Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays!  We have a family tradition of doing a craft on Christmas eve.  Last year, we tried to make cake pops with cake pop pans and it turned into a disaster.  So this year we bought a cake pan press - similar to a waffle iron, called Baby Cakes or something like that.  It produces nearly perfect cake pops for decorating.  We still had a few kinks in our system that need to be worked out next year, but overall, much improved performance from the year before.

 A birthday bouche de noel for Louie.

 Mollie decorating the cake pops (actually, mostly eating the cake pop decorations)

Mollie and Mac are getting along great these days.  She is lucky he is so patient with her - letting her sit on his head and copy his every movement.  He's very sweet.

 Christmas morning - no shortage of gifts under this tree!

 A little overwhelming...

 Decorating the ginger bread house.

 The finished product!

 Decorator extraordinaire!

 Frosting attack!

Post-Christmas family nap.

Getting into the holiday spirit

Auntie DeeDee Visit

Before Auntie Deedee's and Uncle Jean visited, we had some arts and crafts fun painting a menorah for the holidays (in princess attire of course!)

 Auntie Deedee and Uncle Jean came for a long weekend visit after Thanksgiving.  Mollie couldn't have been happier to see (food) them.

 Little breakfast snuggle buggle.

 Mollie introduced Dee to all her favorite friends and arranged them for their morning lecture.

 Dee brought an Easy Bake Oven for Mollie (courtesy of Dee, Jean-Bernard, Great Grandpa Earl, Grandma Liz and Grandpa David).  It was a huge hit.  For some reason Mollie has had a very prosperous pre-holiday season (note the balance bike from Auntie Marge and Uncle Andrew in the background).  She's a very lucky little girl.

 We took Dee and JB to the National Zoo.  We had a great time - dancing aunts featured below.

 And Mollie took full advantage of having some extra hands around.

 

And in conclusion, we had the following very funny conversations:

 

Devorah Lauter: Mollie, do you have a prince doll?

Mollie Lauter: No, I don't have a prince.

Margie Lauter: That's good because princes are yucky.
Mollie Lauter: Except Jacob [Lauter].  He is a prince and he is not yucky.

Then:
Devorah Lauter: How does Snow White go?
Mollie Lauter: First there is a princess and the bad guy makes her fall asleep.  Then the prince kisses her.  Then the princess wiggles her toes and wakes up.  And then she is happy. 
[This one is a huge paraphrase, but I liked the visual of the wiggling toes.  Thankfully Dee has the complete story on her tape recorder!!]

October updates

I'm way behind on my posts so here are a bunch of random pics.  First, a picture of Mollie playing at Nana and Pop-pop's after her "back to school" shopping trip.

Mollie at her friend Asha's birthday party - Roar!

 The birthday girl swinging at the pinata (and her brave father holding it up!)

 Lots of October birthdays, here we are at Silas's fourth birthday.  Lots of fun with Groovy Nate and his parachute.

 Kid parade.

 Mollie and Maggie enjoying some sweet treats at Silas's party.

 Mollie and Louie at Boo at the Zoo.  Despite Hurricane Sandy, we were able to make it through Boo at the Zoo AND get home in time to watch the Giants win the world series.  Quite an accomplishment.

Yom Kippur and Uncle Barty's Iron Man

For yom kippur this year we went to services with Auntie Margie and Andrew.  It was a really nice service with a kids' craft and a play. 

 The next weekend we went out to  the Eastern shore to cheer on Uncle Barty as he completed his first Iron Man and Uncle Sammy as he completed his first half Iron Man.  Both of our guys had impressive finishes (and we made some pretty impressive signs for cheering them on as well). 

 Transition from bike to run - looking good!

 Starting the run...

 And the finish!  Someone has pictures from the after party - which was also a lot of fun.  Send them if you've got 'em!