Thanksgiving

A few of our favorites from the weekend.

We've been busy wrapping presents...

In the midst of wrapping presents, and trying to find the perfect presents to ask Santa to bring to our two little elves, I looked around and asked myself, "Why do I even bother?"

We have a house full of presents, but the girls clearly prefer...

(we cannot keep Quinn away from Pearl! Quinn is doggy-obsessed).

It took Quinn 2 weeks of crawling to discover my shoes.

This weekend she was nuts about our door stops. All weekend long, we've heard the BOING of the stopper as she flips it again and again. Which made me think --- I can't think of anyplace in my parents house that has these. Grandma Eb's house had them. I remember that my favorite one was in the family room downstairs, for the closet door. I loved that thing.

Mia bought this puzzle for Cora last summer. I've pulled it out several times, but she wasn't ready for (or interested in) it. Today, that changed.

 Back after the door-stopper.

 I don't know what Quinn was doing here, but I LOVE this face.

 This weekend we've started talking about coloring in the lines. She kind of gets it.
She's noticeably more focused on sticking to smaller areas of the page, and when she thinks she's done a particularly good job, she wants us to come look.

That's a spool for ribbon (Cora had already used it as a canvas for her markers).

Why did we send that long list of actual toys to Santa again?

Christmas parade with Papaw Claus

Some friends came over and we walked over to the Mt Pleasant parade. All the way there, we played up Santa Claus. When the fire works kicked off the parade, Cora got spooked. I was trying to talk her back to fun...

Me: someone really important will be at the end of the parade.
Cora: Okaaay
Me: do you know who?
Cora: Papaw!!!

Mama

I was reading Cora "Alexander's terrible, horrible no good very bad day". Quinn was in Landon's lap.

As clear as day, Quinn started chanting Mama.

AND today was the day she started pulling up with ease.

It wasn't a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day afterall ;)

Three stories not to forget

We were preparing dinner. Cora was coloring at her table. Quinn was crawling around our feet. Now that Quinn has learned to crawl, she refuses to do anything that doesn't involve crawling...

Quinn crawled over to the open dishwasher. I moved Quinn and, for the first time ever, gave her a sharp, "No no." Not knowing what that means, Quinn came back, and I rebuked her again. The third time Quinn puckered up her little lip and started to whine. Cora got up, came over, kneeled down and pulled Quinn close, lifted up her chin to look in her eyes and said "No no baby" then gave her a sweet hug. She left, but came running back in with Fred Bird (a stuffed cardinal mascot) for Quinn. Cora then returned to her " art".

The best part was the look of righteous indignation on her face. Landon and I started to laugh, and Cora didn't break character. Her look said, "It's like you always say; if you take a toy from Quinn you need to find a new one to distract her..."


At bedtime, I was rocking Quinn while Landon read to Cora. He opened up a fave, "There's a Wocket in my Pocket"...

Landon: did you ever get the feeling there's a zamp behind the lamp?
Cora: (interrupting) yea

And... Quinn is obsessed with Pearl. Way more than Cora is/was.

There are up-sides to living away from family

Otherwise, I'm not sure these moments would EVER happen.