'Tis better to give...

Anyone who knows me knows I love to buy stuff.  As evidenced by my permanent wardrobe of hoodies and jeans, I have clearly begun to focus my buying power elsewhere.  Enter my kids.  I love any excuse to find them a pretty new hair bow, or a cool toy that I know will capture their imaginations.  But as much as I adore a trip to the toy store, I also want to make sure that my girls know how lucky they are.  I want them to experience the joy in giving, and get just as jazzed about that as they do a new doll.  The Valentine's Day party at Ava's school gave us a great chance to throw a spotlight on the spirit of the gift.

I made a Target run and picked up few little items that I was pretty sure Ava's friends would dig, and the day before the party I set up a little treat-bag assembly line on the dining room table.  Now, I'm no fool; I'm fully aware that my child is 4 and has the corresponding attention span.  So when she said she wanted to help, I expected her to put together 4 or 5, then move on to the next thing that caught her eye.  Instead, she carefully assembled all 23 bags herself, only allowing me to write her name on them.  She inspected each one to make sure no item was missed, remarking how one of her friends would be sad if they didn't get their bubbles. 

When we were done, we celebrated with a few bubbles of our own.

Turns out the spirit of giving is alive and well in the Lundstrom house.

Frosty the Snowman -vs- A Little Taste of Spring

Winter in Denver can be a bit fickle.  Some out there may think our winters are a constant barrage of snow and ice, but very often that isn't the case.  Case in point, this was our girls a couple of weeks ago...

And this was them today...

Ava affectionately dubbed him "Frosty the Snowman". She's pretty insistent that he'll be there forever. I kind of hope she's right.

In case you were wondering, no she did not eat the snowball.

This was the first time Lila had ever worn gloves, and she was pretty excited about what they had to offer.  She walked around with that snowball until Andy brought her inside to thaw out. 

Bring on tomorrow, Denver, whatever the weather.  We love it all.

Home for the Holidays

We decided to switch things up a bit this year.  Rather than staying home for Thanksgiving, we spent a lovely week in Iowa, and spent Christmas here in good ol' Colorado.  We missed the family so much, but made the most of our little homebound holiday.

We spent Christmas Eve making sure everything was ready for Santa and his reindeer.  First up,
baking Santa's cookies.  Ava was pretty sure he wanted them to be pink and purple. 

She decided Santa needed to come into her room to claim his treats.  I told her that if she ate them he wouldn't leave her any presents.  Hey, for all I know that's the truth.

We also had to sprinkle the reindeer food in the yard. 

All that was left was to snuggle into bed, and wait for Christmas morning to arrive.  Santa, as is his way, did not disappoint.

 

 

 

 

Remember the Easy Bake Oven?  Yup, it's still awesome.

Thanks so much to Grandma Sally and Grandpa Mac, Grandma Pat and Papa, Grandpa George and Grandma Raili, Aunt Kristen and Uncle Joel, and Aunt Lisa and Uncle Ryan for all of the wonderful things you sent.  You helped make our little Christmas even more wonderful. 

The Art of Happiness

I know I still have Christmas to get to, but I'd like to take a small detour...

I'm always looking for new ways to exercise my girls' minds and bodies, but I must admit that the art museum seemed like a bit of a stretch for us.  I pictured us walking from room to room, staring at paintings while my kids screamed from sheer boredom.  But when Andy suggested we give it a try, I figured the risk was pretty low.  If the kids went bonkers, we'd just bail. 

And then we walked in. 

We were greeted immediately by a museum volunteer ready to fill us in on all the family-friendly activities the museum had to offer.  We were directed first to a collection of backpacks, each related to an exhibit in the museum, full of coordinating games and art projects.  Ava chose one with animals on the front, and off we went.  Less than 5 minutes later (long before we found our exhibit), we reached our first little child-centric gem.

 

The kids used these blocks to build house after house.  Lila delighted in knocking them down.

 Then we found an Asian inspired dress-up area...

A room dedicated to dressing wooden Spanish dolls..

And another where we got to decorate and build our own crowns and treasure boxes.

Then the girls created (and may have briefly tried to eat) their own magnetic canvas creations.

And that isn't even the half of it.  What a beautiful way to spend a day. 

Here comes Santa Claus

Do you remember the excitement you felt as a child leading up to Christmas?  Writing your letter to Santa, hoping desperately that everything you asked for would fit on his sleigh.  The house filled with the delicious smell of cookies freshly baked.  Trying so very hard to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, despite the butterflies of anticipation fluttering away in your stomach.  For me, one of the beautiful things about parenting is getting to recreate those little bits of magic for my kids...

The letter to Santa.

Dictated by Ava.  Hence the part about the nails.

Decorating the tree(s).

Going out to see the lights.

 And visiting Santa, just to make sure he got that letter we sent.

He actually wrote us back.  Santa is full of surprises.

 I've said it before and I'll say it again: parenthood is awesome.

Escaping the Noise

Life is loud.  Sometimes I want the noise of the world to go away, so that all I can hear is my kids laughing.  I want to see what they discover when there are no toys, or television shows to distract them.  So a few weeks ago we packed everyone into the car, and drove the scant 15 minutes required to get us to a place where that was possible.  You gotta love Colorado.



In my backpack and ready to ride.

Leading the way.

 

Exploring the castle ruins.

It was an amazing day.  My girls are happy in the sunshine, and I love that we live in a place where this is possible.  Here's to many more years of escaping the noise.

Halloween

Halloween is kind of a big deal around here, so I would be remiss if I didn't back up a bit and recap it for you.  Enjoy...

Ava started talking about her costume weeks before the big day, and never once did she waver from her choice: Big Sister was going to be a witch.  She was also insistent that Little Sister be a witch, and since Little Sister can't really voice any objections, it was witch hats all around. 

As usual (since saving all of your trick-or-treating for just one night is for chumps), we got some serious mileage out of those costumes by hitting every Halloween celebration we could find.  The picture above was from downtown Littleton, where Lila racked up some major cute points with her little baby "thank you". 

Ava had not one, but two parties - complete with costume parades - at school.

And we would never miss Boo at the Zoo...

And the big finale, the neighborhood candy-fest on Halloween night.

We had to sub in Ava's old piggy costume thanks to some cold weather.

Lila pretended she was too cold to go out for a second round of trick-or-treating.  I'm pretty sure she just wanted to stay in and raid the candy bowl.

This is quickly shaping up to be one of our favorite holidays.  Hope yours was just as sweet.