Standing and Gibberish

This past week Robin has started pulling herself up to a standing position and is expressing herself much more with different syllables. When she’s angry she goes on these little rants and is just starting to say ‘Mama’ (only when she’s upset, of course). She is so curious now; she loves to crawl around and pull herself up on different objects to explore. I’ll put Robin down and check on her one minute later to find her pulling herself up on the couch and playing with a toy – another minute later she is sitting in front of the Christmas tree looking up – another minute later she is crawling furiously down the hallway chasing after the cat. So precious.

Here is a video of Robin’s ‘gibberish’ at dinner:

Ciders and Christmas Preparations

Meet Ciders, our friendly scout Elf.  Santa sent him to our house this afternoon to watch over the girls until Christmas.  He appeared on our Christmas tree along with a book, Elf on the Shelf, that tells his story.  Each night while the girls are sleeping Ciders travels back to the North Pole to tell Santa Claus whether the girls have been naughty or nice as well as what toys they want for Christmas.  The girls can talk to him but they cannot touch him, or else he will lose his magic powers.  It took some work to get Lilly interested in the story but once she understood the concept she was very excited.  Lilly promptly gave our Elf the name ‘Ciders’ (no idea where that came from) and is excited to see where he will re-appear in our house when he returns from the North Pole in the morning. 

We have also started counting down the days until Christmas with an advent calendar and a paper chain that Lilly assembled.  The Christmas anticipation begins!