Until Next Year...

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2009 Fave Christmas Gifts

We've been so busy around here that I have had little time to blog. I also caught my vacation cold....it never fails, I always get sick when I have time off from work so I have been trying to recuperate. But, we had a great holiday and I thought I would re-cap with some of the girl's favorite gifts they received this year.

Dresses, dresses and more dresses! With tights of course. Riley has been in heaven changing her outfit 10 times a day!

No dress is complete without the fancy shoes to go with it. These lovely, sparkly shoes can be found at Target.

The girls each got their own set of Melissa and Doug stamp sets. The perfect gift for any 4-year old girl!

We also bought the Melissa and Doug 60-piece block set for the girls....wooden blocks were on Riley's Christmas list. Now I get to trip over Legos and wooden blocks!

Melissa and Doug Mailbox....the girls love playing mailman and fighting over the key to the mailbox! We also bought this gift for the boys next door.

Santa threw out ALL of the broken crayons and brought 3 new boxes of crayons in on his sleigh. They should last about a week before being broken in half again!



New coloring books to go along with the new crayons. Melissa and Doug have some great coloring books!

Of course we had to stock up on the Disney princess movies. Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were all added to our movie collection.

Life wouldn't be complete without Barbie x 3. Little did the clan of Barbies know that they would be christened into the family by participating in bath time with the girls.

With all the new toys and clothes in the house, it looks like a tornado blew through here. Let's hope mommy can get things organized in the next week!

Wordful Wednesday and Merry Christmas

The girls have been lucky enough to run into Santa at least three times this year. Santa rode in on the firetruck one night last weekend and he posed for pictures with the kids but there was absolutely NO lighting. So, since I was taking the picture in the pitch black the girls obviously didn't know where to look. The result is this picture of them all looking at something above and to the left of me. At least I got three smiles.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday!

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Plug Your Ears

I present to you the Quilao girls shout-scream version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." It might make your ears bleed so listen at your own risk!

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V.I.P

The girls are V.I.Ps this week at school so mommy had homework this weekend getting their picture posterboards ready to take to preschool this morning. It's always a challenge to let the 4 year-olds make some decisions in the creative process while maintaining enough control so that it doesn't turn into chaos! Let's just say that Alyssa is going to be very organized in life. She is my mini-me! Ummm her sisters, not so much. Makena would have trampled all over everyone's posterboard if I had turned my back for 30 seconds.

So the V.I.Ps get special privileges for the week that include wearing a special vest (oooooh), being line leader (aaaahhhhh) and helping with special jobs. When I was talking to them about being "assistant snack helper" Riley was quick to point out that she couldn't play if she had to help set up for snacktime. Alyssa on the other hand, would be the FIRST one in line for that job each and every day. Can you tell who will be earning the most allowance when she gets older for helping mommy clean?

It's been fun watching my peeps get the "star treatment" this week!

The Fashion of a four-year old

It is ALL about dresses, skirts, and tights in our house right now. As soon as we walk in the door at night, the girls strip off their clothes and put on tights and a dress. I do the complete opposite and get in my jammies as fast as I can!

When Riley waltzed in the room wearing a sleeveless summer dress, I explained it was too cold to wear that in the middle of winter. Being the 4-year old fashion diva that she is, she promptly went upstairs and put a long-sleeve shirt under the dress and came back downstairs happy as could be. "Seeeeee mama? I'm not cold!"

I think that was the same night that the girls talked me into letting them wear their dresses and tights to bed. Life has been all about picking my battles lately, and that was one I was willing to give in on for one night.

Dear Santa,

Please send tights, dresses, and skirts for Christmas!

Love Riley, Alyssa, and Makena

Eye Eye Captain

I took Alyssa in for an appointment with the Opthamologist this week as a follow-up from her 4 year old check-up with our pediatrician. At that time, Alyssa wasn't 100% cooperative with her eye exam, but it was hard to tell if it was just attitude or vision problems.

Well, it turns out that she has a very mild case of amblyopia. There is nothing wrong with the alignment of her eyes, but the image quality in her left eye is weaker than her right eye. She doesn't need glasses, but the doctor suggested that we patch her good eye for a few hours each day in the hopes of strengthening the weaker eye.

I came home feeling a bit nervous about our new adventure in patching that would begin the next morning. I was worried that she would fight with me about wearing it, but Alyssa was fantastic about it and didn't mind wearing the patch at ALL. We put it on when she wakes up in the morning and her teacher takes it off of her at preschool a few hours later. I ordered some eye patches from this website which Alyssa thinks are the perfect accesory to whatever pink outfit she has on that day. We will go back to the doctor in 4 months to see if the patching is working. Hopefully, we have caught the problem early enough that this minor intervention will work.

Alyssa models her fave "princess" design eye patch.

Photostory Friday-Show and Tell

The girls have recently started going to preschool five days a week (used to be two) and they are loving it. The mornings have been a little rough this week because they have to wake up earlier than they are used to and they'd rather stay in bed and sleep. Hmmmm....why doesn't that happen on Saturday and Sunday? But, we've been getting them to bed a bit earlier to try and balance things out.

Tomorrow will be their first Friday at school and their first "Show and Tell." So after dinner tonight, I asked the girls what they wanted to bring to show their friends.

Riley chose her baby lamb that plays "Jesus Loves Me"

Alyssa chose her current favorite book "The Night before Halloween" (yep, the girl is still dreaming about candy).

Makena wants to scare show all her friends her IGUANA! I introduced you to Makena's fave pet back in January. Everytime I stub my toe on that thing I curse under my breath and threaten to throw it out.

Wish I could be a fly on the wall tomorrow and watch all the boys flock to Makena like she's the coolest chick they've ever seen!




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