Cool kids!!!

Sydney was sitting on the potty the other day and instead of me reading to her, she said she wanted to read to me. That she did! I SOOOOOO enjoyed listening to my little girl "read" Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to me. She told the story to me page for page with such detail. It was amazing! By the way she read the story to me three times. :)
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Mee-Maw told Parker that he had 4 sleeps until Christmas.. His response, "I'm all done sleeping."
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Sydney and Parker got a pretend McDonalds drive-thru for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt. They take turns driving thru and working the drive-thru window. Yesterday Parker drove up and ordered a milkshake. Sydney's response, "Coming right up, Sir Parkerman."
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So Parker has learned to ride a tricycle. The funny thing is he only knows how to pedal on Sydney's pink tricycle. He doesn't make the effort at reaching the pedals on his because they are a little harder to reach but Sydney can ride both.

One of the many differences with the kids, Parker doesn't like to work hard at things. He is fortunate that many things come easy. Sydney on the other hand loves to work hard on things. She will practice over and over and over again until she has mastered it.

I love the differences in our kids. Makes everyday exciting. They are such cool kids!

Christmas Carols by Parker and Sydney

Funny stuff

A couple cute stories.....

Last Friday night, we went to the mall. While Sydney and I ran into a store, Patrick and Parker waited for us outside. When we came out, Parker grabbed my hand and said, "Mommy, I am taking you to see the 'real' Santa Claus."(remember he met Santa a Sea World already--uh oh)
So he we went to see the 'real' Santa where the kids were able to sit on Santa's lap-which they couldn't do at Sea World-and they told him what they wanted. What a wonderful Santa he was! The kids told him about their elf, Sydney told him the elf's name and Santa told her that he goes to the North Pole every night to report to him. Then Santa talked to them about some things they may want for Christmas. He knew exactly what to talk about and what the kids would like these days.
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So our Elf on a Shelf was sitting on a very high window sill in our house on Monday. When I was talking to the kids, I asked them how "Fitzy" got up way up there. Parker said that Nana put him up there. I told him that she couldn't have because she's too short. I said, "Maybe he flew up there." Parker then without hesitation replied, "He doesn't have wings". I then replied with, "You don't need wings when you have magic. How do you think he gets back and forth from the North Pole every night??" Sydney my little believer(thank goodness)says,"Yea, Parper, he flew up there."
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Yesterday morning, "Fitzy" was in the kids bathroom. He was sitting on a picture that hangs on the wall. As the kids were brushing their teeth, I spoke directly to Fitzy, "Hey, Fitzy, look at Parker and Sydney. They are doing such a great time brushing their teeth." Parker says, "Mommy, he's not talking to you because he's pretend." I said, "No, he's not pretend. He is real." My little cheerleader, Syd, jumped in and said, "Parper he's real!" She then left the bathroom and Parker stayed. I then asked Parker, "Why did you say that he is pretend?" He replied, "Because he has a tag, Mommy". My reply, "We all wear tags on our clothes, Parker." And i showed him the tag on my shirt!
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Can someone please tell me why our two and half year old questions everything magical???? Aaaaaa!!

Polar Express

Once again Sea World has done a great job of entertaining our family.

Our annual passports have really paid for themselves over and over and over again.

Ok so when I used to teach I had a favorite book to read this time of year..it was always The Polar Express. What a great story about believing....

So I was so excited when I found out Sea World had the Polar Express for the Christmas season. We prepped by letting the kids watch The Polar Express movie which they absolutely loved. Then the four of us along with Nana went to Sea World.

Here they are meeting the penguins. It's cool that neither of them are afraid of the characters anymore.

Here are they are with the snowman from The Polar Express. Look at Sydney pose.Here they are meeting Santa for the first time in their memory(first time Sydney didn't cry when seeing Santa). They are telling Santa what they want.

We bought a family picture with Santa but didn't get it scanned in yet.

After this we went to the Elmo Christmas show and then got to see an amazing ice skating show.Thanks to Patrick we had front row seats. I wasn't sure that it would hold the kidsattention but they couldn't take their eyes off the show. They even made it snow which Sydney loved.

Our Elf on the Shelf

This elf mysteriously showed up on our doorstep one day. He came with a book that tells his story. Here is a picture of our Elf on the Shelf. The kids named him Fitzy.

The book tells the story of an elf that Santa has sent to keep an eye on the children's behavior. Each night the elf uses his magic to go back the north pole and give a report, when he comes home each night he finds a new hiding place in the house. It is fun to watch the kids race around each morning to find his new location.

What they're doing....

I thought I would start a post to keep up with all the cute things they do and just dump them here and if/when there was a lot of cute things, I would actually publish the post to the blog. However with all the holiday stuff going on, I forget to get in here and put all the really cute things down.
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Here are a couple things I collected the last few weeks....guess I will just publish them to the blog when they happen. Even if it's just a short note.
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A few weeks ago, my mom called me at work and couldn't stop laughing. The kids were eating lunch and Parker looked at my mom and said, "I need to wet my whistle" and picked up his drink and took a sip. Sometimes I think he is a little old man trapped in a little toddler's body. hahaha
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My mom has a really great routine with the kids. She is AMAZING and we are so fortunate to have her with the kids.
With a little help from me, finding the ideas, she does crafts that revolve around their "letter of the week". They love it.
Sydney continues to be so good with her fine motor skills. She colors 'almost' in the lines. Lets's put it this way, she is very particular and deliberate about where and how she colors.
She also uses a glue stick all by herself and holds a crayon and/or pen like you are supposed to hold a pen.
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While we were on vacation, the kids had their little doodle boards. Parker wrote something and then said, "Look the letter 'p'". We looked and sure enough it looked like a letter 'P'(purely by accident we thought)so I said Patrick show him how to write a letter 'P'. Patrick showed him and then Parker wrote it again. he has been writing the letter "p' ever since. The other day he wrote the letter 'c' backwards and then I asked him to write an 'M'..which he wrote with three straight lines side by side..kind of like this....l l l.

Thanksgiving

This year we traveled to Lake Lure, NC for Thanksgiving. We met up with my Aunt Tana, cousin Michelle, her husband Krys and their son Ben. We all drove up on Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. We all pitched in for Thanksgiving dinner and it was a complete success.

The weather was perfect and the company was great!

Parker and Sydney got to meet their second cousin(??)Ben for the second time(first time in their memory).


Here is a pic of the kids table.

Here are the cousins in their new PJs. They were perfect for the cool weather and a big hit. Thank you Aunt Tana.

We spent our days outside and some Wii in the evenings. We rocked out with Guitar Hero and Rock Band and Wii bowled. We made Christmas cookies(thanks Michelle).

The day before we had to leave we went to a Christmas parade in Forest City, NC.

It was so nice to spend time with family we just dont get to see often enough.

It was sad to say goodbye.

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You will have to click on the November slide show on the right side of the blog to see all of our pics.