Bed Time Fail

Sophie and Hannah have been refusing to nap in the afternoon and go to sleep at night. Bedtime ends up being a free for all where clothes get pulled out of drawers, stuffed animals dumped out of bins, and blankets strewn about. Lots of screaming and singing at the top of their lungs.

Nothing was working until Craig and I decided to separate them. We put Sophie in the guest room with the queen size bed (which she loves). Sophie usually falls asleep right away. She really loves that bed. Hannah is not quite as enthusiastic about this arrangement because she doesn't like to go to sleep without Sophie.

So this afternoon when they were refusing to nap (again!), I decided to give Hannah a chance to go in the guest room and sleep in the big bed. And here is the difference between the two girls:

Sophie goes into the guest room, brings her Doggies and Bear and special blankets. She gets all snuggly and lays there in this enormous bed, probably thinking about how happy she is just to be there. When I check on her after a few minutes, she's usually sound asleep.

I put Hannah in the guest room and it's also nice and quiet. But when I go in to check on her after a few minutes, she's wearing an old costume that I stored in the back of the closet, holding a pair of crochet hooks that were in one of the top drawers in the tall dresser, and playing with a box of buttons and rubber bands that were stored in another drawer.

For Sophie, going into the guest room means sleeping in the big bed. For Hannah, it's a chance to explore.

Our First Time on Real Skis!

All bundled up and waiting for the Beaver Creek shuttle.

Some photo ops with Mommy.

And Mom Mom and Pop Pop.

Sophie LOVED the bus ride. Especially when we went over bumps.

Ski Bunnies.

Last minute preparations.

Meeting their instructor "Uncle Dave". He's actually a friend of Pop Pop's who offered to teach the girls to ski. He was great and the girls really took to him.

And the lesson begins...

The videos:

Hannah Skis

Sophie Skis (notice the smile on her face the entire way down)

Hannah's favorite part was the gondola.

Sophie loves Daddy.

Hannah the Eskimo waiting for the shuttle bus back to the condo.

Sophie was exhausted and falling asleep on Pop Pop.

Random Pictures

Mermaids. The cups on their feet are their "tails".

Monsterly. I got this little Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer gift set at an ornament exchange party. Hannah immediately took to "Monsterly" which is actually the Abominable Snowman. She calls him "Monsterly" because of a book I used to read to them over Halloween called Mostly Monsterly.
This is what I woke up to one morning. Literally. Hannah woke me up and handed me a broken headband and a pile of dental floss.
One afternoon when I went to pick them up from preschool, they decided to "hide" from me in their cubbies.
Sophie and Hannah like to take their Lamb and Bear with them to the daycare at the YMCA. This is how I found them when I went to pick them up (they were playing outside).

This is from my photo archive

But it still makes me smile whenever I see it. I accidentally wrote "Happy G." instead of "Hannah G." on Hannah's snack container. Cute freudian slip!

Private

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Halloween and the two Ariels

We had a lot of fun with Halloween this year. The girls were so excited about trick or treating and all the candy they (thought they) were going to get (because Mommy ate most of it). We started the day off with the movie The Halloween Tree and then carved pumpkins. Actually I carved the pumpkins because Sophie wasn't the least bit interested. Hannah was semi-interested but really just wanted to play with the pumpkin seeds. They did help carve the last pumpkin.

Mom Mom and Pop Pop came over and after a nice dinner, we all went trick or treating. At first Sophie and Hannah were very shy. They wanted to hold our hand all they way up to the door and we had to remind them what to say. Still they were very quiet and needed lots of encouraging. But they soon got the hang of it. At one point they were knocking on doors and if say someone didn't open up right away, Sophie would put her face up to the door and shout "Helloooooo!"

Some of the decorations were a little scary and whenever we came across one, Sophie would put her hands up to her face like claws and growl at it. It was hilarious. But it wasn't until I posted this picture that I realized Sophie was making this exact same noise and the exact same pose. The fact that she was imitating him makes it even better!

There was one house with a motion activated scarecrow hanging by the door. When Hannah walked to the door it started moving and making noise and Hannah literally jumped into Craig's arms. It was a good thing he was right behind her! They are still talking about that scarecrow.

After trick or treating, we went through the girl's candy and took out what they couldn't eat (Smarties, Peanut M&Ms, etc.) We put those back into the our candy bowl to hand out to trick or treaters. Of course Sophie and Hannah had just as much fun handing out candy as they did trick or treating. Except at one point Sophie wouldn't give one of the kids the candy she had picked out (Smarties.) I said, "Sophie go ahead and give her the candy." But she didn't want to. She looked at me and said, "Mommy, it's too hard." I had to tell her that the girl was older and it was okay for her to eat Smarties.

Ariel and Ariel

Or Team Ariel as I like to call them.

Not quite as shy. Daddy is allowed to stand a few feet behind them instead of holding their hands.

Checking out the skeleton or "x-rays" as the girls like to call them.

Do you see the scarecrow to the left. That's the one that scared Hannah right into Craig's arms. I wish I had thought to take a better picture of him. Clearly it didn't stop them from knocking on the door and asking for candy!

And more photo ops.

Halloween and the Children's Museum

Our first Halloween event. Trick or Treat at the Children's Museum.

Ariel.

And Ariel.
"Okay, where the candy!"
They were both very shy and would not go up to the booths unless we were right there.

Sophie playing the ring toss. She would walk all the way to the cones, wind her arm up like she was getting ready to throw a fast ball and at the last minute fling the ring down right on top of the cone...and miss it. It was really cute and fun to watch.

Hannah playing the bean bag toss.

I love the look on Sophie's face like "What the heck?"

On the way home I asked them what they liked best and Hannah said "the cat." It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about because we spent all of 30 seconds here.

Sophie and Daddy on the trolley. We sat right up front with the conductor and he let Sophie do the train whistle as we came back around to the museum.

Me with Hannah. Not my favorite picture but it is the only picture I have of me and therefore goes on the blog.

Prince Eric and the "Haunted House"

Halloween has been a much bigger deal this year. We've made a lot of Halloween crafts and watched a lot of Halloween movies. The girls were really into picking out their costumes and put a lot of thought into what they wanted to be. Sophie had originally intended to be Prince Eric (from The Little Mermaid) but at the last minute (after I already put together a costume) decided to be Ariel (after she saw the Ariel costume Hannah picked out).

One of the biggest adventures we had was going to one of the big costume stores in town. My dental hygienist lives near us and happened to mention the store and how it's almost like being in a haunted house. We were still looking for an Ariel costume at that point because everything was still too big for Hannah. I brought them to this costume store and that was it for Sophie and Hannah. There were all kinds of different displays: strobe lights, fog machines, animated creatures that move and make noise when you walk by them or press a button. Sophie and Hannah were hooked. They would press a button to make on of the creatures move, get scared and cling to me and then want to do it all over again. Sophie had one that was her favorite and it even creeped me out a little.

At first I thought it was kind of cute and funny. Then I got worried that they were going to have nightmares that night. But no, all they talked about on the way home was how they wanted to show Daddy the "haunted house". We ended up bringing Craig to the store the following week so the girls could show him around.

This was Sophie's favorite. Scary right? He made this creepy hissing sound and moved forward and she couldn't get enough of him. Remember this guy because he will be mentioned in a future post.

Unconditional Love

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate glitter? I absolutely loathe it. Glitter gets everywhere and its impossible to clean up. It stays in the cracks of your floor boards. Under your carpet. In your clothes. I still see glitter on the wheels of our vacuum cleaner from an earlier mishap. A year ago.

So I think it's a testimonial of my unconditional love that we did this craft yesterday:

Sophie Bear being a ham.

The glue.

The glitter.

The pumpkins.

Do you think they have enough glitter on them?

And because glitter wasn't enough...

We painted them too. (And added some more glitter on top of the paint.)

Glitter hands.

Friends

Since these guys have been a big part of our lives since pretty much the day the girls were born, I thought it only fitting that they should have a post of their own.

Doggies. These are Sophie's pals. Wherever Sophie goes, Doggies go. At least at bed time and nap time. And Lord help the person who forgets to bring Doggies for sleepovers. One of these Doggies was originally Hannah's but Sophie has long since claimed them both for herself.

Man's best friend.

Lamb. I don't know where Lamb came from or how he came to be so important. I'm pretty sure he is a black sheep (lamb) but I don't know his story. Is he "Baa Baa Black Sheep" sheep? Either way, he's Hannah best friend. He used to be essential for naps and bed times but now he's a fixture at preschool. Sometimes for dinner. You never know with Lamb. But he's definitely part of the family.

Kind of a funny looking little guy, isn't he?

Company

Because sometimes it's good to have a little company.

Guess How Much I Love You?

All the way to the moon and back.