the elf on the shelf

the elf on the shelf works wonders around here. if you haven't heard of it and have kids, look into it for next year. it is amazing!!! the elf comes out right after thanksgiving and leaves right after christmas. we named ours "peppermint" and he hides in new places every morning and reports back to santa in the north pole every night about whether or not kids are good are bad. dottie is VERY scared of a bad report to santa so has been on her best behavior for the whole month. hopefully santa will agree with peppermint that she and esther have been good girls this year! we shall see... (the second picture is of his hiding place this morning)

anticipation

when dottie woke up this morning, she asked me, "has it been 2 days yet?". we told her yesterday that we would be going to tahoe in 2 days to see both sets of grandparents and santa would come. it's just amazing to us that she seems to understand the concept of waiting 2 days. hooray for grandparents and santa! tahoe here we come...

christmas cheer

we should all have one of these...

geting ready for the big day

i selected other pajamas and dottie insisted on wearing the santa ones (thank you erin and sonia!) to bed tonight because she is so excited for christmas.

she is also randomly wishing people a merry christmas on the street or as in the case this evening at the hairdresser, "feliz navidad". we have no clue where she learned it but it was hilarious because the woman who cut her hair speaks spanish as her first language and she must have picked up on it.

(and in case you are wondering, yes, milo does have a crazy looking little mustache! we often times refer to him as "mustachio")

happy birthday allie!

our dear friend allie celebrated a birthday last week and we were lucky enough to celebrate with her. we all made cupcakes together (with pink frosting of course) and dottie of course helped allie blow out her candle. happy birthday allie!!!!

christmas tree shopping 2010

tree shopping this year was quick. esther had a meltdown at the lot after having a blowout diaper and it didn't make tree shopping easy. the moments in the pictures below were short lived. we went into the lot, picked one out, and scurried home only to find out when we got home that the tree is pretty crooked! i'll post pictures later of our silly little tree later this week. dottie has been quite in to decorating the tree though she keeps on taking the ornaments on and off which has resulted in several broken ornaments!

isa the ballerina

we attended isa's 3rd birthday party recently and it was as darling as can be! it was at a little ballet school called tutu school and was full of lots of pink and tutu's. isa looked adorable in her birthday tutu and piggy tails! dottie absolutely loved it and danced around with her wand that she got as a favor for days afterwards. happy birthday isa!

dottie school notes...

at dottie's little daycare/school, the teachers write in a little book every day she attends to let us know how the day went. reading the book is something we have come to look forward to after pick up because we get a little glimpse into dottie's day. she of course has her bad day entries but as a proud mom, i feel i have to post good ones! here are a couple of the most recent entries: (they are very "boone" heavy because she has just become really chummy with a cute little boy named boone at school. i will have to take a picture of him and post it!).

november 18th
---dottie looked absolutely fab in her pink outfit. all day, "look at me. i'm pink. i'm pinkalicious!". we went to upper noe today and she told a lady at the park about her little sister esther :-). loves of ice cream playing with boone with all kinds of wonderful flavors. dottie was a delight all day! great lunch and thomas after.---

november 2nd
---dottie came up from doing art wearing full pirate regalia and it made me laugh. she would not take it off for the rest of the day....---

december 6th
---it's official!! dottie declared today, "boone is my boyfriend!". it was love in the bathroom-both of them peeing at the same time time. boone beamed! downstairs he saw dottie as she arrived and wanted to see her straight away. coleridge park today and photo session. dottie has a pee accident just prior to lunch. was sooo upset. thankfully recovered quickly and had a good lunch.----

december 9th
---Dottie and Boone were SO SWEET! Today at songtime-holding hands and getting together like a cute old couple. Dottie was very sweet at the park. She saw a little girl (I think her name was Sparrow) that was apparently someone you met at the coffee shop and they had a top time running around and playing on the playground together.---

december 16th
---Tara brought in some musical instruments today and played them for all of the kids. Boone and Dottie sat together mesmerized. It was really fun! Today when I was putting on Dottie's trousers, I put the pockets to the back and Dottie said, "Oh! The tag always goes to the back. Remember that!". So funny. Our Dottie rules!---

music together

we signed up recently for music together with 2 of dottie's friends, nola and lucy. dottie hasn't taken it since she was at least a year and a half old and it was so fun seeing her back in action again. she really loved it as you can tell in the first picture!

school picture

dottie little daycare had pictures taken last week and i came for the group shot. these pictures are just snapshots i took so didn't capture it like the photographer did. funny to wrangle a bunch of 18 month - 3 1/2 year olds (as you can see in the second picture). it rained the day of the photos so it had to be inside which was a bug bummer!

dottie is in the red cardigan...

snuggly girls

santa!

this past friday, we headed down to the macy's winter wonderland with kim, frannie, and jane to meet santa claus. you can tell just how excited dottie was by the first picture of her running in to see him. when it came time to tell him what she wanted for christmas, she got shy all of the sudden and couldn't spit it out because she was so in awe of him i think. this is going to be a really fun christmas!

esther...

at 9 weeks.

cute shirt: courtesy of aunt julie, tom tom, ellis, and sadie grey
cute blanket: courtesy of my aunt janet and uncle roger

heather and andrew

last week our friends heather and andrew were here for thanksgiving with andrew's parents and sister. we were lucky enough that they found the time to swing by the house and to meet esther for the first time and hang out a big. dottie was very taken with andrew after he read to her and put together a little band with her instruments. after they left, she made sure we knew that "andrew is cool!". heather is pregnant and due with their first baby, a girl, mid-february so they got in a little practice! heather and i used to work together at paper source in san francisco long ago and now they live in brooklyn. it is so fabulous that we have really kept up our friendship and it seems like no time has passed when we all get together. i can't wait for our girls to all be friends! check out heather's super cute blog, HERE!