happy thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year ... namely these three cuties!  We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration at Inken & Andrew's in San Francisco and the girls LOVE their new cousin Grady.  We are having a great time in California with Aunt Inken, Uncle Andy, Grady and Omi K ... many more pictures and stories to come!

welcoming the season

I used to think it was silly to even think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but since becoming a mom I welcome any opportunity to extend the holiday season as long as possible.  Children really do make Christmas magical and I am so excited to celebrate the season with Kenzie & Lexi! 

On Friday we watched the Christmas tree lighting on Hyde Park Square.  It was packed so we opted to go eat dinner vs. waiting in line to go see Santa.  By the time we were done with dinner, the crowd had cleared and we were able to enjoy the lights and nativity scene. 


Probably a blessing in disguise that the line was so long, as our visit to see Santa the next evening at the Germania Society's Christkindlmarkt was not so successful.  (The girls were so terrified by Santa in fact that I did not even get a chance to snap a photo).  Thankfully, other than not being so fond of Santa, the girls had a blast at the festival!



They enjoyed watching the musical and dance performances, Kenzie had fun riding the train (Lexi opted out at the last minute despite her newfound love for "choo-choos").  Kenzie was very brave and rode all by herself.  Her eyes would light up every time she passed by us waving at her, but her hands securely gripped the sides for the entire ride.  We all had fun going on the horse drawn wagon ride and enjoyed some good traditional German fare ... wurst and potato pancakes.



My favorite part of the evening was the lantern parade as it brought back vivid memories from my childhood in Germany.  I described the paper lanterns to Randall and sang the "Laterne" song to the girls on our was to the festival ... and it played out pretty much as I remembered it (except with LED flameless candles as opposed to the real candles we used when I was a child - definitely a good thing given the vigor with which Kenzie & Lexi swung their lanterns). 




I love exposing the girls to their German heritage and this was the perfect place to do it!  I'm so glad that Randall happened to read about it in the "paper" (his iPad) that morning.  I think it will become an annual family tradition - a great way to kick off the holiday season!

Laterne, Laterne

Sonne Mond und Sterne!

Brenne auf mein Licht,

Brenne auf main Licht,

Aber nur meine liebe Laterne nicht!

first hair cut

Lexi had her first haircut this past Wednesday. There were tears, but thankfully these were calmed by a combination of sitting on Daddy’s lap & a lollipop. We didn’t get too much cut off, we were basically just trying to get rid of her “mullet”- as the hairdresser kindly referred to it. Lexi's hair has always had a personality all its own. The hairdresser said that while she has very fine hair, she has lots of it and is continuing to get new baby hair growth – so her prediction is that Lexi will actually have very thick hair. We shall see. In any case, she looks very cute with her new “style”. I thought that maybe Kenzie would be jealous that she didn’t get to have her hair cut – she naturally has a cute pixie style so no need for a cut yet – but recently has been wanting to sport hair accessories just like her sister. But, seeing her sister’s tears and realizing that she could get a lollipop without having to endure that trauma was a-ok with her. We left with a little envelope of Lexi’s baby curls (cry), 2 pink balloons, 2 lollipops, 1 Lexi with a cute new cut and 1 Kenzie with a very blue mouth!

Pictures to come ... having issues uploading them.

{frapping}

FRAPping is a dog term that stands for Frenetic Random Acts of Play (or Frenectic Random Activity Period or Frantic Running And Playing - you get the idea). When Tobi was a puppy he would have his nightly frapping session. We would basically sit down on the couch with our feet tucked up under us for safety, and watch Tobi run around the house in circles like a madman. It was highly entertaining. And while Tobi has long outgrown this behavior, it seems it is something that our girls inherited from their canine brother. I'm pretty sure frapping is not a term normally applied to humans, but I think it is the most appropriate term to describe the nightly sessions of silliness between Kenzie and Lexi. They too run around like mad-women and we often sit back on the couch and just watch the show. We find them highly entertaining! Who needs TV when you have this?  These frapping sessions typically occur right before bath time - hence the lack of clothing in most of these video clips :)

11-11-11

11-11-11 was a day of celebration of love and friendship! I traveled out to LA for the wedding of one of my dearest friends from UVA - and got to catch up with many of my favorite people. We all live in different cities and our lives are so busy that we don't get to see each other often, but when we do get together it is just like old times. It was so great to be together to celebrate the marriage of Jinny & Walter - to reminisce old memories and create new ones. It was also a special weekend because I finally got to meet Becky's son Paul. He is precious and to witness Becky as a mom brings me such joy! I can't wait to get Kenzie, Lexi and Paul together soon - oh the fun they will have! Here are some pictures from the 2 days of celebration. Congratulations Jinny & Walter!
















While I was away, the girls had fun at home with Daddy. I laughed to hard when I received the following email from Randall while I was away. Title: "Dad isn't quite as good at keeping order!" Followed by this picture:

I may return home to a mess, but at least I know that my girls are happy and had fun with their Dad while I was away.

Thanks for being such a great dad Randall!

Happy 90th Birthday Granny Nanny!

It was a weekend of planes, trains and automobiles ... and family, friends and celebration! We flew down to New Orleans for Granny Nanny's 90th birthday and had a great time .. despite having to pack quite a bit of travel into 4 days. The girls did great on the flight down to New Orleans and were very excited by all that awaited them at Granny & Papa Gene's house. They loved the toys, the birds, feeding the fish in the backyard pond and Papa Gene's trains. Most importantly, they were so excited just to see Granny & Papa Gene!




In typical New Orleans style, Friday night was a party. The Helwig's and Cooper's came over for dinner and the girls had a great time playing with all of the kids! Lexi especially enjoys hanging with the big kids.






On Saturday we drove out to the country for Granny Nanny's party. The 2 hour and 45 minute car ride was not fun ... despite having about 125 different distractions, Lexi was not happy to be in the car. She pretty much screamed the whole way until she wore herself out and went to sleep for the last 15 minutes. Kenzie on the other hand, just chilled for the whole ride. Oh how different my two girls are.

Then, by the time that we arrived at the hotel it was time for the girls nap, but of course since Lexi had napped for 15 minutes in the car she thought that she didn't need a nap. She spent the first 30 minutes playing quietly in her pack n play, the next 30 minutes trying to wake her sister and then started screaming. We went into the room and laid down on the bed with her and this finally helped her go to sleep, but of course then Kenzie was up... we could not get the girls in sync this day.


Kenzie did enjoy her time with mom and dad while Lexi napped. She was our queen of the potty (she pooped in the big girl toilet twice this weekend!) and enjoyed getting all dolled up for the party!

Due to the napping fiasco, we ended up missing Nanny's birthday mass, but decided it was better to let Lexi nap at least for a little while to avoid a meltdown at the party. So we met everyone at the party venue and while the girls were a bit grumpy for the first few minutes, once they saw their cousins they quickly warmed up and ended up having a great time! There were nearly 90 people there to celebrate Nanny's 90 years of life and it was a great party!





Unfortunately on Sunday we had to drive the same 2 hour and 45 minute drive back to New Orleans. Before we left the country we stopped at Nanny's old house and took some family pictures in front of her old barn.






The ride back wasn't quite as bad, but Lexi certainly did not win any awards for good car travel. The whole way Lexi kept asking, "Slide? Slide?" so we stopped at a playground before we even went back to Granny & Papa Gene's house. The girls were so happy to be out of the car and playing in the sunshine!

Thankfully they napped well that afternoon and we enjoyed a nice evening together. The girls enjoyed feeding the fish and then we went to Morning Call and Kenzie & Lexi certainly enjoyed their first beignet experience! This is the same place where Granny and Daddy both enjoyed beignets growing up. What a special treat!











The flight home went pretty well. Kenzie napped on Randall's lap for all but 15 minutes. Lexi didn't sleep a wink, and instead did gymanstics in my lap and in the aisle, but she was happy and relatively quiet so I can't complain.

All in all, we had a great trip and I'm sure the girls will miss being spoiled by Granny & Papa Gene!

Copycat Kenzie

Last weekend Randall was changing lightbulbs in our kitchen and family room. He was standing on a chair and reaching up above his head to switch out the bulbs.

The next thing we knew, Kenzie had grabbed her little chair and carried it into her play house and was standing up on it reaching up to pretend to change a lightbulb on her ceiling. Too cute!

The girls are both copying everything these days!