Ice Skating...We Tried!

Well we had this crazy idea that we should introduce Chloe to ice-skating this year (and by the word "we" I mean me, of course--Brian thought it was crazy right from the beginning!), so we actually attempted it for the second time this week. The first time we tried to go to Fountain Square downtown was the same night as the tree lighting, which we thought would be completely dead, but we couldn't even see the square for all the people! Anyway, I thought it would pretty dead on a weekday after Christmas, but of course I was wrong again! After waiting in line for over a half hour (which is enough to do any 2-year old in for sure!), it was finally our turn to go skating. Chloe was very excited about it until she actually tried to stand up in her skates, and then she was even less excited once she and I went on to the ice. In fact, I pretty much had to support her entire body weight the whole time...but as you can tell from where this story is going, our little experiment didn't last too long. As you can see by the look on her face in the last picture, Chloe had her fill in her 20-second introduction to skating! But Drew-Man (his new nickname) sure looked cute in his new winter bear outfit!

Christmas Take Two

Here are some more pictures...this time from Christmas Day. Having a 2-year old in the house is a constant source of entertainment on any given day, and Christmas was no exception--we absolutely never knew what Chloe was going to say next! I think her favorite gift was her special (ie. fake) set of makeup and nail polish that she can use in mommy's bathroom instead of getting into mine all the time (good job, Santa!), and the best part was how she went over to the fireplace, where Santa had left her a thank you note for the cookies, to check her "list" to make sure it was on there! I guess I had said that the makeup kit was on her list to Santa and so she thought that Santa had left the list behind on the hearth....anyway, she had to check her list after every other gift to make sure it was on there! Thankfully, they all were....you know that Santa, he remembers everything! :)

Christmas with the Harves' Family!

There are just too many pictures to choose from to document all the Christmas fun at our house this year...but here are a few of our favorites! From putting the finishing touches (ie. their "handprints") on the gifts that Chloe & Drew made for everyone, to having lots of fun on Christmas Eve listening to Great-Grandpa and Grandpa Creech play music, to opening all the fun gifts from Santa, this certainly was a Christmas that we will never forget. I don't think that Brian and I have ever quite experienced the true magic of the season until we saw it for the first time in Chloe's eyes--the wonder and excitement that she felt was enough for all of us!

Jingle Bells

It's been a lot of fun teaching Chloe all our favorite Christmas songs--here is her version of "Jingle Bells"--her favorite part is saying the "ha ha ha ha"!

Holiday Fun

It is hard to believe that we are this close to Christmas--I realize that I have a lot of blogging to catch up on! December has absolutely flown by for us. The first part of the month we spent passing a cold around to each and every member of the family (oh joys of the season!), and then when we finally felt better we rushed from holiday party to party. We are trying our best to capitalize on this being Chloe's first Christmas of really understanding what the season means. In addition to making out her own list for Santa, she is helping to wrap presents for others and bake cookies for friends. Tonight we went to the zoo and did some of the holiday activities there, which included stories with Mrs. Claus and a visit on Santa's lap (you can see how that went over for yourself!) Of course, Chloe had no problem taking the candy cane from him after she was done throwing a fit on his lap. :)