Elly and Gigi Cruisin' in the Jeep

Elly's cousin, Gigi, is just a few months older than Elly.  They had a blast playing together over Christmas.  My parents have this kiddie Jeep and big lot to drive it around on.  Gigi loved driving, and Elly hated it.  She only wanted to ride while Gigi drove.  Win-win.

Elly - Just Dance 2

My brother's kids have this game for the Wii called Just Dance 2.  It's hilarious.  You just hold the Wii controller and mimic the dancing figure on the screen.  We played it over Christmas.  Elly is pretty awesome at it:

Miles Loves: Mima and Food

Miles loves to eat.  I mean, really really loves to eat.  One night at my parents' house he got to stay up late, so he was eating of course.  You can see how tired he was.  But he powered through it in order to stuff his face with chips.  He also took a momentary break from eating to give Mima a kiss.

Princesses Elly and Gigi

We celebrated Christmas at my parents' place in California.  All my siblings live there, so we got to see everyone.  It was great.  Elly got to play with her cousins, including Gigi, who is only a few months older than Elly.  Their favorite thing to do?  Dress up like princesses of course!  They were doing ballet to the music, and then I guess they got tired because they ended up on the floor like this:

Snippets of Christmas

At Mima's house in California taking care of her new baby:


At Grandma Anderson's playing with the blocks and the chicken cheer at K-ma's:


Sledding in K-ma's backyard and learning to spell:

Christmas!!!

On Christmas Eve, we spent the night at Brandon's parent's house to be closer to the family and so that we didn't have to go all the way home when Elly needed to go to bed and miss out on all the fun. It was fun, too! I especially liked the Canasta and the non-stop snacking on whatever treats were currently on the kitchen counter (it was like magic, when some got eaten, they were replaced with different ones almost immediately).

Elly got these two awesome gifts from her parents and Santa Claus- a shopping cart with play food and a play vacuum.


For some reason, she wanted to play with both at the same time. She was doing a pretty good job handling them both when a cousin came and took the vacuum...


Then, she had this face for a while:


Actually, in the end- she didn't mind sharing at all. It was an excellent Christmas!