Christmastime

Making the sugar cookies, Haley enjoyed making dough balls and Audrey enjoyed eating the flour and dough.

Eating our creations.

Christmas morning, showing off the goods.  The Cinderella dress has been worn as much as possible since about 2 minutes from opening.

Kinda sums up the day, the shopping cart is a huge hit...for both of them, which often leads to arguments over who gets their "turn" now.

Just before church.

Christmas day and the day after was spent watch Polar Express, they love it (this is after church, notice how the church dresses came off and the Cinderella dress was put on.

We had a great day.  I think that this was the first year in a long time where I was a little sad to see Christmas be over.  Till next year!

A couple of

weeks ago I posted about Haley and her dress-ups.  Today as I was working on the computer I notice lots of hustle and bustle going on behind me.  Audrey is running back and forth gathering all sorts of items for an impressive pile.  Here she is adding her socks to the collection and not to be outdone by her sister's outfits, she's sporting a few things that she can put on all by herself.

When we get into something, we go all the way

Several weeks ago Wes took Haley on a date to see The Lion King at the movies; while I was sick, he bought the dvd and she loves it.  Like most toddlers (I think) when we find something we like around here, it's here in a big way, everyday.  The outfit doesn't have anything to do with the song (really, it's just what she happened to have on) but here she is showing some of her new music loves.  (And my house always looks like a mess in videos and pictures because my house is always a mess, unless it's 8:30 at night or 6 am.)

Super Dad

This picture doesn't really have much to do with what this post is about except that he's a great dad and does fun things with the girls.  This is from the annual cattle drive through Allen to kick off the "Texas Stampede" rodeo that they do.

This week Wes deserves an award, accolades, something.  Friday night Audrey woke up about 10pm throwing up (I was asleep, only woke up to the bathtub running, it was 10 o'clock at night!)  She was then awake until about 2:30 am throwing up every 10-20 minutes, poor girl.  Then Saturday we thought she was on the mend, not really so.  Then Sunday I stayed home from church with Audie while Wes and Haley went to church, about partway through Sunday School I sent Wes a message letting him know that Audrey apparently did not have food poisoning from stealing handfuls of unwashed grapes out of the WalMart shopping cart, because I was now sick too.

For the next 2 1/2 days Wes took over EVERYTHING.  I mean, the girls didn't even enter my room because I was so sick.  He took 2 days off of work, did the grocery shopping, ran to get me 7up and ice from Sonic (they have the best ice, am I right?!) and then came to sit and sympathize with me while I was sick and the girls were in bed.  I'll also mention that Audrey was not finished being sick and he cleaned up more vomit than anyone would want to (uh, actually, probably nobody would want to clean up any vomit but you get the idea...).  Of course never a complaint, never an annoyed sigh.  Daddy and husband of the year in my book.

Dancing Dresses and Prayers

I used to silently judge parents who let their children go out in public looking obviously mismatched and then pretend to chuckle when they said something like, "ha ha, they like to dress themselves..."  Here is our little darling and she likes to dress herself.  I might not take her to the store looking this two year old-ish but I have on multiple occassions been asked if it's a special occassion because she's wearing a crown or has her wand and always a "dancing dress."  I don't mind, I don't even try to tell her otherwise, she loves it and I love that she does.  We are on day 4 of our Halloween costume, it's usually the first thing she does in the morning, even before her cup of milk, get dressed in something spectacular.

Haley is also learning how to say prayers.  She's got the food prayer down and the others are coming right along, no vain repetitions here.  We'll whisper something in her ear and instead of repeating what we say, she'll add her own comment,  example,

W: please bless Haley and Audrey

H: that we won't hit

W: please bless Daddy at work

H: and listen to President Monson

W: please watch over the missionaries

H: that they will be together and not hit

W: that we will have the spirit with us today

H: have a great day at music class

Love it. 

Halloween 2011

Halloween has never been a favorite of mine, I blame my mother, not a favorite of hers either (well Mom, it's true...). This year was really fun though. Haley could not have been more excited for her costume which added to the fun. We did the church "Trunk or Treat" on Saturday afternoon followed by the Zollinger annual Harvest Party and fun was had all around.

Haley thinks it's the funniest thing to have an "Elphaba Daddy!"

 Cheeeeeese

I wasn't really sure I cared about doing actual Trick or Treating but seeing how much fun Haley had at the Trunk or Treat we made a go of it.    They BOTH loved it.  Highlights from the night, after a lady gave Haley some M&Ms she said, "do you like M&Ms?" to which the reply was of course yes. Then as the lady's handing Audrey her candy and Haley reaches into her bowl and in the sweetest voice she can muster says, "I like Smarties too."  At one of the houses the person was closing the door from other kids and Haley is on her way up the walkway and she yells, "don't close the door, we're almost there!"  Audrey had a blast.  When each door would close she would run as fast as she could back down the walkway laughing all the way, Heidi or I would have to run to catch her because her body was going much faster than her legs could sustain (she did fall at one point, too).

 Here you can see Audrey can't contain herself.

Elphaba and Glinda

If you haven't seen the play Wicked, you should, it's good.  We saw it here in Dallas almost a year and a half ago and showed Haley youtube clips afterward, it has been a favorite in our house since.  Someone at our ward Trunk or Treat asked how I'm going to explain how one was the good witch and one was the bad...oh no, that's not how it works.  If you haven't seen the play, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch from the movie/book) and Glinda are best friends, niether is good or bad.  Elphaba has the most singing in Haley's favorite song so she's the one with the broom and "the temple hat."  Here she is playing her part well, I should have turned down the music so you could hear more of her singing but if you listen closely you can hear some, and not to be left out on the musical displays, Audrey does her share of singing and dancing.  I wish you all were as familiar with the particular video we watch because she's imitating what they do on the computer.