What You'll Find Them Doing These Days.

It's fun to watch what the girls come up with when they play these days. They play so well together for long stretches of time, often I feel like I should stop what I'm doing around the house and interact with what they're doing. Apparently their need for my entertaining them is fading out, because a few times my inviting myself into their play has been received as a total intrusion and interruption. They both stopped dead in their tracks, and whined, "nooooooo, Mommy. Don't come in here."

Okaaaaaaaay. Resume cleaning.

A favorite choice these days: Raid Mommy's closet for high heels and scarves.

I mean, are we serious? 

They also beg me for lipgloss (and they can sense when I try to give them a cheap one I don't care about much), deodorant and for me to curl their hair. 

Alexia has almost officially given up wearing pants entirely. Her outfit of choice? A dress and tights (she'll hardly even wear leggings anymore). Naiya is pretty open to wear anything, but she enjoys picking out her own outfit. Her outfit of choice consists of layering two shirts, whatever pants, leggings or skirt she can find, and her "fun shoes", polka dot flats she received from Grammy for Christmas. One morning I couldn't find her beloved polka dot shoes and when I offered her a different pair of flats, she replied sobbing, "but those aren't fun shoes. I want my polka dot shoes because they're fun." 

And lest you think the girls are the only ones who have any fun, here is Noah's addiction:

Yes, that's toilet paper rolled all the way out from the bathroom. He also has a favorite pastime of sticking his hand and swishing it around in the toilet bowls. I won't even go into the details of all that. But we have a new rule of shutting the bathroom doors in our house. 

Christmas Nutcracker Tea

This year we went on a girls only date to a Christmas Nutcracker Tea hosted at a local hotel. Grammy, the girls and I got all dressed up in our Christmas fancies and ate fancy food, drank fancy tea and hot cocoa with marshmallows, watched fancy ballerinas dance, and endlessly devoured a fancy dessert bar. All doing so with friends! 

The girls were mesmerized with the ballerinas. They were not so mesmerized with the Santa on stage afterward, who served as an obstacle for the girls, who were almost required to take a picture with him before receiving their nutcracker ornament.