Instagram Holiday

I used instagram a little more than usual over the holidays and think I'd like to have these photos on the blog for if I ever get my act together and have it printed into a book.

This little deer head (from Target) was a new decoration I added this year. I'll probably leave him out year round, or at least for the fall/winter. He'd look cute with some valentine hearts strung across his antlers too.

Grant got even more mobile at the end of November and really started exploring the house. He hasn't stopped since. This was the first time I found him playing with the girls' play kitchen. He was pretty proud of himself and still likes to throw all of the food out of the cupboards almost every day.

A man from the maintenance office came to power-wash our fence. It took him a couple of days. Grant kept crawling over to the windows to check on him.

Grant climbed the stairs for the first time. This was December 6th. He is so proud of himself when we let him climb all the way to the top.

The girls play REALLY well together most of the time now that Paige is in school all day and they see less of each other. They make up elaborate scenarios and could play make-believe all day. In this picture Paige was pretending Claire was her grandmother and pushed her around in her "wheelchair". Claire also had a broken arm. The cast is a fabric "cutting board" that goes to the play kitchen. I love the voices they use and the things they say when they role play. They're hilarious.

We put out a snow-village this year. It was a little pitiful looking with only 3 buildings so Paige and I picked out another one online. I think we might make that a new yearly tradition. When I was putting out our new mill I knocked the newlyweds and their horse drawn carriage onto the floor, breaking it in 4 places. My aunt and uncle gave that to us the first Christmas Ben and I were married. Paige was very upset with me for being so careless. I was upset too, but it made me laugh when she scolded me so harshly. We got it put back together with some super glue and she has since forgiven me.

Claire has gotten to the age were she can't always fall asleep for her afternoon nap. I almost always insist that she try to take a nap and I'd say that she falls asleep 75% of the time. She was playing so happily one afternoon that I decided to pass on naptime. About 45 minutes later I found her like this. She passed out right in the middle of making me a gourmet meal.

Paige wrote some sweet cards to her teacher and teacher's aide to go along with the gingerbread houses we gave them. The wording is all Paige. I did spell some words out for her and tried to show her proper formatting. I love these sweet hand written notes. She makes them for me or Ben almost daily.

Santa came Christmas Eve. I love this picture.

We drove up to Michigan the day after Christmas to spend a week with Ben's side. Of course there had to be a crazy storm that day. The storm ran north-south from Louisville to Michigan and was exactly the route we were going.  Our 6 hour drive took 12 hours.

Here are all the Reed cousins at the end of December. They had a lot of fun playing together that week.

The End.