The girl's got to earn her keep!

We've all taken our turn shoveling this year, even Esme.

And before you call me (Mom!) - yes, it was warm enough for her to be out for 5 minutes without her coat on. And yes, she is wearing a bib.  Don't ask me why.  Apparently, it's important to shovel off the deck immediately after eating! :)

Playskool old school

Several months ago my mom and dad bought a toy for Esme.  Imagine that???  My parents.  Buying a toy.  For Esme.  Anyway, they found an old Playskool school house that was exactly like one I had when I was little.  I guess it was my favorite toy.

We put it on a shelf in the garage because the pieces were a little bit small for Esme at the time.  Who knows?  Technically, they probably still are, but that's another story.

Tonight when we got home, Esme started pointing to the school house and wanted us to get it down for her.  And she started playing with it right away.  She couldn't even wait to get her hat and coat off!  Evidently, this is going to be one of her favorite toys too!

Never Dance Alone...

even if it means you have to dance with a wagon.  Yes, a wagon.

Christmas Day

This morning was much like last night.  Esme isn't quite as much into presents yet as I'm sure she will be in the years to come.  As far as she was concerned, passing out the presents with Papa was the best part of the morning.

Santa brought Esme a Scoot!  I think she's a little too young for it and obviously, it's not the right season for it but look out next summer!  

Daddy also put together the rest of the presents from last night.  Jodie, Steve, Annika and Laurel gave Esme the little dolly that she was in love with.  It also came with a stroller and a crib and a car seat.  She loves them all!

Raggedy Ann and Andy got to ride in the stroller and car seat too.  Thanks Great Grandma Lois!

Mike, Karen and Sam came over for dinner.  There were only a few pictures taken and none of them posed where everyone is looking at the camera.  But look at this picture, can you tell that they're all related???  All three of them have the exact same posture.  I love it!

For dinner Aaron deep fried a turkey.  I had never had that before and it was really good.  And this comes from someone who doesn't like turkey.  Yum!

Thanks everyone for a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

First of all, this year we definitely had a WHITE Christmas!  This is a picture of our deck.

Grandma and Grandpa Sadler made it from North Dakota even in the snow. :)  We spent Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Erntson's house.  We had snacks and played Tripoley until it was time to open presents.

Jodie's "lucky crown"

I was really excited to see how Esme would do when it was time to open presents.  Last year she was a little lot too young to really get Christmas.  This year, I thought she would go crazy with the presents.  Not so much!

She really inspected her first present.

And she was very happy once she opened it.  But then, she easily could have been done!  She just wanted to play with her doll.

I think we should have started early and just had her open one present each day rather than all of them at once.  I think she was a little confused at all the action.  Her other favorite present was a penguin pillow.  No real GREAT pictures of that one, but she did and still does love that penguin!

Annika and Laurel had a good Christmas too.

Annika got a Justin Bieber poster that she was super excited and equally embarrassed about.  She was very excited to have it, but got all giggly and shy when we teased her about it. :)  And of course, we promised to tease her about it often!

At the end of the evening Esme was tired!  Normally bed time is 7:30 and we didn't even start opening presents until 8:30.  She is such a good little girl though, she was fabulous the whole night.  On the way home, she fell asleep in the car with baby.

Merry Christmas to you Esme!  And to all a good night.

Good little shopper

Today we went shopping, getting ready for the big holiday.  Esme doesn't like to sit in the cart very much these days so we've been sometimes having her ride in the cart that has a car in the front for kids.  She seems to like this a lot!

Unfortunately, someone spilled macaroni and cheese in the car and it didn't get cleaned out.  So we had to go for plan B which was to have her push her own Kid Kart!  Boy did she have fun!

Just getting started!

She wanted to stop and put one of everything in her cart.  Good thing she didn't mind when I would take things out and put them back.

I'm not sure what that is, but I am sure we don't need it.

When she got to the milk, she was VERY excited.  She knows the signs for milk, cheese and some other things and now she's also starting to say these words also.  So this is her pointing to the milk and alternating between signing it and saying it.

Milk!

This one?

Happy now that there's milk in my cart!

She actually did pretty well through the whole shopping trip.  About 3/4th of the way through the store, she was getting tired and happily sat in the big cart for the rest of the time we were there.  All and all a successful trip!  

Gleason Farms Christmas Party

This year the Gleason Farms Christmas party was at our house.  Or maybe I should say the Children's Gleason Farms Christmas party.  Remember when we were the kids and we drank ourselves silly and walked home???  My how times have changed.

Now we are responsible adults in charge of shaping little lives.  I don't know about you, but that's scary to me!  Anyway, no pictures of adults as you might imagine, but here are some of the kids.

The newest kid on the block

So serious #1

All smiles!

So serious #2

We really missed Christine and Karen.  Hopefully soon we can all get together!

Merry Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa

My parents were asking what to get Esme for Christmas this year.  She'll get toys for sure.  But she already has a ton of toys and really doesn't need anymore.  Besides, I don't know that even this year that she really "gets" what presents are about.  We have a few presents under the tree and I was nervous that she would try to open them.  Nope, not even once.  They are a little bit bigger presents and she just likes to go over and sit on them.  She just smiles and smiles!  Thank goodness they are sturdy gifts! :)

So anyway, back to my parents present for Esme.  She needed a bookshelf in her room.  There was one that I had been eyeing at Land of Nod.  We already had a credit there, so Grandma and Grandpa just paid the difference and Esme has a new bookshelf.

I guess it was no surprise that it was "some assembly required". 

Esme was a big help in putting the shelf together!

Finally it was finished and in place.  I think it looks great! 

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Oh Tannenbaum!

We got a Christmas Tree!!!

We were going to do an artificial tree.  When my parents came out for Halloween, they brought us a very large tree that they have had for years and they haven't used for awhile because it's so big.  Our plan was to use that one.  So we got out the three boxes and got ready to put it together.  We had all the branches, but no base or center pole!  Turns out there was another box left in New England!!!  Oh no! 

So we decided to go get a real tree.  I was so excited because I haven't had a real tree since I was a little girl.  We went to the Catholic school in town and bought our tree there.

We definitely need a bigger tree skirt, but I think having a real tree is awesome and it smells divine!  Hopefully, this will be a tradition for us!