It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Last weekend we went to the Christmas Festival in St. Augustine. We went before a couple of years ago, so we decided to take the girls this year. It is the closest thing to snow and Christmas in Florida. They have an ice slide, which Mark and Derek took part in. They also have ice skating, an elf village, a campfire to make s'mores, hot chocolate and cider, a sleigh ride, and of course Santa is there. We made s'mores and took a sleigh ride with the girls. We went to see Santa, but did not sit on his lap this time. Believe it or not, it was really cold out and the girls were really bundled up (see pictures below) I didn't want to unbundle them especially since they already told Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Overall it was a very cold night, but we had a lot of fun.

This weekend my brother came over and stayed on Friday night and we celebrated Christmas with each other on Saturday morning. We are both going back to Indiana for Christmas and we thought it was silly to pack our gifts for each other in the car to Indiana and have to turn around and bring them right back to Florida. Mya, our niece, ended up getting sick and they left shortly after we opened Christmas gifts, but it was a fun time spent together. All the girls loved opening their gifts, our babies mostly liked the wrapping paper. We (the adults) have been playing with their toys ever since.

I wanted to put up some pictures of our house decorated, but I felt 31 pictures was enough for this post. Stay tuned for our next set of Christmas pictures for Indiana. We will be leaving on the 19th and driving back home. We are planning on driving through the night and hoping that the girls will sleep most of the way. Wish us luck!

Girls on their new toys.

Chloe enjoying her new toy.

"Mommy let's take a ride"

Chloe loving her new toy from Uncle Derek and Aunt Jess.

Payton: "I am ready for the road"

Jillian: "Me and Tigger"

Uncle Derek, Aunt Jess, and Mya

We are all bundled up for the sleigh ride with horses.

Pretty horses, Phineas and Ferb, carrying our sleigh for the night.

Payton stole Daddy's hot apple cider.

We are all ready for s'mores, Yea!

Ice skating rink....Someday.

The Elves' Village.

Uncle Derek and Daddy Race down the Ice Slide.

The Big Ice Slide.

Daddy lost to Uncle Derek : (

Can you find the babies?

The Big Christmas Tree in St. Augustine.

We are all bundled up and ready to have fun!

Beautiful Christmas Tree.

Chloe's sad face...Adorable!

Grandma putting on Payton's socks for the road.

Payton: "Hi how are you guys?"

Payton: "You like my Santa hat?"

Jillian: "Hi, I am ready for Christmas!"

Jillian: "Whoa!"

Jillian: "Hi...Don't tell Mommy and Daddy I took the ornament off the tree."

Payton: Say "No" to this face.

Payton: "Not as tasty as it looks."

Chloe: "Muuuahh"

Chloe

Chloe

Holiday Disco Dance

Wishing your family fun and laughter this season...Here is a short clip we have been practicing...

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Do you hear what I hear?

I just have to share these videos! I am pretty sure Jillian has officially said "Mama" I will let you be the judge. I know she doesn't know what she is saying right now, but it still makes me smile. :) Chloe is now communicating in this really creepy growl that is hilarious. Enjoy!

Our First Thanksgiving

Wow what a busy week we have had. I was fortunate to have the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school, so Mark and I took this time to get a lot of things done. In years past, we have always decorated our house for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. This year we knew decorating would prove to be a lot more time consuming with frequent interruptions, so we started pulling down and organizing our Christmas decorations and even started putting up the lights outside on Wednesday. Feeling in the Christmas mood, we decided to take the girls to see Santa for the first time. We thought this was the best time to beat the crowd (and I was super excited :) ). The girls were so good and didn't cry at all. I feel that they are very lucky to have each other in that they are never in situations where they are alone. Sitting on a strange man's lap is not as frightening when you have your sisters at your side.

Yesterday, our family celebrated the girls' first Thanksgiving. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for this year. We spent the day with family and friends enjoying nothing short of a feast. The girls had formula and squash (yum!) I made them onesies to wear to our Thanksgiving dinner. We were so careful to keep them clean, but shortly after dinner Jillian had completely ruined hers (I was proud of her for making it that long).

Today, we did start decorating but are far from finished. Hopefully we will finish up tomorrow and be able to post some more pictures. Our hope is to take our own Christmas card pictures in front of our tree. Enjoy our pictures from Thanksgiving and Santa.

Picture with Santa

Santa's Village


Another picture with Santa


The kids table at Thanksgiving

The Adult table

Jillian enjoying her squash

More of the kids' table

Jillian in her shirt

The girls with cousin Mya

The girls in their shirts

Chloe, Payton, Jillian

Payton posing

Jillian

Chloe

Payton eating Mango for the first time

Jillian: mango

Chloe: mango

Shirts the only time they were completely clean

7 months and counting...

November has been a busy month for us. My mom officially left to go back to Indiana on November 6th. We decided the best thing for our family was for Mark to quit his job and start working part time in the evening. Mark was very unhappy at his work and he was working some weeks close to 80 hours. Since daycare is not reasonable when you have 3 infants, it just made sense. So now I work during the day and Mark works some evenings and on the weekends and so far it has worked out well. A few days after my mom left, my grandma did come down again to help out with the babies until Christmas. It is not so bad taking care of them when there is two people, but since Mark and I are working opposite shifts, that leaves one person with the babies alone. With Grandma here that always leaves two people with the babies. Needless to say, my family has been a huge help and we have been so blessed to have family stay with us for the first 9 months of their lives.

One of the most common questions we get now is do the babies interact with each other and talk to each other. So I posted some videos to answer that question. I think they are hilarious! Hope you enjoy.