In all the Christmas frenzy, I received a little gift that was truly amazing. At the same time, my two little girls took a nap (a very rare occasion for Jena) the day before we were heading off for our Christmas vacation. Oh, what a blessing!
A close up, since Jena wasn't very visible in the fist photo.
I know we are quite behind updating our blog, but hopefully we can catch up in the next week or so.
Most of the time we seem to follow after our kids cleaning up one disaster after the next. It almost seems as if they don't even notice the difference between a room that is a mess and one that is cleaned up. But with the many chores around the house, these two little girls have a few things they love to help doing. Jena loves to help clean the fish tank. She will hold the siphon tube as the gunk is being removed, hold the hose as new water is being filled into the bucket and use her little cup to refill the tank. She enjoys it so much that she even gets upset when we clean it without her. Taylor's favorite chore to help with is to push the wet clothes into the dryer. She will stand right next to me awaiting each wet item. She also loves when I say "push, push push" and she will try to repeat it back as she laughs. During those days when it seems like our biggest parental job is as a cleanup crew we just think of those cute little moments when our two little girls are just as excited to help as they are to make a mess. 
After some candy bribery Jena finally let me put a barrette in her hair. We thought she looked so adorable. She pranced around for awhile and even agreed that it was cute in the mirror. But after a little more time had passed, she was done letting mom dress her up.
This year my dad picked out the girls Halloween costumes... Jena was a rose and Taylor went as a Stargazer Lilly. They looked so sweet as they ran house to house in search of candy (or at least Jena ran house to house). This was the first year we did more trick or treating than the trunk or treat at our church. There is an area near us that seems to be the Halloween hub. Everyone fully decorates their homes and I heard that some spend up to $500 in candy (it's good we don't live on that street). We figured we had to check it. We were amazed with all the lights, decorations, police on horseback and the amount of people that were everywhere. One house was decorated to look as if it was an Old Western Saloon. You could barely see the house in the background. Others had spooky scenes from movies, but I couldn't tell you which ones (even not so scary movies are scary to me). Taylor just looked around with amazement at the commotion as Jena followed the crowds of people up to each house. On a quieter street Jena knocked on a door and after a fast "trick or treat" she said "where's the candy!" I guess she got the point of what the whole dressing up, decorating and running around was really about the CANDY!
