Visit with Grandparents and Cousins

Last week we took advantage of the long president's day weekend and had Grammy and Grandpa come for a visit.  We got to spend some time with them and also drove out to New Jersey to visit the cousins and celebrate Maddy's birthday.  It was great to see everyone! 

Christmas 2012

We traveled to Indiana before the holidays again this year to celebrate Christmas with family.  The girls loved all the attention and all the presents!  We arrived home just in time for Christmas Eve, when we sprinkled reindeer food on the lawn, put cookies and milk out for Santa, and listened for sleigh bells.  It was fun because it was the first year that Juliet really understood what to expect for the holiday and both girls were very excited on Christmas morning!

Deck the Halls

We are getting all ready for Christmas and the girls loved decorating the house and putting up the tree.  Lily and Juliet wrote adorable letters to Santa, which we took to the North Pole mailbox, and then they got to meet the man himself!  They sat on his lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas (Lily went into great detail).  They loved the fake snow and naughty-or-nice meter in Santa's Village.  We also went to a tree lighting ceremony, where daddy got big kisses from his girls.

Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving at home this year, watching the parade, football, and doing crafts with the girls.  They made a list of things they were thankful for and came up with quite a lot (at the top of Jules' list was Dora).  We made a big, traditional Thanksgiving meal and ended up with so many leftovers that I doubt we will ever do it again!

Our Little Gymnast

Lily is still taking gymnastics and just received a medal for completing another session.  She has a lot of fun with it and has improved a lot since she started a year ago.  The hardest part for us is keeping Juliet out of the gym during lessons!

Trick or Treating

After being cooped up in the house during the storm, the girls were very excited to be able to get out and trick or treat on Halloween.  Lily dressed as Supergirl in her cape and Juliet was Rapunzel, complete with a long blond wig!  They had fun glow necklaces and we all went out trick or treating together.  They were rather greedy about it and Juliet said she needed lots and lots and lots of candy.  They especially liked seeing  people's dogs dressed up in costume.  It was quite an adventure for them!

Celebrating Fall

We celebrated fall this year by going to a festival with hayrides and games for the kids.  They even got their hair sprayed orange!  We have had very mild weather this fall.  It was only after Hurricane Sandy that we really started to get cooler, more seasonable weather.  We fared very well during the storm and didn't even lose power this time.