Rest Stop On the Way Home

We stopped at this little park in Menard about halfway up to Amarillo.  Alice loved playing with the reindeer and Santa's sleigh.  Then we got on the swings and swung till our hearts were content.  Actually, we just did it till dad boy said we had to get back in the car.  I could have stayed there swinging all day long!

Making the most of Christmas Break

Cute Christmas outfit from Jamie

Could she be any more beautiful?  

Did I mention that she dressed herself?

Abbey reads the Princess Potty book with such pizazz.  

Jamie's chocolate pretzels are sooooo good!

You like how she wanted to wear her "simmy soup" on top of her pants that day?  It was all fine until she took off the tutu in the middle of the book store.  

Uncle Matt tickling Alice's head.  

Sweet Aunt Abbey will do anything to make Alice happy.  She is such a cool aunt!

Stretch and Grow

I picked Alice up early one day a few weeks ago to go Christmas shopping and got a real treat.  I got to see them in their Stretch and Grow class!

Christmas Parties

Our gingerbread house-made without a beater or scissors.  Both would have been quite helpful.

Impossible to get this many two-year-olds to sit still and smile.

Alice and her best man, Nolen.

Christmas kiss!

Believe it or not, I didn't put this on her-she did!

All dressed up for the Bumblbee Christmas party

A playdoh present from her awesome teachers

Well I'm a little behind, but here are some pictures from Alice's Christmas parties.  We had one with the whole day care where we decorated gingerbread houses and one just with Alice's bumblebee class.

Christmas Stickers

The Peach just loves these foam stickers.  Therefore, every inch of our house and every place we go is covered with them.  It makes her happy!  Happy Peach, Happy Mamma.

A Poem from Desiree

                                                                 Alice
                         Alice is two years old.She has blond  curly hair.Like the sun in spring.Her ocean blue eyes are cute.Her litte hands around her mom.Shes in her dorthy dress.With a litte bet of peanut butter on her face from breakfast.She is so shy to peolpe.But when she speaks she so cute.Shes Alice.

Christmas Tree Day

Sunday we had Christmas Tree Day-the day when we go pick out the very best Christmas tree in the whole world to bring home and drag it into our living room to live for a month or so.  We figured that Alice might pick a tree out of our price range since every time she gets a chance to make a choice she states firmly that she wants "a big one."  Tonight, for instance, we opened a really great Christmas box from Aunt Abbey with some heavenly cookies in it.  They were chocolate covered peppermint oreos!  And as you might be imagining, they are definitely all the same size.  But she insisted that she wanted a big one.  Silly girl.
Back to Christmas Tree Day.  My good friend, Jamie, is a good sport about these family things.  We drag her along every year with us to pick out a Christmas tree.  It all started several years ago (even before Alice, if you can remember before that) when we just happened to be hanging out the night we went to get our tree.  It was a good thing she was there.  A Christmas tree attacked!  Good thing I had a camera ready so we could take dorky pictures.  Since then we have had to stay together on Christmas Tree Day.  For protection, of course.
You can see here that the Christmas trees attacked again this year.  Terrifying, really.

On a less dangerous note, Alice really took a shine to that little plastic Santa Clause statue.  She kept poking him in his friendly blue eyes.  She got a little grumpy after a while, though, and had a little fit.  (Tonight as I brushed her teeth I think I saw why-a new molar!)  Jason, Jamie and I tried all our silly tricks to get her to smile in a picture with us, but she just didn't have it in her.  So we just went ahead and joined her game and cried right along with her.