Happy Birthday Jesus!

Christmas 2010

Their first look under the tree.

Reading the Christmas story while Claire had a free-for-all with the cinnamon rolls.

Elise was most excited about all the (what she called) "junk" in her stocking.

Sylvie's first stocking.

Rocking horse: $3 at a consignment shop. Red spray paint: $2. Claire's joy: priceless.

Happy girl.

The best toy of the morning was definitely the bag of balls. A few days before Christmas, Toby took Elise to buy Claire a Christmas present. Despite Toby's efforts to redirect her, Elise INSISTED that Claire would really like a bag of one hundred balls. Finally, Toby conceded. Turns out Elise was right. The girls had a blast throwing the balls around the house. It was a hit!

Another hit, of course, was Elise's big gift: a set of seven (yes, seven) Disney Princess Barbies.

(Disney Princess + Barbie) x 7 = Elise in a state of bliss

Sylvie's first Christmas tree

Finally! These photos just did not want to post. Sooo many attempts with the same "bad request error" result. But, finally... tonight we have photos of Sylvie's first Christmas tree.

Orchard Mesa Tree Farm

Claire and Elise by our tree. Sylvie sound asleep.

Toby and the older two taking in the sweet scent of pine.

Heading home.

This is how Elise posed when I asked to get a picture of her in front of the tree.

Feasting at Carson and Carol's

I think we were too excited to eat! We didn't bother to pull out our camera until after the feast was over. It was a wonderful spread of food, complete with a 20lb turkey, squash from Carson and Carol's garden, and all the traditional sides. After our meal, we bundled all the (somewhat reluctant) girls and headed out for a walk in the 20 degree weather.

Then it was back to the house for our reward... PIE!

Funny girl Claire spent a good part of the evening walking around in Linnea's sneakers.

Then the adults attempted to play a game while the kids were entertained with movies and toys. By 7pm, our game of Citadels close to finished but not quite, we gave up and declared bedtime the winner. :)

Thanksgiving morning

very thankful for little girls...

Sylvie

Claire

Elise

Linnea

Avery

my girls this week....

We hosted a little playdate this week with a couple of school/church friends. All Elise wanted to play was "Annie." So, for two hours she was in character as Annie (much of that time complete with red dress and wig) while her friends looked at her in amazement. You see... her friends didn't know that movie. They didn't know Daddy Warbucks, Miss Farrell or Sandy. They couldn't figure out why Elise wanted them to clean while she sang "It's a Hard Knock Life" or what she was talking about when she took them "swimming" in Daddy Warbuck's indoor pool. It was too funny. Maybe the next playdate should be a showing of our favorite movie???

Claire - finally healthy after a terrible stomach/throat bug and back to her hilarious self. She is one happy toddler (when in the comfort of her own home) and a joy to watch. Whether she's trying to imitate Elise's dance moves or climb in a box of toys, she provides some wonderful entertainment around here.

New accomplishments for Sylvie (now 6 1/2 weeks old) include the first real smiles (today!) and sleeping through the night! For three nights now she's slept from 8:30pm until 5:00am. Such a good baby girl. We're all in love with her.

the littlest Longs...

sister love

Look at how she's growing!

Our little Cindy Crawford. Just kidding... apparently there was a speck of dust on the lens, which added a sort of beauty mark to Sylvie's upper lip. Oops.

Again, the "beauty mark." I still have "figure out my new camera" on the to-do list.

new glasses

Okay, Elise looks super cute in her new hip frames, but...

I'm not so sure i'm loving how OLD my baby looks!!!