Valentine's Day

We love Valentine's Day here at our home! It's definitely a close runner up to Christmas. I grew up with a Mother who loved making every holiday special, even the small ones. My mom would always decorate the house and make yummy treats. She would always have a special surprise waiting for us at the breakfast table too. I'm trying to carry on that tradition. Arli is finally getting old enough to get excited about anything and everything, she loved helping me decorate and LOVED helping me make sugar cookies. We had SO much fun with the cookie cutting, that I decided it would probably be best if I frosted the cookies:)

Arli was very focused on cutting out hearts that is until she realized how fun playing in flour is!

When she woke up from her nap and the cookie decorating was done, I thought I should let up a little on the no sugar thing and let her taste her creation. She really enjoyed herself!

Photo Shoot

Marcus' friend and boss Stuart, let Marcus borrow some of his camera lenses and other cool gear over the weekend. Marcus had a fun time playing with new techniques while Arli graciously modeled for him. I'm so glad Marcus has taken an interest in learning more about photography. I love having a variety of artistic pictures of Arlington but I'm not a very artistic person when it comes to photography. I'm much more of a point and shoot type of person. Here are a few of my favorites:

Once there was a Snowman...

I know that we've had several inches of snow already, but last Saturday was the first time Arli actually got to play in some. She spent a whole 15 minutes helping Marcus build a snowman.
Arli starting out helping her dad but when that got boring she moved on to this:
Then she thought she should at least pretend like she's helping.

At last, the completed snowman!

Boy's Night

I came across this video on our camera. It looks like Marcus and his friends had a good time on their night away from their wives and kids!

Christmas 2007

We had such a great Christmas this year. It was pretty low key, we spent Christmas Eve at Marcus' parents house and Christmas day with my family. Arlington is finally beginning to understand the present thing, she still had a hard time unwrapping all of her gifts first THEN playing with them. She loved her play kitchen and hasn't stopped playing with it since! Arli received so many domestic gifts this year. Before we had Arlington I was going to make sure that I didn't buy too many "girly" toys for her. I wanted to make sure she still played with plenty of "boy" toys . I've realized that she likes some "boy" things but REALLY loves all things "girl". Oh well I tried, hopefully next year I can encourage her to play with trains, or trucks or guns( just kidding)!

Christmas Traditions

This is actually the first year we've made gingerbread houses, so it's not exactly a Christmas tradition yet. My sister in law came up with the idea, she thought we should try to make real gingerbread for our houses. It was surprisingly easy, somewhat time consuming but worth it in the end. We had so much fun decorating the houses, thanks to my sister in law for such a great idea!

Arli had a good time just sitting and watching ( well most of the time). Her cousin Ryleigh did a great job at taking care of her!

A visit with Santa

I was so sure that Arli was going to flip out when she met Santa Clause. But to my surprise she actually sat on his lap, she barely moved a muscle but she did sit on his lap! He was however, a very good Santa Clause, real beard and all. Santa probably asked her about 4 times if she wanted a baby doll for Christmas, but all Arli could do was stare at his beard. Finally after the 4th time of asking she quickly said "Yes" and lunged for me! I think she would have said yes to just about any toy at that point!

This is the only picture we could get without her staring at his beard. And isn't he a cute Santa!