A slightly delayed Christmas

I have been avoiding putting up our tree due to the two kittens in our house. Oh, they will definitely be perched at the top at some point - I'm sure of it. Tonight I put all the lights up on the outside of the house. I got all the lights up, plugged them in, and.....nothing. All 3 strings were completely DEAD! So, bless Caroline's heart, she went and bought us all new lights for the house tonight! When she came home, I put the lights up in the dark and went CRAZY this year! We even have lights around our door, on the wreath on the door, and all across the front yard and down the side. Really, I outdid myself. ;)

One thing that struck me as so bizarre while I was out there. I was in a pair of cut off sweat pant shorts stringing lights around a palm tree. Huh? Right now in Baltimore it's below freezing and they are probably due for snow any day. It's so weird living in an area that is actually warm on Christmas. And by warm, I'm talking mid to upper 50's during the day. I don't even own a real winter coat.



Our friends Chelsea and little William visited us today. I remember going into the NICU 3 years ago and seeing this little boy. It literally made me gasp out loud when I saw him for the first time. He was only 2 lbs. 2 oz. and was no bigger than a Coke can with a tennis ball head. He was born early at 26 weeks. Thank the universe he is 100% FINE now and is a big 3 year old (he and Naia are gestationally about the same age). They were outside and got distracted by the crayons. ;)



Shaye has been obsessed with the moveable alphabet at school. Then she comes home and wants to spell more words. Here she is making her "little book of 'at' words". She starts with "at" and then adds different letters to make different "at" words (bat, cat, rat, hat, sat, mat, etc.) After she uses the moveable alphabet to spell out the word, she then spells it out on paper. When it's all done, we turn it into a little book. She is just SO proud of herself! I'm so excited that she is so interested in learning to read so early.





Another obsession has been the hundred board. As happy as I am to see her taking such an interest in the math area, I cringe when she wants to do this at home (which is almost daily) because it takes a long time for a 4 year old to go from 1 to 100 (an hour +) and she wants Mommy to sit and watch her. Her teacher at school said she has really been spending a lot of time doing math. I asked last week because every night Shaye wants to count "as high as she can" and I can't even get through 2 pages of reading her a book without her wanting to count every object on the page.



Happy weekend!