Playtime with the Play-Doh and Paint

Kenna and Finn love to do arts and crafts. It's always so cute to hear them describe what they are making and to see what they come up with. Even more fun is watching the two of them interact and play with each other as cute little sibling friends. Kenna puts on her best dress up clothes and then invites Finn to come play all sorts of things.

Our big "little" man enjoys play time with his sister. We are so thankful for the time that they get to spend together each day.

Carols in February.

I've been a terrible mommy record keeper, leaving this little blog almost empty recently. Maybe when my kids look back to read these later, they'll see how supremely busy their little lives kept me just trying to get through the every day stuff! You know it's bad when even Matt the other day asked me if I was ever going to get the blog caught up. I do have tons to catch up on... all the way back to Kenna's birthday in November, our trip to Clearwater for Thanksgiving (which was also Finn's first Thanksgiving), Christmas, and probably more! Finn is about to turn one on March first (oh man!) so I'd better get on the ball quick with catching up hopefully before then. He's growing like a crazy little weed, and I don't want to forget his cute little quirks that change so quickly.
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Until then, here's a little video of what a typical post-nap afternoon looks like for my two at these ages (Kenna, 3 and Finn, 11 months). Kenna is constantly singing something... making up words to songs she already knows or singing whatever she's thinking or doing at the moment. Finn is starting to learn that he can communicate in lots of ways- sweet little squalks get our attention, arching his back when he doesn't approve, and apparently singing along with his big sister.

Untitled from lindsey brogli on Vimeo.

It must be a daunting thing to learn all the Christmas carols at once when you're only three years old, so here are the two that Kenna learned this year. She is still singing them in February, and it always makes us smile. Her favorites are Joy to the World and Angel Song (as she calls it- It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.)

It makes a sweet little soundtrack for our days. "Come let us sing for joy, let us shout aloud to the rock of our savation" -Psalm 95:1

Belated!

I guess since it is now January 9th, I have to conced that the Christmas cards are just not going to happen this year! Every time I went to pay for postage for them, there was just one more present that we'd rather buy instead. So, I will post it here in hopes that you can imagine that instead of on a computer screen, you are opening it in your own home, on time, with all the excitement of receiving non-bill mail!

Merry Christmas & (we hope you are already having) a Happy New Year!
(A fun tip to moms of diaper-age kiddos: I usually get our photo Christmas cards for free by altering a favorite photo on Picnik.com and then using our Pampers points from diapers throughout the year- one of the 'rewards' is a Shutterfly.com package of like 200 free 4x6 prints! Then all you have to do is find some envelopes & pay postage!)

Wordless Wednesday: We want to go back to Grannie's!

Flashback!

I have lots of blog catching up to do- Thanksgiving, our family trip to Florida, Finn's monthly updates, a cute video of bathtime, and a couple of early December Christmas traditions we've done so far. We're moving slow after recovering from all four of us having a cold (mostly just a bad cough and no energy) but today Finn did this:
and it made me so happy remembering this:
(Finn at 9 months, Kenna at 14 months)

I love these little kiddo idiosyncrasies that make life fun! Some are so very different and some are exactly the same. I'm especially grateful for happy, healthy babes. Love them so much!

Halloween 2011!

We take our pumpkins very seriously in the Brogli household. We start eating them and wearing them the minute the calendar changes to October. Here are exhibits A and B:

Jack-o-lantern pizza for lunch courtesy of Daddy on his way home from class:
Pumpkin bib handmade by Mommy:

(That's his Blue Steele face, by the way.)

But when it comes to eating, I think we all know that celebrating Halloween all comes down to the candy, not the pumpkins... especially with an almost 3 year old in the house! I have to say that the most fun part for me is not the candy but the costumes, even more so now that I have 2 kiddos to inflict my dress-up on (quick before they grow up and dictate their costume wishes to me!). This year, thanks to a friend's yardsale, Goodwill, and the Dollar Tree, we had one very happy Tinkerbell and her very own Captain Hook.
I can't believe how big-little-kid my baby girl looks in that one. It's such a "back to school" pose.
Love how no one has to teach a little girl what to do with a wand! Kenna thought wearing a princess/fairy costume was just about the coolest thing ever.

Finn was the manliest little baby pirate you've ever seen. He even made this fantastic little "arrrrr" face that was cracking us up:
So we got all dolled up in our costumes and headed to Bayleaf's Fall Festival, one of the things we look forward to all year! Matt brought the front pack even though I was pretty sure we wouldn't need it with the grandparents there. He ended up wearing it empty like this for most of the night and so we jokingly called it his "missing baby" costume.
Kenna and her best bud Sydney:
We met up with all the cousins, of course. We take this picture on the hay bales every year, and each time there seems to be more children!
Nachos, hot dogs, and more candy and games waited for us inside... I lost count of how many pink and purple cotton candies Kenna ate, and we caught a certain someone feeding Finn sips of soda! I wasn't sure if the kiddos would be crashed out from exhaustion when we got home or jacked up on sugar highs all night!
Kenna had a great time going through all the bible games with Beckley. They had these cute little looks of amazement on their faces at all the candy everyone was handing them. (Notice the purple cotton candy slime surrounding Kenna's mouth in that photo!)

On actual Halloween night the next day, Matt had to work so I had planned a nice laidback evening of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and then letting Kenna stay up a little late to hand out candy at our house. Instead, it was cold and poured rain all night so no one went out trick or treating at all! We ended up putting our costumes back on and going just down the street to Bayleaf's sister church, Wakefield Baptist, to their indoor trunk or treat. I was glad we did because Kenna had a blast! Instead of trunks (since it was indoors) they had set up little stations that each had an activity or theme to earn the candy.

We had to "winterize" our Tinkerbell to keep her warm in all that rain, and we gave up on Finn's pirate entirely. Instead, we went with cozy sweats (for Momma too!) and a football.
I also love that no one has to teach a little boy how to hold a football.
Here we are back home, checking out our loot. All this candy might last until Christmas!
Hopefully, next year the weather will be better and Daddy can go trick or treating with us! Happy Halloween!

Orange Pumpkins 2011!

We went again on our yearly tradition to Hillridge Farms in Youngsville to get our orange pumpkins! It was one of the first almost-chilly days of fall, and it was just the perfect weather to wander around through all the fun things the farm has to offer. It's so fun to be building little traditions like this each year as our family grows. Just for fun, here are some links to our 2009 trip and our 2010 trip!
We started in the "general store" getting a special snack and feed for the animals! Finn did a great job riding around taking in the sights in the frontpack.
Kenna's special snack was this big box of Sweettarts... we joked that we could have just bought the $1 box of candy and called it a day, she was so thrilled by it. She munched on them all day until we thought she might make herself sick!
We enjoyed our old favorites like the big tube slide, the corn pit, and feeding the farm animals (always a bit hit with Kenna!)
And for the first time this year, Kenna rode the ponies! They were so sweet and gentle and she absolutely loved it! She loved it so much we would have let her do it several times except for the fact that it was $6 a pop! I love this age where she thinks every animal is a big puppy ready to be her pet.

After the hayride out to the 'pumpkin patch' Kenna picked out the best pumpkins with Daddy while Mommy nursed Finn. Kenna was so cute running back over to show me her favorites.
Finn was more fascinated by sitting in the grass than with the pumpkins.
After much wiggling, repositioning, and even bribing, we got one picture of our pumpkins sitting in the pumpkin patch where they were both looking at the camera and smiling!
Daddy lugging our little pumpkins home!
Such a fun trip... I love this time of year!

Fall-ish Things.

We have had such a mild fall, I think when the weather finally changes it's going to feel like we went straight from summer to winter. But the warmer weather has meant lots of evenings playing and eating dinner on the back porch:

(This is the classic "say cheese" face.)

And we have had some days that were cool enough for our hoodies:
We've been at the park several times, including a trip with our awesome Sunday school class where Kenna discovered s'mores (not a fan) and Finn discovered graham crackers (ginormous fan)!

Here she is feeding me the s'more because she wasn't crazy about it. Shocking!We just happened to stop by one afternoon while Granddaddy was about to drive his tractor through his garden... Kenna took one look at it and asked "I ride it?" Granddaddy had the same thought!

And just a little bit of chillier mornings are letting us know winter is coming. I love bundling our wee ones up!