Hair Cut

Something about this little girls hair combined with winter EQUALS STATIC!! I would fix her hair in the morning, and then seconds later it would all go out the window. Inevitably one elasticed pig tail would stay half way in while the other would be slipped completely out with every possible hair standing on end. I was starting to feel guilty that she always looked like I just pulled her out of bed. Thank you to everyone who went before me, brave enough to cut your little girls hair and then post pictures of how adorable they were in the end. I am in love with Gwen's new little bob. And maybe even more in love with the fact that I didn't have to do a thing to it this morning and it looked perfect!

New Hampshire

So, I have had a few people ask me how my birthday was. And I have to say it was awful, just awful. I was sick...flat on my back with the worst flu I have had in years. I was in a terrible mood and completely bummed. I LOVE my birthday and I was ticked. {It was only made better by all of my family who called me, my great friends who helped me out a ton by picking up Liv from School, bringing me saltines, gatorade and lunchables for my kids, etc., and Brad who always tries to make a huge deal out of my birthday.} Luckily, my birthday weekend pulled through for me. Brad and I took the girls down to New Hampshire {where we were supposed to meet the Plachinta's, but ended up missing them =0( }. We spent our time, swimming in the indoor 85 degree pool and 104 degree hot tub, eating a lot of Thai food, and snow shoeing. We got Liv her own snow shoes this year {she is too grown up to be pulled in the sled by Brad}, and she was a natural. We had a blast (even though it was cold...brrrr). I really love being out in nature, and I'm glad we have ways to enjoy it on cold snowy days. There is something so peaceful about the snow fallen trees. Love it =0).

Just so you understand these pictures a little better, The trail we went on was an integrated fitness trail, it had all sorts of things for people to stop and do, like pull ups and stretches, etc. And the last picture is the only one I am in....It's just Liv holding my hand. I love that sweet girl.

Sledding Fun

Liv had been begging to go sledding forever and the weather never permitted it on a day we could take her. Finally, the Saturday after Christmas we planned to go. It was supposed to be in the mid 40s and possibly rainy, but we were optomistic. Well, Liv woke up early at 5:45, and Brad was already up. He got her all ready in her snow gear and took her outside to shovel the driveway with him (she was stoked to get to use the new little snow shovel she got from Santa). Then, somewhere around 6:15 I was all wrapped up warmly under my covers.....in that great state where you are half sleeping and half awake, enjoying bed and knowing that you don't have to be awake yet. Brad came rushing into the room to say, "Hey Bets, um.... the weather is perfect and Liv and I are already dressed in our snow clothes....you want to go sledding right now??" This is one of my favorite things about Brad, He can be so fun. I hopped out of bed, we woke up Gwen. I got dressed as he got her dressed, and we headed out for a morning of sledding fun. The weather was perfect and the girls LOVED it. Luckily we took the chance when we could, because just as we left it started raining and we never would have been able to go that day.
This is a view of where we were. It is a park just by the river. So, just beyond our car drops down to the river and then what you can see is our quaint old down town on the other side.

Merry Merry Merry Christmas

The Christmas of 2008 is going down in my history book as one of my favorites. Having 2 girls ages 4 and 2 has made it all magical. Our girls made every aspect of the Christmas season exciting. One of my favorite things was their reaction to our overzealous Christmas light loving neighbor's yards. It almost made me want an inflatable snow globe on my own lawn =0)!

Christmas morning was simple, and exciting. Liv woke up first at 6:45, and came in to tell Brad and I it was Christmas. Gwen woke up shortly after and she and Liv played with their unwrapped gifts from Santa while Brad made us a scrumptious breakfast of eggs and bacon.

Then we took our time opening presents, playing with what we opened for a while and then moving on to the next.

The girls were the most excited about their Barbies that they got from Santa.

Christmas eve was a blast. We started out with an nice Christmas Eve dinner of the traditional Fish Chowder at Brad's parent's house. Liv helped Nana make bread, The top picture is of our families Ginger bread house in the ginger bread village. Liv did a lot of the designing herself. She is really into patterns lately (ever since she started preschool this fall) and she was pretty happy about the pattern in the roof edge. After dinner we went to our house for our annual Rand Family Follies. I love that Brad grew up having this same sort of tradition that my family always had. We had Brad's family over and our friends the Hymas' too. We had a great talent show/extravaganza, complete with magic tricks, funny faces, singing, kazooing, Reindeer games, word scrambles, a pipe bell chorus, a live nativity and YUMMY desserts. Brad and I made our own set of pipe chimes for our "talent" this year. Everyone participated as we sang Christmas carols and accompanied ourselves on the bells. Liv performed a great card trick and a disapearing trick, where she took a necklace, showed it to all of us, had us close our eyes, and when we opened them the necklace was out of sight.....pretty tricky! And Gwen performed her funny face for everyone.