January in Review

January can pretty much be summed up by one word.  Snow. We had a lot of it, it seemed.   Which meant several snow days for Hayden and me.  Oddly enough, we didn't have any major weekend plans during January. I'm not quite sure how that happened as we always have something going on.

So in January, Hayden ended up missing quite a few days of school due to the snow. When she did go back, she said her teacher still remembered her and she remembered most of her friends. She's still liking it and I have no doubts that Kindergarten will be just as much fun for her, especially since she'll get to go every day. Hayden seems to be growing a bunch, looking older every day. 
 Abbie is getting more and more personality. Well, not more personality but maybe stronger.  She's quite the little lovey at times but she is learning how to get her way real quick.  This ends up being a big fight between her and Hayden as Abbie always wants whatever Hay has.  I'm sure that'll change with time, right? (Someone humor me and say yes!).  Her teeth have finally started coming through and coming in several at a time. 
And then Ethan and I are still kicking...nothing new or exciting happening that I can think of just yet!  

And now let the massive amount of pictures begin!

The 2 big girls stayed at the farm for a few days and I got to go "rescue" them. They were definitely missing their mommies.

We pulled out Grandma Rufenacht (GG) and Aunt Lena's buttons. Abbie was in heaven for a bit. Hayden loved sorting. (I on the other hand, had fun keeping them all in one pile and out of Abbie's mouth)

Ethan brought in shovels of snow one evening. This was about as close as Abbie wanted to get to it.  Hay thought it was fun though and used her bath toys to play with it. 

Abbie brought Hayden a handful of hair clips and Hay was all too eager to help her out and play Hair Shop!

These two always manage to find time to play video games together. Too cute

This is a new development.  Both sitting...together...watching tv...at the same time.  The thumb sucking is old news by now :) 

We even broke out the Playdough one day.  Hayden and I worked on creating a bathtub while Abbs learned she could poke it with her fingers. 

One day they sat contentendly playing with Hay's squinkies. 

Time to Play Catch Up

I'm thinking that a monthly post will be easier to manage...so here is December in review, just a "few days" late!

My birthday...Hayden was super excited to "celebrate"

 We ended up with a LOT of snow in December.  That meant snow days for me and Hayden. She didn't quite understand what that meant except that we got to stay home instead of goin to the sitters and school.  She was happy.  I thought it was fun for the first 2 days.

Snow Days in December! Not sure when that has happened before!

Snow days call for lots of dress up and make up time

First pig tails

 She begged Ethan every day to go out and play in the snow.  He realized we didn't have a sled so they improvised with snowballs, snowmen, and a shovel sled.

SUPER cold; Abbie not a fan; Hay lasted about 10minutes

They've finally figured out how to successfully take a bath together. I've figured out how to deal with the excess water all over the floor and fighting over the toys.

 More snow days calls for me to get more creative.

We had a LOT of snow days...thankful they were easily entertained

 

barefoot, yes; but she was determined to go out with me

 I decided to do some "teaching" over the winter break too. We worked a lot on numbers. Hayden made a number sticker book (which I'm remembering that we need to finish it, now).  Abbie just made a sticker book.

Doing school work on her snow day

Abbs had to do school work too

Just a peek into our cabinets, aka Abbie's treasure box

We got to have pancakes with Santa this year too!  The OddFellows Cafe in Fair Grove "hosted" the event and thankfully there were only about 10 kiddos there. We got lots of Santa time, as much as we needed pretty much. Abbie didn't think she needed any!

Time home during the break also meant a lot of baking. We made cookies and bread and cookies and more bread.  Hayden still loves the bread machine and Abbie is very intrigued.

Hayden and Daddy got me a puzzle to work on.  We managed to get it finished, glued and hung up on Hayden's bedroom wall. I found another one, The Little Mermaid, that we finished in January.

Ethan finally broke down and painted our master bathroom. It went from the oatmeal color to blue! Loving it!

Abbie mastered the Olive Tree fingers.  She takes after Ethan and Abbie and loves her some olives.

 I believe that was our December in a nutshell though! Sure seems like it was a lot busier, but I probably just didn't have the camera going 

Cantrell Christmas

Yes...it IS February and yes, I am just now posting about Christmas. Now that that's out of the way, here's a recap about Christmas.

I figured the Christmas holiday probably needed it's own post. It seems like there was so much goin on yet we managed to make a lot of time for family and making memories.

At the very beginning of December, Ellie made her return this year. Ellie is our elf that Santa sent Hayden last year.   Her job was to teach Ellie how to listen and be a good girl elf.  This year, Ellie just wanted to come back and visit. She behaved most of the time but still had a little fun, creating chaos a whole lot less than last year (quite possibly because Ethan and I were more busy this year??? ) Hayden enjoyed waking up each morning to see if Ellie had moved though, and did her best to teach Abbie to leave Ellie alone. Abbie just wanted to hold and snuggle with Ellie.

We ended up having a few snow days, too, before our winter break!

Christmas events started with the McReynolds coming over on Christmas Eve to share presents.  Hayden got to help hand out the gifts and Abbie quickly learned about the excitement of opening presents.  The McReynolds are soo good to us and we are sooo thankful that they have adopted us (even if it IS only for our girls, haha) and have treated us like family. Papa Ronnie and Grandma Rhonda are definitely a big part of our lives.

The girls got matching Hello Kitty pajamas

We managed to get Hayden to sleep, still excited about Santa coming. We had made reindeer food and cookies. Set out the magic key for Santa and made sure Ellie was ready to catch a ride with Santa back to the North Pole.   After she fell asleep, we did what I'm am hoping most parents do....we stayed up wrapping presents.  Thankfully most of the gifts were already wrapped but it still seemed to be never ending.  Ethan arranged the girls' gifts and we finally made it to sleep, wondering how early Hayden would wake up. Thankfully, her eagerness for Santa's gifts didn't overcome her desire to sleep. Hopefully we have at least one more year.  Christmas morning Abbie woke us up so we then worked to get Hayden up (she's not a morning person) but once she was up and realized what day it was she was ecstatic.

This was the first year we got to spend all of Christmas Day at home and it truly was wonderful.  The girls got to spend time sharing their new toys and we stayed in our pajamas all day, keeping it as low key as we could.   Hayden's favorite gifts were: Doc McStuffins Clinic, Disney Princess stuffed dolls, a LalaLoopsy doll set.   Abbie seemed to love everything, especially if Hayden had it!  Really though, some of her favorites were a ride on car, a light-up musical phone, and some new plates and forks.

Not quite sure she saw how fun plates could be

Her Disney princesses were a HUGE hit

Hayden and Daddy got girl LEGOs!

The girls got an addition to their pop-up castle

The next day we packed everyone up and headed to the farm. Well the dogs got to stay at the kennel, they're 2nd favorite home.  This was possibly the first year that we were the last of "the girls" to make it to the farm.  It would be an understatement to say all the grand-kids were excited to see each other.  Mom had made lunch and it was good to just hang out with everyone.  Of course we opened presents, the kids were chomping at the bit to get to the presents.   Gabriel and Abbie played and played (kinda together? hah) with Abbie's new big red car with music and shapes and balls.  it really was too small for the both of them but they made it work.  Hayden and Talyn, as usual, were off together playing for the rest of the day.







The kids stayed at the farm while Ethan and I made the trip up to the KC area to visit with the Naylor's. It was great to have a couple of days with no agenda but we were excited to get back to the girls and make our way home again.   Thankfully, we had already cleaned up all the Christmas decor before we left so it was nice to come home to a clean house.  Of course, it didn't take long for the evidence of our Christmas trip to explode all over the house -- the kids needing to reexamine all their new gifts, laundry x4 and dogs that were looking for attention.

So I'd call Christmas 2013 a great success.  A lot of family time and memories.  That's what it's all about, right?