Snow fun

The girls have had tons of fun in all the snow that we have had.  Sarah looks adorable in the new snow suit that she got from Grandma for Christmas:

 The girls even went for a snow covered swing on their swing set:

 Both girls learned how to make snow angels; Sarah seemed to enjoy lying in the snow:

 

 Emma certainly enjoyed making them; she did a number of them in our yard:

We took Emma to the sledding hill for the first time (it is just an overflow area that is a few blocks from us); turns out Emma absolutely LOVES sledding:

Even Sarah got a turn on the sled (though she had to be helped by mommy). Sarah was mostly unimpressed:

Christmas Day

We celebrated Christmas Day at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Emma and Sarah looked adorable in their outfits!

Later on, everybody tried on a mustache.  Here are the girls, impersonating bandits:

(The family picture where everybody has a mustache or something even worse on has been removed by request.)

Christmas Eve

We went to our Aunt Ginny and Uncle Dan's house for Christmas Eve.  The girls got to meet Santa!

We also had the chance to take a family photo where we WEREN'T in our pajamas!

Opening presents

We opened presents with our Chicago relatives a couple days before Christmas, and had a great time.

Sarah is a big fan of opening presents, though she has to be forced to try some of them on:

Emma is an old pro at this point.

 We had a lot of chances to get Sarah to pose, as a Christmas present and also with her Aunt Christie:

And we took the opportunity to get a family picture, with the newest member of the O'Shea family: a floating killer whale (one of Uncle Scott's more awesome Christmas presents to the kids).

Cousins

Emma and Sarah finally got to meet their newest cousin, Kayla.  Emma loved holding Kayla.  Kayla and Sarah just seemed to want out:

Legos Galore!

While in Chicago for Christmas, we took the girls to Legoland again.  Emma had even more fun this time with the legos.  Here she is building a reindeer for the Winter scene:

 Riding the bicycle planes with daddy:

 Building a huge tower (maybe daddy helped a little) on the earthquake table:

Here she is testing out the durability of her tower (turns out it had to go back to the drawing board):

And building a massive car to try and race (it mostly fell apart on the way down):

Emma seemed to be having so much fun, even Sarah wanted in on the action:

She seemed a little surprised when she reached a bit too far:

Merry Christmas 1

We had Christmas morning a few days early (okay, so it was a week) because we will not be here for Christmas.  The kids had a great time seeing what Santa brought:

Here is Sarah actually opening her own present (Emma didn't give her many opportunities to do so):

 Here is Sarah enjoying one of her books (not so much in the traditional sense of reading it) that her sister was kind enough to open for her:

 Here is Sarah wearing daddy's new hat (daddy obviously has a very big head):

 Here is Emma enjoying one of her new Clifford books:

Here is Emma using her new magic wand on her sister (if you don't look at the screen while she does it, the magic trick even works):

 Daddy, Sarah and Emma enjoying opening presents:

 Emma with all of her loot:

 Sarah with her loot (she was really more interested in her bottle):

 And the Mickey Mouse Gingerbread house that Emma and daddy made (Emma couldn't wait to get into this present):

Happy Chanukah Part 2

We finished celebrating Chanukah on Saturday night with Mimi and Papa.

Here is Emma with the stacks of gifts:

Emma and Sarah opening:

Sarah "enjoying" one of her new books:

Emma expressing shock over receiving a box:

Emma holding all of her loot:

Opening all of those presents was hard work.  Mimi, Papa and Emma had to take a nap on her freshly built "boat" on the floor:

Three sleeping bumps on a log:

Dance recital

Emma had her first dance recital tonight.  It was the cutest thing we have ever seen.  Here are her pictures of her costume. 

Here are her dances (Emma is in the front row, far right side):

Playing fun

Sarah got a wonderful activity garden to play (or be contained in) for Chanukah last weekend.  She loves to play in it; however, so does Emma, who has taken to crowding the space:

Sarah has also discovered the fun of playing peek-a-boo.  If you are really lucky, you get a good belly laugh from her.  Here is her enjoying a game with daddy, which provided only mild amusement this round (daddy will have to work on his peek-a-book playing to get those good belly laughs):

6 month check up

Sarah went for her 6 month check up earlier this week (mommy is slow in posting).  Sarah is doing great. She weighs 16 1/2 pounds, is 25 3/4 inches tall (almost 2 inches taller than Emma at the same age) and has a 17.2 inch head.  She is in the 50% across the board.

Cute

Emma is obsessed lately with all things that belong to Sarah, including the crib:

Local holiday fun

We took the girls to some local holiday events over the weekend.  The Festival of Trees was mostly boring, but Emma got to see some great friends:

 Then we went to the zoo and saw the light decorations.  Emma loved all the lights, but loved decorating her own Christmas cookie even better:

Happy Chanukah (Part 1)

Chanukah started on Saturday night. And Mimi and Papa came over on Sunday to start celebrating.  Here is Emma opening some gifts:

Sarah opening some of hers:

Emma learning to use her new reading pen with Papa:

Sarah playing with her new Disney train:

Sarah with her new ball popper:

Emma helping Papa put together Sarah's new activity garden:

Thanks for coming and celebrating and for the great presents Mimi and Papa!