Christmas at the Sneads

We went down to ATL and pretended Christmas was on Friday, December 23 this year. We packed lots of fun into the few days we were there. It was great to have all of us (minus the China Sneads) there!

As you can see from the picture, now both of our kids are not a fan of Santa Claus. Addie was all talk until we got there. She had her plan to tell Santa that she would like a "big, big baby doll" for Christmas. Apparently, she thinks Santa reads minds or something because once we left Santa (after screaming her little head off while sitting near him), she told me she asked Santa to bring her a big big baby doll for Christmas. As for Levi, he just screamed and screamed. Better luck next year. Olivia and Logan (the cousins) did great. They may not sleep well (ever!), but they're good at telling Santa what they want for Christmas!

Levi got to dress up like Santa again this year.

We tried doing a little shopping after seeind Santa. I tried for a mini photo shoot of Levi.

Here are the girls with their princess necklaces from Aunt Amy (they were supposed to help make the girls brave while they sat in Santa's lap...it was a good thought!)

Levi decided to go to the window of the store and wave to shoppers outside.

The boys (Logan and Levi)

Our boy

Poppi reading Luke 2 on "Christmas Eve" (Dec. 22 at their house this year)

Christmas morning...Addie got a baby Cinderella doll from Uncle Nate and Miss Kat-big hit!

Addie decided baby Cinderella was hungry...

Levi's favorite present...a new ball!

The girls got matching Rapunzel dresses!

Poppi built Addie a refrigerator!

Just hanging out:

Talking to the cousins in China:

Memorization

Here are some videos of what our kids have been learning recently...For this first video, Addie is yelling because on take one she had whispered. So, turn down your volume if needed! Apparently, the other video doesn't want to download right now, so just enjoy this one for now.

Christmas parade

We have spent the past two Saturday mornings at local Christmas parades. Both have been a blast and I'm so glad we went (despite the cold temperatures this past Saturday). We got lots and lots of pictures, but here are just a few:

I love Levi's winter hat. It makes me want to take tons of pictures of him when he's wearing it.
Here's our girl, ready for the parade to begin!

We brought hot chocolate to help keep us warm.

We also got lots of candy!

Levi did a great job of waving at people as they walked past. He's still got some work to do on saying "Merry Christmas" though.

The curb was just the right size for our kids to take a break on when needed.

All bundled up!

Addie wanted to show her Santa hat to Santa Claus as he rode by, so she wore it on top of her other hat when we saw him coming.

Dancing was probably both of our kids favorite thing at both parades.

Fun at Pops and Dottie's

We spent Thanksgiving in Virginia at Pops and Dottie's house. It was fun to be there with lots of family, but I think the highlight for our kids was the treehouse/swingset that was built since the last time we visited. As you can see in the pictures below, the kids loved it! Unfortunately, those were pretty much the only pics we took while we were up there. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving dinner:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are the Thanksgiving crafts we did this year:

Handprint turkeys

Pilgrims

Woven placemats

Can you tell which one of my kids we have tons of great pictures of, and which one we have very few of?

Levi

Look who got a big boy haircut!Levi up to his normal mischief:

He can find alternate uses for just anout anything...
And making a mess is what he does best!

Random updates

Most of what has been going on at our household over the past week is sickness. Thankfully, we are mostly better and have FINALLY been able to leave the house as well as get together with friends. Hopefully that was our sickness stretch for the winter!

Bob got me an early Christmas presents a few weeks ago-a new camera! It is a DSLR (for those of you that know what that is), so we are hoping to be able to capture our kids' smiles, even though they never pose to give us one. These first 2 pics are ones I got of them that turned out great-never would have got them with our old camera. It's nice to be able to just hold down the shutter button and let it click away!

For those of you who knew our fish, Fred, we have bad (but kind of good) news. After over 3 years of living with us, our beta fish stopped breathing...resulting in being flushed. We explained to Addie that she would not see Fred anymore, but that we would get a new fish soon. I took the kids to the pet store a week or 2 ago and let Addie pick out a new beta to purchase and bring home. I also let her know she got to name the fish. Once she understood that he too could not be named Fred, she told me that his name was Soap. I had to confirm with her that Soap was in fact the name she had decided on, and it was. When she has been asked how she came up with that name, she just says "that's his name", as if there was not even a thought that went into it-that's his name, just like Levi is Levi and Addie is Addie. We often hear Addie say "Soap lives in water."

After a lot of time indoors, cooped up at the house, we decided to have a movie night for the first time. It was a HUGE hit with Addie. We watched "Shrek 2" and though Levi couldn't sit still (no surprise there), Addie was not bothered by his activity. She asked about a million questions while watching the movie and loved every minute of it. She did not get up from her seat once. When I brought her her very own bowl of popcorn, she was absolutely in heaven. Ever since the movie ended, she has been saying "maybe we can do that again sometime. I'll sit on the couch between Mommy and Daddy and we can watch a movie and eat some popcorn." We will definitely do it again sometime soon.

Levi likes to "take me downtown Charlie Brown" (aka, hit me repeatedly while I'm down without getting in trouble)

a smiling pic of Addie while she's looking at the camera-a rareity

Even though he rarely stops, Levi is still a snuggler, which Bob and I both love. We are working on getting that thumb out of his mouth, but when he's tired, it's hopeless

Lastly, we had some friends over yesterday to have a "bread playdate." We baked soem bread together, then gobbled it up-it was delicious! For anyone who has not yet tried Fleischmann's new Simply Homemade bread mix, it is extremely easy to make and delicious to eat. Here are the girls (and Levi) with their oven mits on!

We played for a while as the bread was cooking...

And there's the tasty bread!