Star Wars

Andrew's gifts for his dad are generally things like footballs and Nerf guns, you know, things that he would like to play with with his dad. For Christmas this year he got Casey a Star Wars plug 'n play game, which has been a hit. While Casey is at work Andrew practices, and when Casey gets home they play until bedtime.

Snow!

After jealously watching the rest of the country get nailed with snow this winter, in January we finally got a little of our own. The kids were ecstatic. What's the point of winter without a few snow days? And the best part is that our snow was gone in two days.




The hill by our house isn't big, but big enough for a little sledding.

Are You Beautiful?

Whenever we tell Willa that she's beautiful or cute she always says, "No, I'm not." (Actually, if you know her that's not an extraordinary answer. Just about any question gets the same response. When Casey tried to tell her the sky was blue the other day she told him it's not blue, it's purple, and she wasn't taking arguments about it.) On Sunday Casey decided to get to the bottom of this, and find out exactly what Willa's standards for being beautiful are. Here's their exchange.

C: Are you beautiful?
W: No, I'm not.
C: Is Mommy beautiful?
W: No, she's not beautiful.
C: So who is beautiful?
W: Um, Jesus.
C: Is anyone else beautiful?
W: Heavenly Father. And Cinderella. And the prophets.

So there you have it. In order to be beautiful you must be a deity, a prophet, or a Disney princess. High standards for a two-year-old. No wonder I can't match up.

Christmas

Nothing like posting about holidays that happened two weeks ago, right? Anyway, Christmas was crazy, the kids barely survived the big day, but every day after that has been great. Casey was able to be home for almost two whole weeks, and it was great having so much time together as a family.

Andrew was the first one up, of course, but thankfully he's still young enough that the sun was already up.



I think he was most excited by his Transformers Tooth Tunes toothbrush, and danced all around the house playing the music. At that moment Santa wished he'd taken things a little easier this year.



The other big hit was a coin counter and a Tootsie Roll piggy bank. Ever since Christmas he has been tirelessly moving all his coins from bank to bank (all spare change in our house belongs to Andrew). Score another one for Santa.



When Willa woke up, she made up for lost time. Here are a few of her costume changes throughout the day.






Andrew wanted to get me "jewels" for Christmas, so he picked out a nice ring for me. (He told Casey when they went shopping that "when I'm grown up my girlfriends will be grown up too, and I will take them to Kohl's and give them jewels and make them my wives.") Willa immediately wanted my ring when I opened it, and this is what happened when I said no.



It took us literally all day to open presents. The kids had to play with everything as it was opened, and around mid-day were completely out of gas. Check out the expression on this little face.



Casey and I were incredulous. I mean, what kids on the planet play on Christmas day while presents remain unopened under the tree?

We almost didn't make it to Christmas, though. Here's what happened when we told Andrew he had to eat the ham at dinner on Christmas Eve.







But all was forgiven when he got to open a present.

Festival of Lights

As part of our Christmas tour this weekend, we went to the DC Temple Visitors Center to see the lights. It was FREEZING, but Andrew ran around so much that he ended up shedding layers.

US Botanical Gardens

This weekend we went to the Botanical Gardens in DC to check out the Christmas displays. They had a bunch of miniature fairy tale villages set up, with miniature trains running between displays and along the ceiling. It was crowded, but the kids loved every minute of it.

Santa

We made the big trip to Santa this week. Since Willa is scared of Santa, and generally doesn't even want to talk about toys for Christmas if they come from Santa, we were nervous. She decided not to be scared of the Big Guy, but still was not thrilled to be there.



The line for Santa wound through giant snow globes that the kids could wait in. Andrew was enchanted by the snow.



It was serious business.




Very serious.



Willa was scared of the snow globes, so she clung to my hair outside of the snow while we waited. (Don't judge me by how I look in this picture -- I hadn't planned to leave the house that day, and hadn't quite made it to the shower yet.)



They were both happy once we got home. Willa was so happy in her dress that she didn't want to take it off, so we got a few more pictures of her.