The 12 Days of Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Below are pictures, and three videos, of the past couple weeks from our main camera -- I will have more later this week from my camera phone, too, which includes a couple of pictures from Finley's first haircut -- which really only involved a bit off her bangs and a bit off of the back. Still, for a child that had more hair at birth than I do now, it was still a haircut.

Anyhow, over the past few weeks, we've had Shelley's dad, Steve, here, gone back to Des Moines to see family, celebrated Christmas, and had our first major snow fall. All will be captured below, but since this blog is a bit of a pain when it comes to posting pictures, they aren't entirely in a chronological order. Here goes:


Finley getting ready for the the first snow in her pretty new pink boots and snowpants. As you'll hear in the video, she REFUSES to wear a hat or gloves, so her hands get like ice.

This was by about 3:00 Christmas day. Finley, on the other hand, was still hopped up like she washed down two tablets of speed with a large Red Bull.

A picture from a couple of weeks ago, but Daddy and his girls . . . but Jack refused to be left out!

We've been hearing that the dogs haven't been getting enough airtime, so by popular demand, a canine trilogy. If pictures had captions, Monty's would be, "Wake me when this is over . . . or there are snacks."

"Really? I thought these got lost in the move."

"Maybe living on the streets of Nashville wasn't so bad. I thought after we didn't have costumes for Halloween, we were in the clear."

Again, Finley HATES anything on her head -- she has snow caps, Cubs hats (save it Cardinal fans), but she will not wear any of them. However, once she saw the dogs wearing them for pictures, she allowed one picture to be taken . . . then she threw it on the floor. Models!

Grandpa Steve was in town and he, too, learned how much Finley loves to read the same books over and over and over and over again.

When we were back in Iowa, we got to go the Helbling/Weinstein family Christmas for the first time since 2006. Finley very much enjoyed her time there -- she keeps asking to open presents when she wakes up every day since Christmas.

While we were at Valley West Mall, Finley saw the choo-choo and had to ride. Of course, not alone, so Mama squeezed into the car as the only adult on the train.

Harper doesn't have as many pictures -- she's at the stage where if you see her in one, she is basically doing the same in all the others, minus a costume change. In this one, I believe she is trying to reach Santa to let him know that perhaps Finley wasn't as good as she might have led him to believe.

Jack gets so tired after the hunt. Jack is resting after tearing the stuffing out of his Christmas Eve (stuffed) goose.

A cute video above of Finley holding Harper. Two apologies -- first, I am kind of loud and annoying in it. Second, unbeknown to me at the time, Shelley's butt makes a 30 second cameo in the video and we cannot for the life of us figure out what she is doing down there!!

Finley has a bit of Aunt Stephie in her; well, you can watch for yourself her reaction to hair accessories.

As you may know, the dogs love the snow. You can watch them play here, plus see Finley freeze because she won't wear her hat or gloves. Also interestingly, despite liking the snow last winter, she FREAKED OUT when we put her down this time. The tears were all but frozen to her face she was so mad. We'll work on that over time.

Please enjoy -- I know there is lots here, but I hope since we weren't with any of you for the holiday, this helps you feel a bit closer to the girls. More to come soon.