Our future lawyer Elise...AND...

So, for months Elise has been trying to talk us into having another baby "because Patrick wants to be a big broder. Don't worry Mama, I'll be in charge of the new baby."

So, she told us for months that she wanted a baby sister, "and we should name her Ali".

Then today, after she and I ran errands, she told me we should have "anoder baby, a boy, and we should name him...........Lucas." 2 of our friends are having twins, so she is thinking that it's normal to have twins with ANY pregnancy. She said, "Mama, is it OK if you just have one giwl, and later on Thursday have a boy?". Too funny.

She told Greg last week that "Dada, is it OK if I go to prweschool before I go to college? I need to go to college so I can get good work." Apparently, Paula, our wonderful daycare Mom told her about college.

Lately she gets her "10,000 words" in before the first hour she is up...YIKES!

Uncle Erik and Auntie Brooke gave she and Patrick a 3 set of WWF stuffed wild cats in a wooden bucket. Elise named them, Ediwth, George, and Lucas. Lucas? does that mean we are off the hook of having TWO more kids? :)

SNNNOOOOWWWW!!!

Just when we thought we got enough snow, Mother Nature showed us differently!
The beginning...




The first snow, Elise and I made a TWINS "snowman", who melted the next day - needless to say there were some tears from Miss Elise.



Just to give a picture of how much snow we got, YES...Elise is almost touching our roof!



Then a week ago Sunday we got another TON of snow - 18". Greg built an AWESOME fort in 2 steps. I would have LOVED it as a kid, super DAD!!!

18 months old

We have a 1 1/2 yr old and 3 1/2 yr old - WOW! Our little man turned 18 months on the 12th of Feb. He is 32nd percentile for height and weight - bummer, decrease. His head is 60th percentile. He is our little jabber jaws, LOVES following whatever his big sister does, and is SUPER social and loving. He loves dancing and makes a noise that sounds like "cho, cho, choo" when he dances lifting his arms - poor kid has his parents' dancing genes :) He is pretty awesome, our smiley "bugs", "Gooby Goo" (doesn't that name fit when he's smiling?). We are grateful daily of our Patrick :)

How princess's nap

"Rest time" - AKA giving up naps, but Mom needs a break, 90% of the time is her playing in her room, which is just fine. But last week, I let her play with her dress-up stuff and peeked in on her after an hour and found this. PRICELESS!!!

Final pics...

Note the growth on my leg :)





Some of my favs from the vacation:

-Spending day in and day out with my family
-Cuddling with the kids, especially getting to get Elise to sleep and it not being against the rules. What Greg and I call "the goods".
-Swimming with the kids, proud moments of our water lovers
-READING, honestly I forgot how much I love reading books. Going to bed early and reading myself to sleep, reading during the kids nap time in the sun...awesome. I got through 3 250 pg books.
-Having some days that my biggest decision was what beverage to have at happy hour and what to order for meals (that someone else cooked and cleaned up)
-Eating dinners and breakfasts at restaurants in the sand 50' from the ocean.
-Morning walks on the beach with Elise
-Dinner out with Greg where he almost ate a 8" x 8" piece of lasagna
-Patrick's giggles and shrieks while playing in the ocean
-Watching the kids dance together
-Four hugs :)



Until next year... :)

Elise sleeping...too good to pass documenting

We forced "rest time" more often than not. And on the "not days", she fell asleep while watching a movie - NEVER NEVER NEVER has happened before, so we had to document!





Also Patrick, who fell asleep at 6:00 pm this day, when Greg took him to the front desk on a "short walk". He was done for the night.



And why we enjoyed sleep so much...here were our sleeping arrangements for week one. THANK YOU Grandma for sharing your place with us! Close quarters, yes those are curtains wrapped around the kids beds and the pull out couch was ours 1/4 foot away. Greg slept pretty well :) We switched off night/morning duty to help each other keep some sanity!

COUSINS!!!

SWIMMING!

Once upon a time, Greg and I would talk about how we hoped to have kids who had a sense of humor...I think we've gotten there!





Swimming long distances...





And the best...rinsing off. If it were up to Patrick he'd spend hours at the "shower" rinsing like pretty much every one else did. Too cute!

Grandma-Grandma, Gramma, B-Bob!

Patrick in Cabo

Patrick's Cabo activities: Smiling

AND:
-Talking a ton, favorite one standing on chairs smiling saying "Dit down" (sit down, which is what we told him alot)
-Playing with his "am-mals" 1" solid zoo animals that he would play with for 30+ min = a long time for a kid his age. Our favorite was when he'd pretend they were kissing and have 2 of them (could be a zebra and gorilla) chase each other saying "ma ma, ma ma".
-Hearing his sweet little voice in the morning when he was ready to get up "hewwwo, hewwo?"
-Blowing kisses
-Learned "knuckles"
-Hitting in frustration and throwing sand - not our favorites! (especially his "am-mals" flying across the room or swings connecting with our faces or cousins
-Swimming and jumping into the water, going under water and coming up with a big smile
-Eating Ice, he was a fiend and it was so cute watching him eat it

239 pictures...where to begin?

I don't even know where to begin, so I'll just start putting up pics and stories. I think part of the delay is that I've been trying to figure out an "organized presentation". SO here goes...

I'll start with one of Elise's common Cabo behavior, posing. Really? Where did this come from, we honestly don't know? Cute and scary :)

Other favorites:
-SWIMMING, SWIMMING, SWIMMING; here's our proud parent brag, she swims under water for a distance of about 20', and loved being thrown up in the air, going to the bottom and "rocketing" herself back to the surface. More swimming pics later...
-Playing in the sand with her cousins
-Watching the nightly movie and the best part "eating popcorn"
-Sitting on porch and pretending to read our books, legs crossed, engrossed
-Quesadilla's and smoothies

Bear with us on the Cabo updates

OK, I had planned on updating today while the kids napped (Patrick sleeping and Elise's "rest hour"). Anyway, didn't happen that way as P fell asleep on the way home from the grocery store and for the first time EVER stayed sleeping while I took him out of the car, into the below zero temps, into his room, removed his coat and put him in bed.
Needless to say, Elise fell asleep (wearing a princess outfit, picture to follow later) and Patrick is screaming in bed. Plan aborted! However I hope to update in the next couple of days, definitely before the tans fade!!! We had a WONDERFUL time :) And have over 100 pics to sort through. Hope you all are well during this CHILLY winter weather.
Much love, The Palattao's :)