Life with the Grieffs: Winter post

Oh how pathetic, I am grouping several months together now!? I will try to update us to right before our trip to IL.

Ella loves to climb.

Eva really loves snuggling with the kitties. She actually sleeps with Jinxy every single night, but Mr. B gets her love during the day. She likes to swaddle them in blankets and attempt to carry them around (she is getting closer to being successful with this)

This one seems to be favoring her right hand. She tries so hard to be like big sissy.

Eva is very into drawing details right now, especially eye balls and ears (which are just lines on the side of the heads)

Ella started walking in early November...

Shocker, Eva is sneaking make-up!

Listen for Eva at the end say, "I'm a rockstar". She is such a character!

I had every intention of sending out Christmas cards. They were going to say, "Merry Christmas tutu all and tutu all a good night" (Eli asks if we are ever going to do anything without tutus...I wasn't quite sure how to answer that) But anyway, I just couldn't get my act together. I didn't have a picture I was in love with (though now going through them a month later there are some cute ones!) and I was just too slow to get them ordered with enough time for them to be ready and sent out before our trip to IL, so I just didn't do them...

love this face. so so innocent...so so misleading :)

Why wouldn't she paint her stomach?

Eva cannot go a day without wearing her snow white dress. I used to only let her wear this at home, but fast forward to 2014, we have not gone one day without dressing up as either Belle or Snow White for the majority of the day and I no longer argue, she only wears clothes if we are touring a preschool or going somewhere where I want her to be semi clothed. Otherwise I just don't care enough to fight and make her change. I have a hunch that Eva is slightly attention hungry. She loves all the compliments she gets from random strangers and she closes her eyes and smiles with a very humble face when someone notices her. Sometimes she curtsies. Sometimes she makes a sad face and says her evil stepmother won't let her go to the ball or her stepsisters ripped her gown. She will also emphasize with a hint of annoyance, 'no my PRETEND sisters PRETEND ripped it'. Now don't be confused, but the peacock scarf on her head is her hair, like Rapunzel, and her favorite movie to reenact while in this getup, is Cinderella, where I have to be the evil stepmother or stepsisters. We rarely reenact Snow White because she's only seen it once or twice, but sometimes I have to give her an apple (real or pretend depending on her demands) and then she faints and I have to kiss her. I've tested it before to see if I can get anything done around the house while she pretends to be dead, but usually she calls me back in within a minute or two.

We went to Flagstaff/Williams AZ for a Polar Express ride. It was magical. It started snowing a few days before our trip, which was so perfect, so we packed all of our snow gear. We drove 3 hours (planned perfectly during Ella's nap time, so she'd nap the entire ride up). However she didn't nap a wink until we were 2 minutes from our destination :) We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and then took the snowy drive to Williams, about 45 mins away. The Polar Express train is the Grand Canyon railroad, but for the Polar Express it does not go all the way to the Grand Canyon. When we got to the train station, the wind was whipping so hard and it was snowing, it was insane and actually worse than any weather we had while in IL (and yes I was there for the -45 degree windchill!!). But, fortunately we just bundled up the girls and were only outside for seconds at a time. Best of all, we made it back to the hotel safely (though the roads were terrible! fortunately Eli's IL snow and ice driving hasn't been all lost). The next morning it was PERFECT. Tons of snow, probably low 30's outside and no wind. Eva and Eli played in the snow for literally, hours. At one point Ella and I were back in the room while Eva was out making snow angels and Eli was doing his favorite winter past time ever: shoveling. The hotel managers probably loved him because all of the sidewalks were cleaned off for them.

Relaxing for a few minutes and eating snacks before our drive to Williams.

It's a must to take your picture in front of the Polar Express train, you just have to do it. So this is our picture. They were fast to board us so we were only outside for a minute or two!

All the kids wear their pajamas on the train, just like in the book! Next year Eli and I will too...I'm making him :) Maybe we'll get matching jammies. That would be perfect!

They gave out cookies and hot chocolate just like in the story

The next day we got ready for some snow play!

We saw Santa at the mall, Ella had the classic one year old's reaction. Eva was great, she was very talkative and told him what she wanted (a princess castle where Rapunzel can use her hair to go down from the tower). She told him Ella would probably like a baby. Eva didn't mention anything when Santa brought her a wagon instead of the Rapunzel tower. Fortunately, Nana bought her a similar tower, so Eva didn't seem to notice.

Eva had her dance recital and they danced to shoo fly with all of the 3 year old classes and jingle bell rock with just her class (and half of them were missing!). Sadly, Eva wants to try 'gymnaxtics' now, so we are on a hiatus from dance and we have our first gymnaxtics class on Monday.