Zzzzzz

 Nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby... except two sleeping babies.

Mmm food!

A lot of the time people ask me about Baby Led Weaning. Some people think it's some new-fangled way to transition your baby to eating solid food. Really, it's just coming back to the natural way. To me it just makes sense. Teach a baby to chew before you teach her to swallow. Since we started introducing solid food at 6 months Olivia has shown how much she really loves food. Here are some of her firsts.

 Cantaloupe

 Chicken

 Pizza

 Graham cracker

 

Cuties Oranges

 Pot Roast

Green Beans

Traditions

When I was a kid my grandma had a tradition of making her cookies for the grandkids to frost at Christmas time. Now she lives far away so I was left to carry on that tradition -- with a little twist. This year I invited some friends to join us in a Christmas cookie decorating party.

Avery had so much fun helping me make the cookies to get ready and even more fun at the party. Thanks to my friend Christina for the photos on party day. 

Bye bye pacis

We finally kicked the paci habit for Avery. It's been a long time coming, but we finally bit the bullet and told her they were going bye bye.

For about a week we told her how the Paci Fairy was going to come to our house one night and take the pacis. In return she will leave a present only for big girls. We thought making it like the Tooth Fairy would be more believable.

So last Wednesday night we searched the house and car for all the pacis we could find. She helped me put write a note to the Paci Fairy, put the pacis in a box and tie a ribbon around the box.
 The original plan was to put them next to her bed for the Paci Fairy to come get once she was asleep. Unfortunately when it came time to go to sleep she was hysterical knowing the pacis were right there but she couldn't have them.

Then when she was upset and telling Justin about how she wanted the pacis we decided to make the switch now and tell her the Paci Fairy came while she was out in the living room. Luckily she is young and it worked. The Paci Fairy left Avery a new Dora watch so we put it on and told her when she felt like she wanted a paci to remember she was a big girl and look at her watch. It worked! I threw all the pacis in the trash that night and we have been paci free ever since. 

Olivia meets Santa

I have never been fond of taking my kids to see some smelly old man dressed in a Santa costume who has nothing better to do the other 11 months of the year where he has time to sit all day at the mall for the month of December.

This year the Town of Yountville where Aunt Stacy works had one of the firemen (who happens to be a friend of Aunt Stacy) dress up and arrive at the tree lighting on a fire truck. While he may not be the most "authentic" looking Santa, the girls are young enough still not to notice and knowing the person dressing up made me a little more comfortable with letting my kids sit on Santa's lap.

Unfortunately Avery was not a fan. She wanted nothing to do with Santa other than to wave at him from a distance similar to those enforced by a restraining order. Olivia on the other hand was a ham. She loved his beard and looking at him. She was even accommodating in sitting on his lap for a photo op.