Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our family to yours! The kids have enjoyed an extended Halloween season so far. Last Saturday, we went to a local church's Trunk or Treat. This is the church where Cara attends Mother's Day Out, so Cara got to see her teacher and a few classmates there. Her school also had a costume day on Tuesday, and my local playgroup had a Halloween party on Sunday afternoon that all of our family went to and enjoyed. That makes for lots of opportunities to wear their costumes and be photographed! The only problem now is all of this candy in the house that the kids keep begging to eat. And who am I kidding - I keep wanting to eat it, too!

The next few weeks should be very busy, too. Cara and Nora's birthday party is less than 3 weeks away, and they are already very excited and asking about it often. It's hard to believe they are almost 4! They are so grown up and opinionated already. They are very into cars, trains, dinosaurs, and Squinkies. Nora is a huge book lover, and Cara loves arts and crafts. They also love playing with their MegaBloks and Duplos, so maybe they're ready for a real Lego set or two. We'll see! :)

Now on to the part you all care about anyways - pictures! 

Just Dance

I know I've really neglected this blog. Sorry! The girls are growing quickly and are learning so much.

Cara loves dancing when you tell her to dance now. Afterward we always clap and say "good job!" and she claps along with us. She loves dancing on command, although I suspect it's really the attention she enjoys. She will also stomp when asked to stomp. As you may recall from previous posts, Cara's favorite lovey is an Ugly Doll named Babo. She knows him by name and when asked to find Babo, she'll search the room for him and bring him back to me. I can't believe she understands as much language as she does.

Nora has started clapping, and she loves dancing anytime music is playing. She loves catching things rolled to her now, and she's actually pretty darn good at it! She definitely didn't get any athletic ability from me. Nora loves playing peekaboo and has started holding things up in front of her face to hide. We have a plastic pasta strainer that lives in the toy bins in the living room, and Nora will hold it up in front of her face, then peek around. She could play peekaboo for hours, I'm sure. She can throw some truly epic tantrums, but I try not to remember those...

We had a pretty rough Christmas, and spent the holiday snowed in at a hotel in Wichita Falls. It didn't really go as planned and unfortunately Cara and Nora didn't get to spend much time at all with their great grandmas, but they did get some great presents and are enjoying those daily. Here are the girls hanging out in the hotel on Christmas Eve:


And here are a few Christmas photos we had taken by a photographer friend:






Both girls are walking now:




Cara has been walking for months, but Nora just within the past few weeks has started walking a lot. She can make it across a room now.

Don't worry - I haven't forgotten about their birthday from November! I do have pictures that I'll upload at some point in the future... hopefully sooner. We'll see. Cara has an ear infection and Nora has a sinus infection, so they've been pretty unhappy, clingy little babies lately.

The Hour of Separation

The girls have definitely begun experiencing separation anxiety lately, although it has hit Nora harder than Cara. I have to admit it's sweet seeing how excited they are to see me again or to see Kirby when he gets home from work, but... all the crying and meltdowns are a little annoying. Nora has started having all sorts of issues going to sleep at night when I leave the room. She's fine at naps, but for some reason, she won't sleep at night. Hopefully this phase passes quickly because let me tell you, she has one LOUD piercing cry.

Both girls are currently sick with colds, I think, which has made our week so far pretty miserable. They both have the sniffles and are running fevers, and boy do they get upset when a stuffy nose interferes with eating or their pacifiers. They got to meet my grandma and uncle Pat for the first time on Saturday, though, which was fun. I'll have pictures of the weekend soon, but for now, here are a few semi-recent ones: