This week was really the kick-off for the holidays. Earlier in the week, on Taliana’s actual 7th birthday, I met the kids and Heather and her parents at the movie theater where they were watching “Arthur Christmas”. Then, on Saturday, it was Winter Wonderland and today, we picked out our holiday tree!
Dylan was eager to set up the Polar Express train way back on Thanksgiving weekend, so that and some of those Holiday village ceramic buildings from Lola were already set up! But, he’s also been eagerly anticipating tree set-up; he’s made a few foam ornaments to hang already and he’s been asking us when we were getting it pretty much all week.
We were super stoked for good weather this year! The kids didn’t even need their jackets and Dylan peeled off his scarf about half-way through the excursion!
This was a huge difference from last year when it was cold and wet and freezing!
Dylan was eager to help, so we let him pull the cart with Auntie Heather. He also talked her ear off with all of his plans….
We were about 45 minutes late leaving home because Dylan wanted to bring his biking gloves (“to protect [his] hands from poky needles”) and we had to dig through stuff to find them. Turns out they came in pretty handy!
Cameron just loves being outside. She had a blast running along the trails!
I just missed this sweet moment where Taliana was adjusting Dylan’s scarf for him. These two are really such good friends to one another. Dylan can barely go a couple of days without seeing her before he starts opining on how much he misses her.
There were some conflicts between Cameron and Dylan as to who got to pull that darn cart. But, Dylan finally gave Cameron a turn. This is not to say he usually has difficulty giving her turns–poor guy is also having to acquiesce to little sister’s demands (yes, demands), so one really can’t blame him for being frustrated about sharing most of the time. It’s tough having a headstrong (and articulate) 2-year old sister! To Dylan, it still feels mostly one-way, although Cameron, with coaxing can actually be pretty good about taking turns as well.
As always, we were the last in our group to find our tree! When we did, Cameron initially couldn’t care less. She found a great stump to plant her rump! Look at how happy she was to find it!
When she heard Tom tell Dylan we found our tree and he needed the cart, Cameron “found” her own tree as well.
It was the perfect size!
Here’s Tom cutting our tree down for us…!
Once we got home, we promptly stuck the tree into the base and the kids sat down to watch the train go ’round.
As you can see, Cameron likes those bear slippers from Papa Willard!
And, she does listen to big bro, you know. He’s her “best” teacher, for sure (for better, for worst!).
Also, she’s sportin’ undies. I had planned to take the big, long Thanksgiving weekend to focus on potty training since we were going to have a stretch of full-time time with her, but then she was sick and I was downed by my tooth, so I kind of gave up on the plan. As luck would have it, though, she decided on her own that she wanted to sit on her potty herself, so she’s been regularly doing so since then.
Like Dylan, she often wakes up totally dry! She takes way more pride in peeing in her potty than Dylan ever did. So far, she’s needed very few incentives to do so…she’ll just grab a book and plop herself on there! Just goes to show: every kid is different.
