christmas concerts, baby books, and...lady edith?

Maybe I'm a bit of a procrastinator, but you know what they say...better late than never!

In mid-December, Zoey had her big holiday concert for nursery school. She was such a cute little trooper, standing up there on stage in the bleachers and boppin' along to the music! At the end of the show, Santa came for a visit to pass out gifts to all the children. Enjoy these photos and even a video of the big event!

 

Also way back in December, I finally finished making Zoey's baby photo album. Shutterfly let's you link to your projects online, so I wanted to share Zoey's first year journey here on the blog (sorry, apparently this will only work on a computer, and not on a mobile device):

And on another note...does anyone else think that Zoey bears an uncanny resemblance to Downton Abbey's Lady Edith? I think that's why I'm always routing extra hard for Edith, the unfortunate underdog of the Crawley family:)

boo!

Boo! Don't you just love Halloween? I do! The last few Halloweens have been a bust for Ellie for various reasons, but this time around, my favorite holiday was a success! And, thanks to Elliott's obsession with being a butterfly for the second year in a row, and Zoey's apparent lack of interest in what she wore, as long as it was out of her dress-up bin, costumes were a cinch! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the kids trick-or-treating, but let's just say it was a fun time spent with both big and little friends. Ryan and I had a good excuse to really get into the spirit of things this year, too, because we got to attend a friend's Halloween party. Even though I've spent the day paying dearly for the mere one-and-a-half drinks I indulged in, going out was totally worth a Sunday of feeling like the actual undead! Anyway, we hope you, too, had a happy Halloween!

 

The day prior to the Big H, we enjoyed free entertainment at Zoey's school concert.

Poor thing couldn't find us in the crowd and spent the whole time looking around for us instead of singing!

On Halloween, we headed over to Ellie's school for the big student parade! Here I am with my little good witch.

 

Ellie's big entrance. She was so excited, but also very serious about her participation in a parade!

 

 Just look at these little guys! Do they come any cuter?

This lucky mamma got to help host a class party after the parade. Here's my big contribution...a handcrafted game of Pin the Eye on the Monster. It was a hit!

The day after the Big H, we got to celebrate with friends as an undead librarian (Bea Quiet) and her unfortunate victim, now a severed head on a book!

homework | zoey "dances"

Kindergarten homework has been pretty light so far, and the few assignments Ellie's actually had have proven to be quite fun! (I guess that's the way homework for a five-year-old should be, huh?) Here are some photos of her "Scout" project. Every kid in class gets to host the class bear, Scout, for a play-date/sleepover, and each student adds to a class journal about the good times they shared. Ellie (and Zoey) just loved having Scout come to visit! He even got to join them for frozen yogurt with our friend Mallory!

And this weekend, Ellie had to complete her first book report...with a fun autumn twist! After reading her book (she chose Fancy Nancy: Bonjour Butterfly) she created a likeness of Fancy Nancy out of a pumpkin! She had a little help from Mommy and Daddy, but basically, this project was all Ellie! (After I complimented that rather awesome nose, Ellie had this to say: "Thank you. I designed it myself.")

Zoey has been working hard these days, too! In addition to beginning her first year of nursery school, she is also involved in very intensive dance lessons. Check out these pics/videos from class this morning, when we parents were finally able to observe. I know, I know. She is working too hard, and this class is much too rigorous for a three-year-old. But we are molding a prima ballerina here, and that is serious business!

my big girls

I can hardly handle all the change around here lately. My girls are growing up so fast, and as much as I obviously love to see them grow, sometimes I just want time to stand still so they can stay my babies for a little while longer!

Elliott started "real" school just this past week, and of course is loving it so far. When I went to pick her up the first day, she got all sulky and didn't want to go home. She complained multiple times that school was "too short." I take that as a good sign! For some reason, even though it's Pre-K, the fact that it's five days a week and at the public school makes it feel so...official. And all the sudden she seems older. Ahhhh.

Come on, Mom, I'm ready to go!

And then there's baby Zoey. Can I even call her that anymore? I guess she does still resemble a 15-month-old, but Zoey turns a whopping TWO tomorrow! She gets funnier and cuter by the day, but also more and more...what's the word? Obstinate? Maybe psycho? Oh, yes, the terrible two's are upon us!

But our little tyke keeps us quite entertained, jib-jabbering away in complete (often hilarious) sentences, busting out uber-cool dance moves, and taking every opportunity to "run around with a naked butt." She tries (with some success) to use the potty and even to put her shoes on all by herself (that's a tougher one.) She even attempts a sort of Jedi mind trick to sway us into doing her bidding (Example: "Zaza want a bame on the iPad...OK. Mom say OK.")

My sweet, funny little squirt is almost TWO!

Whenever we ask her what she wants for her birthday, her response is always the same: "pink." So, I completed phase one of (soon-to-be) pink cupcake baking tonight (here's the recipe; it took four mixing bowls, some teamwork, and a whole lotta love but I think they're worth it. And regardless, the heavenly process of cupcake baking - and batter eating - definitely beats being in labor two years ago tonight.)

If you could smell my house right now...

Tomorrow comes the pink frosting!! I'm attempting to color it with raspberry sauce, because Zoey is also a big fan of raspberries, plus I didn't want to use food coloring. I hope she enjoys smearing herself in pink tomorrow. It's all the girl asked for, after all!

a little christmas cheer

The Smiddleton Middlewartzes have been doing it up, Christmas-style! Check out some of our holiday adventures (ok, they're admittedly low-key, but that's how this family rolls.)

Last Friday, we visited Philly with some friends of ours to see the annual Macy's light show and to check out the Christmas Village. Ellie and Haley enjoyed entertaining themselves (and everyone around them) with their karate moves, though neither of them were fearless enough to take on the "scary" nutcracker.

This is about as close to the Nutcracker as they would get.

Ryan and Ellie take in the light show.

We also bought a live (like, seriously alive, in a pot!) Christmas tree to put in our little turret. This was our plan before we even officially bought the house. Even our real estate agent commented on what a perfect Christmas tree spot the turret would make. What we didn't plan on was that this baby tree would weigh over 200 lbs. and that Ryan would practically injure himself hoisting it upstairs. Hopefully we will keep it alive to use as a Christmas tree for a few more years before planting it outside, where we were told it could potentially reach Rockefeller Center tree heights. And yeah, hopefully we will also be able to relocate it outside without hurting ourselves once the holidays are through!

Our live Christmas tree!

Second Christmas, but first tree!

Ellie enjoys rearranging the ornaments.

This month, a number of holiday decorations were crafted by the preschooler of the house. She also lent Ryan a hand in baking Christmas cookies, which sadly turned out so bad even she refused to eat them!

I couldn't resist this little $1 craft I found at Target!

I was told that Ellie was disturbed by this menorah craft since flames don't belong on fingers.

Love this Grinch project from school!

At least the batter tastes good!

And last but not least, Elliott performed in a school Christmas concert earlier in the week. In light of October's Halloween performance, we weren't sure how she would hold up singing on stage, and I was a little worried when we arrived at the high school to find the auditorium packed. But as soon as the teachers called the kids up on stage (all 67 of them!), she ran up there and sang like a little angel. We were so proud of her for trying so hard and for having so much fun. Since she doesn't reveal much about school, I really had no idea how many songs they had been working on - their repertoire was truly impressive! As they were singing their last song, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the jolly old elf himself showed up to bestow little gifts to all the kids, and Elliott was pretty excited about seeing him and receiving a coloring book.

Singing her heart out in the front row!

Ellie later told us that all her classmates got rectangles from Santa.

Here they are singing "The Grinch" and "Rudolph."

If you can make it all the way to the end, I promise it will be well worth it!

a "sort of" halloween

I'm sorry to report (yes, very late) that trick-or-treating was a no-go for us this year. Alas! As you may be aware, trick-or-treating was postponed due to the hurricane, and on its "rain date", Ellie woke up with a bad cold and a fever. Fortunately she had forgotten all about trick-or-treating by then, and I was somehow able to shield her eyes from the hoards of costumed moochers roaming the streets outside. (It helped that we only had one group come to our door; our entrance is incognito since we live over a storefront.)

Even so, Elliott got to wear her pirate costume at a friend's birthday party a few days before she fell ill. She had wanted to be a fairy princess all year but suddenly decided pirate was the way to go! Between her wardrobe, dress-up collection, Payless, and Ryan's crafty skills (check out the vest), we were able to whip up a cute little costume with no trouble at all. I think it turned out pretty cute, and I'm grateful she had a chance to wear it. Here are some pictures of our friendly little pirate on the night of the party:

There was also no shortage of Halloween festivities at school, where the children performed a little concert for us doting parents, grandparents, and guardians.  Though Ellie had been singing her Halloween songs around the house for weeks and seemed pretty excited about the show, on the morning of the concert she voiced some trepidation about having us all join her at school that day. She was none-too-thrilled when she saw us out in the audience, and instead of singing and doing the moves with the other kids, she just stood there, sometimes bobbing around to the music, but also doing a good deal of pouting. Encouragement from her teachers to sing just upset her more, as did big smiles and thumbs ups from her mamma. However, she did enjoy herself immensely during one of the numbers, as you will see in this next clip:

Let me wrap up my (very late) Halloween post with a little message we recorded to wish our friends and family a happy Halloween. (By the way, Zoey, who was slated to dress up as the world's cutest witch, never ended up donning a witch's hat due to the lack of trick-or-treating; at least we had dressed her in something festive for Halloween day!)

first day of school!

And thus it begins...the very first day of countless school days ahead for the the next generation of Smiddleton Middlewartzes. Elliott has been looking forward to preschool all summer now. And when I finally dropped her off today, leaving her alone in a sea of new faces, the little stinker was off and didn't give her mamma a second glance!

Off to preschool!

Like my backpack?

When Zoey and I showed up a few hours later to take her home, she was not particularly thrilled to leave (let's just say I had to pry a few toys out of her hands and drag her away.) Her sweet teacher made sure to give me Ellie's craft (a raccoon made of hearts)  and a little "worksheet" that they did - so cute!

I'm so glad that Elliott had fun and looks forward to going back tomorrow. Little does she know how many years of this school thing she has in store for her; let's just hope she keeps up the enthusiasm throughout high school and college!