Christmas

Christmas is magical when you have kids. On Christmas Eve we continued my family tradition of eating homemade ravioli. Owen "helped" me make it this year and I took the opportunity to tell him the history of the tradition. We had our good friend Jeff over for dinner and he became one of the privileged few to eat this delectable meal. After dinner Owen and Aliya were allowed to open one gift which is the one from Dave's grandmother. Then we continued our new found tradition of watching The Polar Express and Aliya watched almost the entire movie (albeit she was continually saying "Hi Mommy" and "I love you"). After Aliya went to bed, Owen chose two cookies that he made and poured the milk into the glass. We placed the cookies and milk by the fireplace and then he went to bed.







Owen came into our room at 5:30 Christmas morning and luckily we were able to get him to fall back asleep to a more reasonable time of 6:15. After convincing him to lay in bed until about 6:45, we went to get Aliya. Owen was really excited to go downstairs and he was very excited about what Santa brought. We had breakfast after the kids looked through their stockings and then we dug into the other presents. The favorite toy was the play vacuum. Unfortunately it does make noise and that is what we are constantly hearing. We ended Christmas with Philly Cheese Steaks and Christmas light viewing in the snow. It was a wonderful Christmas and I am looking forward to the new year.

Christmas morning

Owen and Aliya awoke to gifts from Santa. Owen was very excited and Aliya followed along. They loved their gifts from Santa and family. Owen declared that it was the best Christmas ever! Here is a video of Christmas morning, I'll post photos later.

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Here is our first video with our new camera.

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Halloween

We started off the week by going to Owen's school for his Halloween party. Aliya loved being a big kid and hanging out with her older brother. Owen made a paper pumpkin, decorated a Halloween bag, decorated a cookie, and went trick-or-treating around the school.
We carved pumpkins the night before Halloween. Aliya liked spreading the seeds around on the table and Owen drew his own pumpkin face which Dave carved.
Thankfully the snowstorm ended two days before Halloween and it got warm enough to melt a lot of the snow. Neither kid needed a jacket which is always good. Owen was Superman and Aliya was Iridessa, one of Tinker Bell's friends. Grandma Panesi made Aliya's outfit not once, but twice due to a mailing mix-up (thanks Grandma for making another costume)!

Hair!

Aliya has really been fighting me lately with doing her hair. So, today while Owen and Dave were at a birthday party, I put in Elmo's World and tried. Aliya doesn't really watch TV, but I remember that Elmo was the one that Owen would watch. I placed her in her Dora chair and began. I sprayed with water and detangler and began brushing. She didn't fight too much, so I decided to put her hair in four ponies instead of one. She was being so good that I decided to braid her hair. Here are the results!

Superman!

Owen LOVES jumping off the stairs. So, after I sewed his costume, he wanted to fly like Superman . . .

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday we went to the Pumpkin Patch. It was delayed a weekend due to the weather and it ended up being a perfect day. Owen and Aliya had a great time picking out pumpkins. Owen really enjoyed the carnival area. Next year will be a lot of fun because Aliya will be old enough to participate in more things.

Obstacle Course!

We set up a really quick obstacle course today. Enjoy!

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A Twister, a Twister!

Yesterday we had front row seats to a tornado. At about 1:30 we put
the kids down for quite time and a nap. 15 minutes later heavy hail
started to come and Megan mentioned that she had seen paper or debris
flying high up in the sky. At about that time we heard the tornado
siren go off, so we did what everybody would do. We ran to the
upstairs windows to see if we could see a tornado.
We then got Owen out of his room so he could watch hail and the people
outside scrabbling to cover their cars. Megan then went into the
computer room to see what news she could find on the internet. As
soon as she walked into the east facing room she saw the funnel cloud.
Megan quickly grabbed Aliya and started heading downstairs. I, of
course, quickly ran to the window to see the tornado for myself, then
grabbed Owen and Bailey (the dog) and headed downstairs.
Owen was giggling the entire time and Aliya just look confused. In
the end we were in no real danger, Owen had assured us that he would
take down the tornado with a light saber, that and it was east of our
house and heading further east. We stayed in the basement for just a
few minutes before heading back up to take some pictures and watch the
rest of the storm. It did touch down a few miles east and damaged the Southlands mall.

Playing the Piano

A couple of months ago, I created piano music for two songs: Hot Cross Buns and Jingle Bells. I showed Owen how to play them, but didn't push him with it. Now, he will go to the piano and play them on his own. He even creates his own music. Owen is playing Hot Cross Buns first and then Jingle Bells. I could have edited it so that he played them both perfectly, but I love when he messed up on Jingle Bells and he knew it. Check out his expression when he plays the first wrong note! The piano needs major tuning but, enjoy!

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Which dress should Aliya wear for pictures?

I can't decide which dress Aliya should wear for pictures. Please help by voting. Thanks.

YELLOW DRESS

YELLOW DRESS WITH POLKA DOTS (please ignore the crying)

WHITE DRESS WITH POLKA DOTS

The Big 35!

Dave turns 35 today! His mom sent pictures of him when he was younger, so how could I resist?