Vacation Fun

Here is a summary of what Ally did over her 2 week vacation from school:

She drew a picture of Curious George (and watched the Curious George Christmas special about 6 times). Look closely and you can see she even wrote out Curious George's name.

Every artist must sign their work - she ran out of room on the front so she wrote her name on the back.

Posing for the camera in a new outfit from Great Aunt Martha.

When Grandma Debbie was visiting we had fettuccine one night for dinner. Ally sure does love her noodles! I have to admit I think Debbie encouraged the silliness a bit.




Of course another puzzle was assembled. Becky bought a really neat puzzle that had 3 different size pieces. It was called a "family puzzle" and it was intended for different age groups to work together. Ally is pictured working on the tiny piece and Dave and Debbie are doing the large pieces. I think it was intended for young children to do the large pieces and the older the smaller ones, but Ally is such a puzzle master she went straight for the difficult ones.



Ally with the completed puzzle.


We got a whole bunch of trains from Gwei Gwei and they fit with our train set so of course we had to put combine them.

Grandpa Dave brought Ally a pet bug. And Ally made the penguin necklace with Grandma Debbie one day.

Another day Ally and Grandma Debbie decorated this gingerbread house. They used frosted mini wheat ("shredded wheat") for the roof to give it a thatched look. Ally is sporting her new outfit that Grandma and Poppy gave her for Christmas.

Great Aunt Linda gave Ally a really neat Maisey paper doll house play set.

53 degrees and snow

Happy New Year!!! On New Year's Eve day Ally and I went to the park - it was 53 degrees here, but still lots of snow on the ground. We had a blast.

The warm weather made the snow perfect for snowballs. Neither one of us had the patience for a snow man.

Ally loves to taste the clean white snow, and she says it smells good too.

with a big snow ball getting ready to throw it at me

in air shot!

heave

HO

running to catch me.

Ally would run after me and yell stop stop . As soon as I stopped

She would hurl the snow ball at me!

Then we went over to the playground area and I made a platform for Ally to stand on at the monkey bars. (The bane of Ally's existence at this park is that she can't reach the monkey bars all on her own, we spent so much time this summer and fall building a pile of wood chips to see if she could reach but it was impossible.)

But with this snow she could do it!

She was so thrilled! And the it was warm enough to have fun on the bar with the snow platform and no mittens!

love the smile!

We went home after about an hour at the park - here Ally is on our front yard, wet knees and a huge snow ball to show mama!

Friends at Christmas

Ally and Alice are so silly sometimes, but they do cooperate for pictures.

Sometimes - can you believe how mean they look here? I would hate to run into these 2 in a dark alley.

But it is all about the love - and the fact that Alice can pick Ally up!

After about 10 attempts, finally a great picture of them in their new matching pajamas!

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010 was fabulous! Becky, Ally and I did not travel anywhere, but both sets of grandparents and Aunt Beth came to visit. Wonderful, such a treat to spend the holiday at our house with our extended family.

Grandma and Poppy stayed at a hotel, and the turkey preparations woke Ally up earlier than usual, so we let her watch TV on my iphone until it was time to get up and go into the living room. She was amazing - waited 90 minutes to open gifts!
Becky with the turkey ready to go in the oven.

The stockings - at our house they hang from the transom window and if they are too big they get placed on the couch!

Ally was very excited to see the presents.

All under the tree.

First we watched Ally open her stockings. There was a stuffed cat - Marie from Aristocats (one of Ally's favorite movies).

The proud moms.

It's a spork!

It was really interesting to watch Ally open her stocking. She first took everything out, laid all the wrapped gifts out on the floor and then opened them one by one.

A new DVD - Beauty and the Beast.

I said she opened her stockings and I meant it - plural - she had 2 to open!

Poppy got a Santa beard in his stocking.

After stockings we opened up the largest gift first.

A beautiful framed antique map of Boston from Debbie, Dave & Beth.

Ally was so careful in unwrapping gifts.

It was so sweet to watch her read the book after opening it up. I made her a photo book from her last year at school as a Purple Fish.

Holding up her new sweatshirt from Great Aunt Martha.

Mommy & Ally.

Its hard to see but Ally is wearing a gift - its a "big kid" necklace from Grandma Debbie & Poppy - it came in a jewelry box. Ally loves it! She keeps asking if she can wear it to school next week, and I have said yes about 20 times! But I am a little worried it will get lost or broken at school, so we'll have a talk about that later in the week.

Aunt Martha & Uncle Phil also sent a beautiful bag and stickers.

My mom and Dad drove over to join us for Christmas lunch. Turns out Grandmas wear matching outfits - they look like bookends on either side of Beth in their red mock turtleneck sweaters and black dress pants!

Everyone gathered at the table for our Christmas meal.

Becky made a wonderful pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

Before they left, right after lunch I got a picture of Becky, her parents and Ally.

Later in the day we had our second round of gift opening. Here Ally opened up 2 new games she received from her cousins.

Uncle Frank sent several fun gifts from Disney - this is a singing Ariel doll.

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas. Our laptop caught a not so nice Christmas virus so I am a little late in posting these, sorry about that. I had to wait until we did a full scan on our desktop computer to make sure it was not infected as well.

My parents were going to stay for a day or so, but with the impending Dec 27 snow storm they left early on the 26th - we felt bad that they drove here 1 day and back the next - they were not even here for 24 hours, but I am so glad they came. It was great to see them and share Christmas with all of our parents.

Thank-you to everyone for the really thoughtful and generous gifts. We feel truly blesssed.

Christmas Eve

Check out Ally's Candy Cane sweater! This is what she wore on Christmas Eve. We love to see Ally in jeans, but she really does not like them - she says "they are just not comfortable" - sometimes, like this time we confess to bribing her. The bribe was a candy cane. So here she is below holding up her candy cane next to her candy cane sweater!

Our traditional Christmas Eve feast of tamales.

After dinner Aunt Beth and Grandma Debbie read 2 versions of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and then the Mortimer Mouse Christmas story.

After books it was time for lotion, pajamas and getting ready for bed. Ally told me she needed some "alone time" and wanted to do it herself. And she did she took off her clothes, put lotion all over her body, and got dressed for bed in a pull-up, pajamas, sleep socks and slippers. She was so proud of herself she was bouncing up and down. It was priceless.