Deck the Halls

After Thanksgiving was over we pulled out the decorations to get our house ready for Christmas.

The kids got a Little People Santa set with 9 reindeer.  It is set up right next to the Little People Nativity set, so sometimes we see Santa and the reindeer making visits to the stable.  Brigham spends a good amount of time each day rearranging the nativity animals and making the reindeer fly around with Santa's sleigh.  He has learned how to say Baby Jesus and Santa and loves to point them out when he sees them.

I was a little worried about Lexi pulling on the Christmas tree and trying to eat it, but no major accidents yet. She was pretty excited to help decorate the tree, or at least she was excited to taste all the ornaments she could get her hands on.

Brigham was super excited about decorating the tree.  He got so excited as we pulled out all the ornaments and he got to help put them on the tree.  He even appreciated the ones Aaron made as a young child and proudly hangs in a prominent spot on the tree each year. He has gotten a little too excited at times, and we have already had to use the super glue a few times.  He had an accident that decapitated Mickey, Minnie, and Daisy while driving Mickey's clubhouse car ornament.

In other news, this cute girl is crawling all over the place.  I can't believe how fast she is learning new things.  It seems she went from barely balancing in a sitting position to crawling, climbing, and standing  on everything within a few days.  She can pull herself up to standing, but doesn't know how to get down yet.  She likes to crawl and play under the kitchen table until she gets stuck and struggles to find a way out.  Her favorite place to be is wherever her brother is.  She loves to follow him around pretty much all day long.  Her eyes light up when she sees him in the morning or after naps.  She sure does love him, a lot.

The little man has learned the alphabet and loves to point out letters wherever he sees them (team logos on sports center, t-shirts, tires, books, puzzles).  I'm still not entirely sure where he started learning these.  Maybe the fisher-price alphabet zoo?  Occasionally watching episodes of Super Why?  Preschool Monkey Lunchbox app?  I hadn't really thought to start teaching him his letters.  I was more focused on trying to teach him to share and say understandable words.  But one day in the bathtub he just started holding up foam letters and telling me what some of them were.  After that we practiced more during tub time and while he did his puzzles and he now can name all the letters.  He loves to do his "ABCs" and listen to the ABC song.

These two kids love it when dad comes home.  Brigham usually runs to find a hiding place so that dad will come looking for him and then they do a bit of tickling, hugging, and wrestling.  Lexi saves some of her best smiles and laughs for dad.