HELP!(ers)

I love our 2 little helpers. I'm all for letting them help out in most tasks or chores around the house. It sometimes, OK, almost always, makes my job 100 times more difficult, but it is always worth it. Life lessons are being taught here people! And more often than not, I can be very patient.

Yesterday we made our first batch of Christmas cookies. I can honestly say my cookies have never been decorated like these ones before. We had a ball. (And I reminded myself of that fact about million times as I cleaned up the gigantic mess!)

Santa + Fire Trucks

This week our city had several open houses at local fire stations. With Santa too. Ummmmm...could this event be more perfect for our family??? Oh, we sure talk a lot about Santa around here. We've even had the opportunity to see him a few times. (Though there were some tears involved.) We are quite fascinated with that jolly dude though so we keep on trying.

But FIRE TRUCKS, did someone say FIRE TRUCKS? We're there.

Those firemen were super-nice. The kids got to 'drive' the big trucks and crawl all around inside of them. Those friendly firemen didn't even care about the candy-cane sticky fingers. So much fun. Such good memories.

Now I am trying to convince Brian to be a fireman. (Maybe I should chat with Santa.) Because HELLO the uniforms. Too much information. Nah, we're all friends here right?!?!

Traditions

Christmas traditions are the bomb dot com. Brian and I are having a lot of fun creating Swisher family traditions. Of course we made the paper-chain countdown. Do the kids know what the heck they are counting the days for??? Probably not. But they do enjoy ripping a link off every night.


One fun thing we are trying this year is a Book-Advent thingy. (Feel free to quote me on that one.) I got the idea from another blog and loved it. You see, as a former Kindergarten teacher, I have tons of books just waiting to be read by these 2. (Organized by themes, holidays and seasons of course.) Anyway, I used 22 books I already had and added a couple of new ones to the mix. I wrapped them all and put them on display. Each night the twins choose one and we read it together before bed. They love this!



I plan on using the same books from year to year, but the surprise will be which one they get every night.


I heart books.

A Year Ago

Man, oh, man does time fly when a.) you're having fun, b.) you're a parent, c.) you have TWINS or D.) all of the above. Here is a little video from 1 year ago. It's nothing special. It just shows how much these guys have grown in the past 12. (Months, that is.)

Oh and by the way, you might wanna turn your volume down a bit. My usual 'shrill' voice, (according to my own mother), is extra-annoying in this video.

Enjoy!

O Christmas Tree

While we were in Cali, we went to the foothills and chopped down a tree for my parents. So when we returned home, I was satisfied that our regular tree-cutting-down tradition had been met.

So we went a simpler route this year.
Bring it Ace Hardware!


This certainly helped make the decision.


The selection committee.



The ride home.

Cali Thanksgiving

We had a blast in California for the Thanksgiving week. The much-hyped airport security drama was pretty much non-existent. The twins are super-travelers. We decided to skip bringing the stroller this time. One less (huge) item we only use in the airport anyways. And then we had a 3 HOUR DELAY. Not awesome. We are happy to report though that these kids maintained their title of 'Best Toddler Travelers' ever. Did you know Seatac had a play area??? Oh yes, we do now!

Family, food, memories and complete disconnection from technology for me all week. That's right folks...no cell phone, texting, Internet, blogging, facebook, twitter or anything. It was pretty cool actually. You should try it!

Most days I think being far away from family is the worst. But after amazing times like the last week, I'm thankful for all of the experiences we get to have because we do live in different places. And that's called half-full people.

Here is a pic from the most amazing California State Train Museum.


Oh yeah, when we came home...this was waiting for us in our backyard. Fantastic!

Enjoy!

Wonder what it is like to be a mama of twins???



(Thanks Christy!)