Ready to Party Like it's 2011!

Tea for Two

At our Christmas Eve dinner at Kam's, Finley finally tried hot tea.  She has had countless tea parties with her tea sets, but I wasn't sure she knew what tea was.  Especially since she often served me "chocolate tea", which honestly, sounds better to me than regular hot tea.  If we ever get some real cold weather, I can serve her some "chocolate tea" (hot chocolate) with marshmallows.  The biggest surprise: she liked hot tea!  She has such strange tastes, it is really funny to watch what she will and won't eat.  She is getting better about trying new foods, but she will spit it out if she does not enjoy it.  And this still includes all green vegetables, which is so frustrating.  As long as she tries it, I am going to be pretty laid back about it.  She eats so much meat, she is just an all protein sort of girl.  She can take down an entire plate full of chicken nuggets, but she will also gobble up chicken marsala.  At our dinner, she also loved super spicy pork dumplings, well, only the pork part, she wanted nothing to do with the dumpling dough.  She ate almost an entire bowl of hot and sour soup and still saved room for chicken and rice.  Toddler moms, when did you stop using a bib?  Finley requests hers, so I figure as long as she is happy wearing it, we will continue to put it on her.

Gymboree Fun

We are back in the swing of things at Gymboree and Finley is loving it, even though it is nearly impossible to catch her smiling with my small camera. I need to bring the big camera to class in order to snap a real time picture. Even when I have it in the Pets and Kids mode, it still has quite a delay on it. Finley is becoming much more adventurous in class. Her favorite things to do are to ride the rocking horse and jump on the trampoline. She is getting to be quite the jumper. They also did a 'skiing' activity this week where she wore felt booties and slide down the slide, she loved it!

Holiday Party

A couple weekends ago, one of Clifton's coworkers had a holiday party.  There was a big jumpy house in the back for all the kids.  Finley avoided it for over an hour, but she once she realized she wanted to play in it, it was near impossible to get her out of it.  We had to tell her that we would go to another jumpy house "later" in order to get her to leave.  She also had some fun times in the wagon with Jahan from playgroup and his sister, Nadia.  There was a jumpy house at Wyatt's birthday party, so our "later" promise was fulfilled.  And it took her over an hour to warm up to the idea.  Let's hope she wants to play at Joe's Pump It Up birthday party straight away!

Christmas Day

Finley started her day so excited to see what Santa had brought her. We started off with a donut breakfast before we hit the presents. Finley got so many neat toys from Santa Claus: a shopping cart, Mickey Mouse sports bottles, wooden train, all sorts of Color Magic books and markers, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse toys, personalized Pooh and Snow White books, a Mickey ornament and the Little People Zoo. She also got a Sock Monkey jack in the box and new fleece dress from Auntie Heather. Aunt Sharon and Uncle Al gave Finley a new keyboard, a stuffed elephant and a Babar book. Grandma adopted Pandu the tiger for Finley at the Houston Zoo and Finley got a new stuffed tiger to play with, along with a magnet and Zoo cup. Finley has a lot of new toys to play with!






Clifton set up a 'store' at our kitchen table for Finley to go shopping with her new shopping cart. It was adorable. Finley had the best Christmas!

Santa Brought the Shopping Cart!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Visions of Sugar Plums....

Visiting with Santa

Once again, it was time to visit the Bass Pro Shops for Finley's free picture with Santa Claus.  She did much better this year, there was no smiling, but there wasn't any crying either.  Let's hope Santa listens and brings Finley a shopping cart, train and baby doll.  Let's take a look back at last year's visit...she sure has grown!

Santa's Happy Helper

Finley has been a super trooper in all the shopping I have been doing lately.  I snapped this picture after a visit to Costco, in which Finley sampled: biscuits, vegetable soup, chocolate cookies, mozzerella sticks, hummus, fudge and tilapia.  No wonder she is smiling.

Santa's House

I got a gingerbread house kit after seeing Sarah's adorable gingerbread house.  I think more icing ended up on Finley and I than on the gingerbread house itself.  We didn't really follow the directions very well, there was up to 4 hours of waiting in between the drying phases.  We gave it a solid 15 minutes and went to town.  Finley had a great time decorating the house and only suck one or two candies.  She did enjoy licking her fingers whenever even a tiny bit of icing got on them.  Finley calls our gingerbread house, "Santa's House."

Playing with Daddy's New Presents

Clifton has gotten two awesome presents from work, an ipad and a Flip Mino HD Camera.  The real beneficiary of his new toys: Miss Finley.  She loves playing different games on the ipad, especially the color match game.  I can only imagine what technology she will have when she starts school.  So, look for more videos of Finley in the future, now that I have a video camera that can fit in my pocket!

Check out Finley's New Ticker

Finley is all set for her second trip to DisneyWorld!  But it will be her first trip with her Daddy.  She is so excited.  She has been very attached to bear friend recently and really wants to take him to Minnie's House in Toon Town.  Toon Town is closing on February 10th, so we will make it just in time for one last visit to Finley's favorite house, thank goodness! At the gym this morning, her caretaker Stacey made her a Minnie crown.  Everytime Finley is at the gym, she and Stacey color a picture of Minnie Mouse together.  She is certainly Minnie obsessed.

Max's Christmas Show

Max's school had a Christmas program starring all the kids in his Mother's Day Out.  Even the littlest ones were part of the show.  Finley and I went to go watch Max.  Max was a lion, but wasn't so keen on wearing his costume.  All the kids were rewarded with cookies and juice boxes after the show.  With that kind of reception, Finley will be attending all of Max's future shows.  Who am I kidding, this is Max, she would be there even if there weren't any cookies or juice boxes.

Happy Birthday, Wyatt!

Wyatt's 2nd birthday party was yesterday, so of course we were at his house to celebrate with him.  Finley has been excited for this party all week.  The party was a trian theme and Wyatt's mom had made the most amazing train cake, complete with edible rocks.  The kids loved it!  Finley picked all the candy off the cake and ate every piece.  They had a bounce house in their backyard and Finley had so much fun jumping with all the kids.   Happy birthday, Wyatt!

Santa Visits Playgroup

Waiting for Santa

Well hello Samantha

It's Santa~ let's all follow him

Jahan loved Santa, Elise was scared of him and Brielle was a little curious...Santa looked just like Daddy!

Izzy thought Santa was pretty darn fantastic.

Finley was excited to see Santa, she wasn't scared at all

And she got a candy cane

All the girls loved their candy canes

What a fun time!

Max wasn't thinking Santa was so fun

Cookie decorating time~





Sandbox time, Brielle's backyard is a toddler's dream.

Max may not like Santa, but he sure loved the chickens

More fun chickens, toddler wonderland

And a tennis court for running

And being toted around