Dear Nana and Pop,
Thank you so much for the AWESOME train set. Yes, we realize you gave it to us about a year ago now, but we FINALLY found the time and energy to seek out a battery. We stumbled upon a shop yesterday while out and about, and Daddy was sure to hit up said venue today after work and came home with the battery in hand. We heart it, and we heart you. :)
Love,
Reese & Emma Grace
Rachel here. We've been taking home preschool pretty easy the last few weeks. Lots of free play, lots of free art, lots of cartoons, lots of relaxation... not so many intentional montessori activities. 
I know Reese will be heading off to Montessori school in a little over a month, and perhaps it's making me want to take it easy... I don't know. Besides Reese doing a couple of Thanksgiving art projects in art class, we didn't do anything Thanksgiving related. :(
We did manage to finally finish our letter 'o'. Lifesaver mints in the shape of 'o', and an octopus... the little suction cup thingies are buttons. We love buttons around these parts.
Bryan was also home most of last week for the holiday and did some baking with the girls.
There are tons of really great Christmas/winter projects I've already found, so hopefully I'll have some great ideas to share. :)
The Christmas tree is up!
I got to pick the very special place for Gpa Jack's Christmas ornament Nana gave Mommy last year. It didn't stay there long though. Emma Grace and I like to pull it off the tree, open it, and look at it... then we put it back somewhere else on the tree. :) 
Christmas decor makes me happy. :)
We stopped in to visit with my broham S.C. Emma Grace loved the joker from afar, but as Mommy got closer all hell (I realize I'm only 3... rest assured such filth doesn't actually come out of my mouth... gasp!) broke loose.
Luckily Mommy came and snagged Emma Grace, so that I could get down to business and discuss my desire for a remote control car. I requested a boat for the bathtub for the little sister.
Yes, Emma Grace cried at the beginning of the train ride as well. She has issues with leaving Mommy's hip... still.Rachel here. Yesterday was the VT vs. UVA game, so Bryan and I dropped the girls off at the grandparentals' house Friday afternoon. They've been gracious enough to watch the girls multiple times this season, so I would be able to go to the games, and it's been awesome. We decided to drop them off early enough to hang out just the two of us and get some things done. We started by getting some holiday shopping done, and then had an early dinner at the Tavern in Abingdon. To say my meal was AMAZEBALLS would be an understatement. I had spinach ravioli with some yummy goodness all over it. I can't even explain it... I even took a bite of B's steak (not a huge fan of steak), and I literally thought I might die from the utter goodness of that badboy. After dinner, we headed to Bristol Motor Speedway to see the Christmas lights.
We drove all around the speedway looking at some pretty impressive light displays.
BUT the most impressive part was being able to drive around the track... holy awesomeness.
Since we had Bryan's dad's truck with us, we ended up getting our Christmas tree and heading home. It was such a great time! We really should do things like this more often. :)
Thursday was Thanksgiving. Happy belated. :) We did three things. Danced like little crazies during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Ate like heffers... this is the sister's first Thanksgiving meal... she hearts cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and long walks on the beach.
And Daddy shopped 'til he dropped. He left the house at 900 pm Thursday night and was nowhere to be found until 630 am Friday morning. This must mean we got some awesome Christmas gifts. ;)
Rachel here. This was our second attempt at our Christmas photo. MUCH better than the first go round. This photo was by far my favorite of the family, but Bryan was disgruntled about his moobies, so it was passed by. 
I got some CUTE pix of the girls as well. I love my camera. The models aren't too shabby either. ;)
Ahem. 6 inches of hair missing from my head that is. You may remember Mommy attempting to cut my hair once before... I was about 16 months old... she opted for a small snip of my bangs and called it a day. Not this time faithful followers... not this time.
I feel and look so grown up!
Rachel here. I decided to get a little ambitious, and I'm so glad that I did because I love the final results! So far I've been able just to find things on Etsy that I think are cute and somewhat mimic them. Here is a bologna sandwich with all the fixins. I saw that someone made some little felt mustard and mayo, but I'll only attempt those after I've completely finished with everything else.
I also made Reese a pb&j option. ;)
Here is my first of God only knows how many donuts. I did have to look online for directions on how to make this bad boy, and it took me quite some time (although, now that I know what I'm doing... they should be easy to crank out), but I think it turned out so great I'd like to run over to D&D right now. :) I'm not that great at the closing seam for these things, so thank god Reese is only 3 and doesn't know any better. :) 
I'll probably continue to work on a few more felt things for her throughout this coming week, and then I think it'll be time to move on, but I am having so much fun! If there weren't so many little shops on Etsy, I'd open my own!
Rachel here. How can a child be an absolute angel 98.9% of the time, and a devil child the rest? ;) We love love love our little Emma Grace... so much we could burst.
Today I've decided to definitely put away all of her 12-18 month clothes. It's really just turned into a guessing game about what she'll fit in to and what she won't. That puts her into 18-24 month clothing full time. She wears a size 5 shoe, which I love because I got to dig out all of Reese's old shoes, and there were these adorable little sea foamy green chucks she had... le sigh. She's still in a size 3 diaper during the day and a 4 at bedtime. Em has her 8 front teeth and all 4 of her molars. The last of her molars just popped through in the last few days.
Emma Grace is a super finicky eater these days... really just when it comes down to meat and veggies. She loves loves loves fruits, Reese loves loves loves veggies. Put them together and they're perfect. :) She's a super great sleeper... well except for last night. Oy. Em is also learning to walk up and down the stairs holding on to the railing much to Bryan's dismay. She loves playing with her baby dolls, and anything Reese is currently occupied with. She has definitely turned into Reese's shadow. She is also currently having an intense love affair with everything book. :) SHE LOVES BOOKS.
Language. Her vocabulary has EXPLODED this last month. It's amazing! We can add: gog (dog), she neighs like a horse, no (nose), Hock-b (Hokiebird), car, all gone, duck, hair, eeez (ears), socks, baba (popcorn), nilk (milk), door, ikeem (ice cream), pig, buhby (butterfly), nemon (lemon), pungkin (pumpkin), bug, hungeee (hungry), nahnah (napkin), kiki (cookie), sticky (sticker), boon (spoon), enty (empty), at at (Cat in the Hat), wunch (lunch), yeah, potty, bed (bread), canny (candy), yuck, and ughck (truck... it's hysterical... she says it like she's extremely disgusted) to the list.
She also had a big milestone this month. Not a good milestone by any stretch of the imagination. Last Monday evening we nearly had to call 911. Bryan and I had pizza for dinner, the girls had already eaten. He also got out the chips and salsa to munch on after dinner. We were all hanging out watching tv before the girls were to go to bed. Emma Grace got on her tippy toes and reached for the chips... nothing out of the ordinary... she's sneaky like that. :) Next thing you know she starts to cough... then starts crying... she was trying to get a little chip unstuck from her throat. Bryan and I quickly realized she wasn't going to able to do this on her own. While Bryan was getting her some water, I tried to get it out of her mouth, but her lips turned blue and her face was a horrific shade of purple in no time. I flipped her over on my knees and started to hit her back. Bryan came in grabbed her, and voila... out came the chip, two huge sighs of relief, and a whole lot of tears. It was awful! We felt awful. I quickly gave her a juice box. A real juice box. She recuperated in .5 seconds, and all was right with the world. She'll never remember it, but Bryan and I will remember it until the day we die. Now Reese is afraid everything will make her choke. "Mommy, you have to take the sticker off the banana because actually I will choke." :) Hopefully this month will hold many more milestones/words and fewer accidents. Oy.
Rachel here. We're slowly transforming the dining room back into a dining room, and the play room into Reese's play room w/amazeballs letter art work. :) This week we began by tackling the /j/ sound. I stupidly gave the Jujubees to Josh... argh... he enjoyed them though, so it was hardly horrible. Jelly beans would have been great, but I'm not going to buy a bag of jelly beans just so we can glue them to a letter "j". Luckily Reese was fine with sticking a bunch of "j" stickers to the letter. :) She also made an ADORABLE jellyfish.
Tuesday was /k/. Krispies (Rice Krispies... lame I know... but we're going for frugality here people) and kites.
Emma Grace insisted on participating, so she used some of the scraps from Reese's kite. I'm so glad I got a picture of her little collage because she definitely took it all apart when she was done. :) 
Today was the /n/ sound. Noodles and numbers. 
These types of things really wig my brother out. He thinks there is something seriously wrong with "babies taking care of babies." I'm willing to bet he has nightmares. :) 
This puzzle was too difficult for Reese, so I had to do the outer pieces and let her fill it in.
Emma is learning more and more how to do her nesting toys correctly.
There was some paint time.
Which promptly resulted in a bath. :)
Reese's idea of cup stacking.
And her working on a top secret Christmas gifts for her friends. Shhhh....
Crayons and play doh... throw these two things in with books, and you have the three things Emma Grace would take with her if she were stranded on a desert island. ;)
I learned Reese loves for Josh Groban.
Random dance party per the refrigerator farm animal matching toy... (My dearest Shelby... I love pressing the dance party button just like you... easily my favorite thing to do all day... love Emma Grace.).
Lots of sensory activities this week. I moved the Fall collage out of the dining room (as I'm clearing out all of the preschool stuff hopefully in time for the holidays) and put it on the sliding glass door in the play room. I caught the girls rubbing it the other day. Exactly what I wanted them to do with it.
Emma Grace chose to pour out her snack all over the table. She then started to feel it and swish it all over the place. HUGE mess, but what's a day without a mess around these parts?
Reese worked on some alphabet matching. She had to match her animal letter to the book letter. Very simple considering the letter was marked on the animal. I just gave her the basket, and she seemed to know what to do immediately.
Of course our little shadow of a child had to play too, so I gave her the animals and books that Reese hasn't done yet, and she played her own game. :) She clapped every time she put an animal on a book... it was really sweet.
