Elf Dance 2010...

Click here to see our Elf Hip Hop Dance!

5th Day of Christmas!

Today has been SUBERB and we all continue to enjoy the holiday season. This Christmas has brought a ton of joy. Laela's face lights up when she sees snowmen, christmas lights, or even Santa walking into Texas Roadhouse tonight when we were leaving! Seriously...her smile is worth everything in the world!She is still looking for her letter "L" on each gift and very excited when she finds it! Tonight when she opened her gift she yelled out "a train for Laela!" Too funny!

Pajama Day!

Today was pajama day at school and Laela was very excited to wear her Santa monkey night-night clothes! She was also super-thrilled about her accessories as well...her scarf, TWO ponytails, and her brown boots! Laela thought she was such a big girl.To celebrate the holidays, her class made cupcakes today and she brought it home to eat for a snack. YUM!Today was also Laela's last day at school this year and her last day in her current class. When we return after the new year, she will start in a new, "older" classroom and we are VERY hopeful that Laela will have a blast. We feel positive that the new classroom will challenge her more and continue her love for learning!

4th Day of Christmas...

Tonight, we celebrated our 4th day of Christmas. Laela was thrilled to open another gift and her pictures say it all!She opened the box, looked at her Daddy, and said "NEW PARK SHOES!" She was THRILLED! (Oh...Laela and her daddy call tennis shoes "park shoes" because they are the best shoes to wear to the park!)By the way, Laela is getting much faster at unwrapping presents! :)

3rd Day of Christmas!

Tonight we opened a "present" as Laela calls them. She was very particular on her choice of seat (same spot as the last time she opened a gift). I know, she is just weird like that! Anyway, she got a memory game. We played a little tonight and she was able to match all of the cards that I gave to her. YEA! I think she will like playing this game and it will help work on her focus. :) Funny side story: Remember our elf, Georgie? Well, the other night we caught her telling Georgie, "hey! i want some presents!" I thought it was hysterical, but in all seriousness...Laela LOVES Georgie. She looks for him each morning and talks to him. In most cases, we just remind her that he is watching and she makes a good choice. Does anyone know if elves can be hired for year-round work? :)

Laela's Paci Giveaway!

The holidays are a time of giving, so today Laela GAVE all of her pacis to a baby!She was only using her paci at night-night time, but she was very much addicted and we knew it was time for her to be done. We have been talking about this for a couple of weeks now and we knew the perfect little Baby Leo. He is so sweet and cuddly and he needed Laela's pacis (well, not really...but that is what we told Laela).

This evening, we met Leo and his mommy at the park. Laela could tell you exactly what we were doing and why. She knows that she is a big girl and Leo is a baby, so he needs pacis and she does not. Here she is with her bag of pacis before the hand off. After we talked for a minute, Laela opened up the baggie and started taking them out. We counted each one as she laid it on Leo's blanket in his stroller. We handed over SEVEN pacis tonight! Laela did great! She handled it very well. Even before we left she checked on Baby Leo and played a little "Peek-a-boo" with him too! I love that she did not say anything about them on the way home or at night-night time. Now she has been in bed for 40 minutes and she is crying for "mommy and daddy". It breaks my heart, but it will get better, right??? :(

UPDATE: Last night Laela fell asleep right after I finish the above blog. Then, she woke up at 1:00 SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER! I seriously thought the neighborhood would be awake by the time she was done. Nothing would calm her down. She just wanted her daddy, but daddy decided to stay in bed and ignore the screaming. Finally, she calmed down and went back to sleep (total of about 15 minutes that seemed like 15 hours!). Woke up again at 1:30, screaming, and this time Ro talked to her. I guess she was hungry so they got up and ate a cereal bar and banana. Back to sleep until the crying started again at 6:00 this morning. Let's hope that she can make it through this paci addiction and get moving on to sleeping! Mommy got spoiled with her sleeping through the night without any paci dilemmas or blankie addictions or food craving. Common Laela you can do it!
UPDATE PART II: Second night--Laela cried for "mommy" for maybe 10 minutes and is almosst asleep. YEA! She has not mentioned the "word" (paci) at ALL. I am very proud of her!

2nd day of Christmas...

Sorry to disappoint, but we did not open a gift tonight. However, a friend gave Laela a set of dolls and a dollhouse which she loves! Thanks Fox Family! We did have a very eventful evening, even without opening a gift. Please see the next post for our eventful day...

The first day of Christmas...

We are very excited to be traveling to Omaha and visiting friends, but we chose to leave Christmas Day. This means that we are going to be busy with Santa gifts and last minute packing, so we figured we might want to get an early start with Laela's gifts. We did the same thing last year and it seemed to work really well. So, tonight Laela got her first gift for Christmas 2010...a Mr. Potato Head! I think she is going to have fun with this little guy!

Christmas with the Murthy's...

The Murthy's are traveling to India on Monday, the 20th, so we had Christmas a little early. They made a fantastic dinner with halibut, aspargus, rice, and baked potatoes. Seriously...it was one of the greatest dinners I have had lately.

Anyway...Laela had the best time opening presents. She loved looking at the nametags to make sure that it had an "L" for Laela before she opened!

Laela enjoyed cleaning up the wrapping paper as much as taking it off; however, the unwrapping took awhile. She insisted that she do it all by herself and she is very precise when opening. Oh lord! Heaven help me when this child gets older. Her and I may be a little too much for each other. Really, I guess I should feel sorry for Ro because he is the one that has to put up with BOTH of us girls! :)

Here are some great pictures from our evening with the Murthy's...Using her new Toy Story markers in her new coloring book. Look at that beautiful smile and gorgeous hair! Seriously? All of the gifts are not for me? Laela also got two tv's for the car. She didn't quite understand why they were so small, but once we get them working in the car I think she will love them! As of right now, she might watch 30 minutes of tv per week. This may increase that a little, but if you know me, then you know they will be educational videos! :)A train!
Ro's new suitcase from his parents, but Laela loved it! Here is the train put together this morning. Laela is still playing with it this evening.

Santa Visit 2010!

We are very privileged to know a very special Santa, which Laela has been pictured with all three years! Here we were last year...Santa's schedule was pretty booked, but we managed to get in his schedule and meet him at The Eung's House.

We have been preparing Laela all week by telling her how nice and wonderful Santa is because she has not been a big fan of him. Well, actually she loves the thought of him, but when he gets close she goes CRAZY! This morning she woke up and "I will see Santa today" were her first words. YEA!

Laela has been very crazy after her nap on Saturday afternoons, so when she got up today she was in her funk and it was not good. Then, Ro asked Laela if she wanted to take Santa a lollipop. WOW! Her eyes lit up! Great idea, so it went into her new purse and off we went. (Side note: I just got this purse from one of my school kiddos and Laela stole it from me. She absolutely loves it!) Immediately, she saw Santa when we walked in and she was waving and saying hello! She was thrilled about Santa being there. Laela went in a little closer and got out her lollipop to share with Santa. Santa tried very hard to get her to come closer, but this was as close as she wanted for now. Then Laela and Santa gave knuckles! We snuck in a few shots with Santa, but as you can see...Laela would NOT sit in Santa's lap. Actually, she wouldn't even stand next to him. If Ro or I were next to Santa then Laela would sit/stand by us. This was way better than her screaming her head off, but we may try for the lap next year! As I said earlier, Santa is very busy so he had to go. On his way out, Laela gave him a kiss! Go Laela! I have a feeling that Santa will be very good to Laela this year!