It's December....Wow!

In the blink of an eye, November is over. December is here and I couldn't be more excited! I am looking forward to Christmas Day more than ever this year. Rachel completely understands the concept of Christmas! However, every man with a white beard is Santa :) We'll continue to work on that one.

I've been done my shopping for a few weeks now. I can't stand the malls this time of year so I really try to stay away from them unless we HAVE to go. I went to Wal Mart last week to pick up a case of formula and it was a ZOO in there...note to self 'Don't go to Wal Mart this time of year unless it's 2:30 in the morning!'

The gifts I had purchased were in our computer room closet and all over the dining room table. I didn't mind them not being wrapped when they all fit in the closet but when they started accumulating on the dining room table, something had to be done! I dragged them all downstairs to the basement and used our air hockey table as my 'wrapping station'. It was the perfect height and while I did that, Rachel could hang out in the play area (Natalie was napping - I didn't attempt to wrap while she was awake - she's in to everything now that she crawls and pulls herself up, etc). In one day I managed to get a lot done but I still had to wrap Rachel's gifts. My Mom came over one day and hung out with the girls while I finished wrapping the rest of the gifts. It's so nice to be done - and they look great under the tree now.

We haven't been doing a lot around here so I don't really have an excuse as to why I haven't been blogging. The days just seem to fly by and the evenings go by even faster since the girls are in bed by 7 every night. I'm sure once I'm back to work, life will seem like a blur. The good thing about going back to work is that we have flex time in our office and I love working 7-3. On top of that, I'll be home by 3:15 every day so I'll still have lots of time with the girls before they go to bed.

Ron has been accepted in to a training course for work that will have him in Ohio for a month. He's in class 6 days a week so that means he won't be home until the course is over. He leaves at the end of January - a week after Natalie's first birthday. This is an amazing opportunity for him career wise - it's just unfortunate that he won't be around for that length of time. The training facility is about a 6 hour drive from here so depending on the weather, I may take a Friday & Monday off work and head down there for a weekend with the girls. If the weather is crappy though, I'm not even going to THINK about driving there on my own with two little ones. There is an outlet mall around the corner from the hotel he'll be staying at so the girls & I could shop while he's in class and then we could have dinner together and spend Sunday as a family before I head back on Monday. We'll see though - if it works out, it works out. If not - what can ya do? So with all of this in mind, I'd REALLY like to see Natalie walk before her first birthday. Rachel was crawling at 10.5 months and walking at 11.5 months. Natalie has been crawling since 9.5 months and she's starting to cruise around the furniture so hopefully her first steps aren't that far away.

Ok, enough of that stuff....here's some pictures:

Do you think someone is excited about Christmas? :)

It's hard to believe that Rachel is 27lbs and Natalie is 25lbs and there is 17 months between them. They both wear 18-24m and size 2. Makes laundry day easy :)

All bundled up and ready to go to Victoria Park to see the lighting of the lights. Rachel just loves the Christmas tree.

The girls at the park

The view of Victoria Park from the roof top of City Hall. This picture obviously doesn't do the park any justice; it's so magical in real life. There's even an outdoor skating rink in the park, too. We're planning on getting down there a few times this winter.

Our cutie patootie!

Rachel is such a big girl now - putting her own snow pants on so she could go help Daddy put up the Christmas lights in the back yard. Ron is Clarke Griswold when it comes to our back yard! ha ha Ok, maybe not that bad. He puts lights on our two trees and across the playground equipment and then he puts icicle lights across part of our fence back there as well. It's kind of cool that we have something to look at from our family room.

Have a fantastic week!