parties, trips and visitors.

When did I update last and how has so much happened since then?

December has gone so quickly.

We had our lovely weekend at Great Wolf Lodge the first weekend in December.

The second weekend was Jesse's company's Christmas party.  Mom and Dad Hildebrand came over for the weekend to watch the girls while we went and left Sunday.  Jesse and I had a fun and relaxing time at the party; the girls and grandparents all reported back a good time as well, so success all the way around.  Nothing really to report there: Jesse and I always enjoy the Christmas parties and I enjoy dressing up fancy one time a year.

in other news, someone please give me an event or excuse for wearing my red stilettos besides cleaning the house.

The following Tuesday- was that really only last Tuesday?- the girls and I took off for a really quick trip up to Findlay.  A dear friend of mine was back in town from Alaska where she is currently being awesome at a camp over there and I told Jesse I had to go see her.  She worked us into her busy schedule and came to my parent's house and spent a good chunk of Wednesday with us.  Lily convinced her to play doctor and they worked together to "doctor" and take care of all the stuffed animals Lily could find.  Most of the problems were fortunately solved by vitamins, so many crises' were averted.  We came home on Thursday.

Friday evening, Rick, Nikki, Noah and Brianna showed up to spend the weekend with us, which is always so much fun and chaos.  That really is the best way I can summarize the time we spend together, and I always look forward to it.  The Brennan kids blend right in with ours, and they have so much fun together.  Lily is finally realizing that Noah and Bri aren't babies anymore, but that may be because they are almost as tall as she is...

how do you keep a 4 year old and three 2 year olds calm for any amount of time?  Blue's Clues and a big chair.

And now here it is, Christmas Eve.  I'm not sure what I will do in a few years when the girls start getting nosy with presents, because they were just hanging out in the open since we started gathering them.  Ok, not really in the "open," but if they'd opened Jesse's closet, they'd have seen the majority of them.  We did have the girls with us when we bought them outfits one day a few months ago, and Lily has unfortunately remembered them and asked about their new clothes on a regular basis.  We told both Lily and Emma at the time that these were for Christmas, but that doesn't seem to deter Lily.  In fact, the other day, after being shot down repeatedly throughout the day to wear the new outfits, Lily finally found a new angle: 

Lily: Momma, can we pretend it's Christmas now? 

Me: sure, we can do that.  How do we play Christmas?

Lily: well, first we'll need are our new outfits...

That kid.

Holiday busy-ness aside, the girls are all doing great.  

Lily continues to surprise us with how brilliant she is.  I realize we are biased, I don't care.  After she was so disappointed that she didn't have real doctor tools in her Doc McStuffin's doctor kit, I told her that she would have to go to medical school to get real doctor things.  That was that, and since then, she has been pretty adamant about going to school to be a doctor.  I told her that she'd have to work very hard to get into medical school and that didn't seem to daunt her too much, she just hopes she can ride the bus there.

Emma is very sweet and caring lately.  What a fun stage- most of the time.  She has recently really taken to Kaylee, and wants to always be with her and help her out as much as possible, especially with Kaylee starting to try to walk.  On the other hand, Emma seems to have a switch: when she's tired and done, everybody watch out and try not to anger it.  Her tantrums have reached new levels of monster, to the point I've actually been concerned she was going to hurt herself.  These go better when Jesse is home, of course, because I can be firm in not giving into her demands and nonsense, because giving into a tantrum is not something we encourage here, and then after a few minutes, Jesse can go in and play Good Cop Dad and calm her down, talk reason with her, and dry up the fountain of tears and snot with some cuddles.  Bad Cop Mom, Good Cop Dad...don't worry, sometimes I get to be the good guy! 

the logical thing to do when eating raspberries!

Kaylee. That little girl is just a joy.  She has a huge smile that is half gummy and half tiny teeth.  She is up to 2 bottom teeth and 2 top teeth just through.  She loves to eat whatever we will feed her, and if her sisters leave snacks within her reach, she doesn't mind helping herself!  Kaylee also has started trying to walk, and succeeded in walking across the room by herself yesterday.  Every time she is getting started, she will take a few steps and then fall and just crawl the rest of the way.  She can't stand up on her own yet, just pulling herself up on something still, but she has started walking between toys and short little steps.  You can just see how proud she is of herself, which is the best: if she smiled any bigger, her face might break.  Considering she took her first steps last Monday, she's moving right along, trying hard to keep up with her sisters.  Before you tell me that she is walking quickly because younger kids always walk quicker, please just stop.  Lily walked at 10.5 months as my first born, and she is 10 months, 3 weeks (ish): my kids just move quickly.  They are slow to start speaking- at least with Lily and Emma- but they don't waste time getting their groove on: which we enjoy!

I guess that's it!  Team Hildebrand has a quiet Christmas planned for tomorrow.  I told Jesse I wanted to try and take a family picture tomorrow morning before we opened presents and he gave me a skeptical look and said, "before presents?  Are you crazy?"  So we will see if that happens or not!