and visited her great-granddaughters.  It was so fun to see GG!

Vivian giggling

One of my favorite times of the day is getting Vivian ready for bed.
For some reason she is always super giggly (unless it is too late). I
am guaranteed a belly roll after I take her shirt off and tickle under
her chin. She has also started to play peek-a-boo. I hope this makes
you smile!

Park City

Shaun and I took the girls up to Park City this weekend for a get away. We had tickets to see Paula Poundstone up there Saturday night. She is a comedian that is my favorite panelist on wait wait don't tell me. It was definitely the highlight of our weekend. We needed a good laugh after the weekend we were having. It is usually very relaxing and fun for us to stay up in PC. But it turned out to be exhausting. It all started with Vivian not napping Friday so me rushing to get packed so I could give her a nap in the car on the way. Unfortunately she fell asleep about 3 minutes before we got there after screaming so hard I thought her head was going to explode. She has never screamed so hard in her life! My nerves were on edge for the whole weekend. Cecilia on the other hand was such a good kid the whole time and even fed herself pasta in a restaurant! (She hates eating in front of people.) She and Shaun had a lot of fun while I futilely tried to get Vivian to nap :). It snowed most of 3 days so there was lots of snow to make angels in. And they went swimming outside! The pool was heated of course and Shaun said it was really nice. It's not everyday you get to swim in the snow. Although it wasn't as much fun to come home and shovel a good two feet off our giant driveway.

Cecilia tracing

When Cecilia started preschool this fall she started bringing home papers that she has traced. A letter, or number, or shape. I noticed a vast improvement from last year. She gets right on the line. As I've praised her she tells me she wants to trace more. So we've found different pictures online to print out. One day a few weeks ago we printed out the whole alphabet. She went down for quiet time with the paper and a pen. When she came out she had traced the whole alphabet by herself! Oh and look at how well she did! Can you see how she is right on the line for all but one letter! It's an understatement to say I was impressed.

Halloween

Happy Halloween all. Sorry it has been so long since I've posted. I'll get into the excuses in another post :). All is good in the Ritchie home. Vivian is growing at an alarming rate and Cecilia is as sweet as ever. I'm so lucky she loves Vivian so much. It has made adjusting so much easier. The only hard part is dinner and bedtime if Vivian doesn't nap well. It is hard to keep her happy until I can get Cecilia in bed. Anything that doesn't go according to plan frustrates me. We'll see how this week with the time change goes.

We had a good Halloween. Cecilia enjoyed trick-or-treating. It took catching up to her friends to get her to not be so shy. But by the end she actually said "trick-or-treat." I call that a victory. Heaven knows she doesn't need the candy. Which she has way too much of. At the end of the night I put my head in her bag to see what she got and it just smelled like Halloween. That mixture of candy brings back memories of when I was a kid freezing in a blizzard (happened every year). That definitely didn't happen this year. It was so hot I was uncomfortable in a long sleeve shirt and took Vivian out of her bear costume after a few houses. Our friends let us try the devil horns on her. Pretty cute devil huh? Cecilia's fairy costume was perfect, isn't she so pretty?