Christmas Frolic Downtown

Our friends Joel and Cinthya visited from Honduras, raising funds for their missionary work. Their kids, Linda and Lisa, are the same ages as Gabi and Bella. We enjoyed a day in downtown Little Rock, riding the trolley and touring the Heifer International Village and playing at Peabody Park.

Lisa loved seeing baby Katarina

Lisa and Bella on the trolley

Gabi sightseeing on the trolley

Kati petting one of the Heifer goats

Bella checking out a duck up close

Linda and Gabi at the park

The next day, we went to the Christmas Frolic at the Historic Arkansas Museum downtown. We had gone to the Territorial Fair there in May and enjoyed it.

Katarina and Daddy looking at the pioneer quilts

Katarina playing with old-time blocks

Bella building with Lincoln Logs

Gabi watching the Lionel train -
not quite from pioneer days, but always a hit

Mommy helping Bella walk on stilts

Bella says, "Giddy-up, horsey!"

Gabi tries her hand at rolling the wheel with a stick

And the girls favorite activity of the day:
Dancing with Daddy!

Thankful for Godparents

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Texas. My cousin Mark (with his family) lives in Dallas, and so Mark's sisters Ashley (and family) and Anda came down from Colorado. We look forward to seeing more of them next year when we move to Denver! Ashley and her husband Patrick are Annabelle's godparents. On Monday, we all went to the Dallas Zoo together.

Gabi and Bella measuring themselves at penguin-height

Bella's godmother, Ashley, helps her ride the elephant statue

Bella the monkey

5-month-old Katelyn in the baby front-pack

Cousin Mark helps 16-month-old Lily slide

Gabi petting the goats

3-yr-old Joseph in the goat corral

Bella chasing goats

Gabi caught a lizard!

Giddy-up, turtle!

Gabi and Kätchen take a rest on a bench

We also enjoyed play-time with our cousins at Mark & Liz's house and at Gramma Jane's house. Over the course of the week, we saw two cousins named Katelyn (Ashley's baby is Katarina's age, and on Grampa's side of the family, Jennifer's youngest is Bella's age), a newborn friend Lily and a cousin Lily (Mark's daughter), plus cousin Lily's twin, Hannah, which sounds like Annabelle. Very popular names!

Great-granddad Leo, Gramma Jane, and baby Katarina

Cousins Bella, Katarina, Katelyn, and Gabi

We lunched with Allison and met two-month-old Garrison

Whenever Gabi says her leg hurts, we jokingly offer to cut it off, and she always protests that that would make it hurt more. It never occurred to her that someone might actually need a leg cut off. The girls were a bit unsure of what to think about Great-granddad only having one leg, especially seeing that it doesn't hurt him now. Since returning home, Bella has mentioned on a few different occasions, "Some people have one leg cut off, and some people don't." I laugh at what her teacher must think when she gets reports from the three-year-olds at school!

Great-granddad and Gabi

Of course we watched the Texas versus A&M game on Thanksgiving Day. Uncle Stephen was outnumbered as Gabi and cousin Joseph both sided with Aunt Alicia and Great-Granddad in rooting for the Aggies. Gabi excitedly declared "Look! We have more points!" no matter what was happening on the field at the moment.

Aunt Alicia taught Gabi to say, "Burnt orange?
Who would want to burn their colors? I wouldn't!"

For Bella, the most exciting part of Thanksgiving was seeing her Godmother. I think she considers her own Godmother to be just as magical as Cinderella's fairy godmother!

Bella with her Godmother, Ashley

Gabi playing dominoes

Lolo and Lola joined us in Texas for Thanksgiving Day

Uncle Brian made pizza with the girls

Kati cut her second tooth that week

Gabi reading a book to Uncle Scott and Bella

Sliding down the slide and through the hula hoop with Amy

On Saturday, we met up with my cousin (and Katarina's godmother) Jennifer (and three of her kids) at Chick-fil-A. Jonathan and Gabi were in Stephen & Alicia's wedding two weeks before Bella was born.

Jonathan is five months older than Gabi

Katelyn is just three months older than Annabelle

Katarina with her Godmother Jennifer

Our Three Girls

We are so thankful for our three wonderful girls!

Bella has recently taken to wearing her Cinderella dress and dancing to the song "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. She even goes so far as to declare, "Mommy, I can't go to school today. I need to stay home and practice my dancing!" and she throws a fit whenever she cannot wear her Cinderella dress (although she at least agrees to change clothes for mealtimes to keep it clean). Often "Cinderella Bella" also wears wings so that she can fly. Why not?

Annabelle talks (or sings) non-stop these days. One of Bella's idiosyncratic phrases is to feel me better, as in "I need some medicine to feel my tummy better" or "Ice cream feels me colder." She can spell and write BELLA on her own, and she loves the letter B. When she sings the alphabet, B makes multiple appearances (standing in for P and V and sometimes other rhyming letters). Her pronunciation of words like pajamas and dessert begins with the B phonic. Poor Bella has suffered a dramatic loss in hearing these past few weeks because her ears are full of fluid, but at least she doesn't have an ear infection. Hopefully she'll recover soon.

Although I mentioned in my last post that Katarina finally learned to sleep through the night, we have not had the pleasure of enjoying that new ability; she is cutting her second tooth and waking up frequently. At least she's cute! She is learning to clap her hands, and we started signing with her. She is also able to scoot short distances while sitting on her bum, so greater mobility is not far in her future. Little Kati loves bathtime and laughs when I pour warm water on her.

Gabi recently competed in her First Feis (pronounced "fesh") in Irish dancing, and she won a second-place medal! Congratulations, Gabriella! She is also learning to play the glockenspiel (a German xylophone) at Kindermusik class. She is very social and has invited all the girls in her class to be in "her club." I wonder where she gets these ideas! Here she is with some friends at a pirate birthday party:

The first week of November, one of Gabi's Kindergarten homework assignments was to write a riddle about her favorite animal. She wrote this all by herself. Can you guess what it is?

Teething and Sleeping

You wouldn't expect those two things to go together, but in Kati's case, they do. Kati turned 8 months old on November 2nd, and that was her first night to sleep through the night. (In the few weeks prior, she had slept until 5 AM a couple times, which was also very welcome.) She now sleeps through the night (at least until 5 AM) most nights, although she no longer wants long daytime naps. I'll take that trade-off!

Two days later, we discovered Katarina's first tooth!
Me: "Ouch! Did you just bite me little one? I think you have a tooth... Yep! Hey, Daddy! Come feel the baby's first tooth."
Michael: "I'm not sticking my finger in there. She just bit you!"
Now she's working on her second tooth (the other bottom front tooth).

Kati is eating baby food very well now. She prefers the orange vegetables over the green ones, though - especially sweet potatoes. Yum!

Trick or Treat!

The girls had a fun weekend in their Halloween costumes. First, we went to Boo at the Zoo where we got to ride on some rides and also do a little "trick-or-treating" at booths scattered around the zoo.

The treat bags doubled as funny masks!

Kai-Lan and Rintoo peek around the corner in the hay maze

Rintoo jumps in the inflatable obstacle course

Kai-Lan: "Thank you for my candy!"

Dancing with Daddy

Riding the carousel with Mommy

We also had a neighborhood party, complete with a hayride and a firetruck to climb on!

Daddy and his girls on the hayride

Our cute little Hoho monkey

A lovely Irish lass in front of the fire truck

And of course, on Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with our friends, Preston and Kristin (and bigger sister Nicole).

Pirate Preston poses while Gabi/Kai-Lan gets her candy

Rintoo/Bella and her friend Cinderella/Kristin pick out some goodies

Mommy and Daddy in their Irish-themed Renaissance costumes

When we got back home, the girls enjoyed
handing out candy to trick-or-treaters at our door

Meanwhile, little Hoho played with Rintoo's tail

Happy Halloweeen!