Angels we have heard on high...

On Saturday it was off to our annual tradition in Old Town - the Scottish Walk!  It was a little different not being 2 blocks away but we still found a great spot to watch all the action on St. Asaph!

 

Ellie is thrilled to see the cute dogs in their sweaters, hear the bagpipers, and of course, collect the candy thrown to the spectators. 

 

Evie can barely contain her excitement when she sees Santa and Mrs. Claus! 

 

Daddy and the girls pause from an inventory of their stash.

 

The big man and the woman behind the man, thankfully reminding the girls to "Be Good!"

  

Later that day it was time to decorate the fantastic 7-foot tree Daddy found.  As usual, the girls do a great job focusing on the low branches of the tree.

Evie is an expert, and can juggle two ornaments at once! 

 

Mommy and Evie sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as they hang up the matching ornament set.  Evie likes to sing, "On the xth day of Christmas, my mother gives to me..." instead of "true love".  

 

 

Ellie finds some additional flare to throw on the tree.  

 But when the Wiggles holiday music comes on, you can't stop those toes from tapping!

Even angels need a break to recover from all the excitement! 

Two sisters try on some new hats.  

Wrapping up Thanksgiving Weekend

It is another Thanksgiving tradition to ask Bebe to take our annual holiday card pictures, which came out great!  Here we are, all smiles, although admittedly Evie is a big fan of sticking out her tongue. 

 

Ellie at bat. 

 

 

This is what I call Ellie's "Whatcha talking about, Willis?" face. 

Evie writes her name in the sand.  

A big hug from Bebe! 

 

Later, Ellie helped Daddy and Evie put together Dicken's Village.  

 

After we returned home and set out the holiday decorations, we took the kids to see "Frozen" which Ellie loved... Evie, not so much.  On the way out, we could not resist this photo opp! 

 

Unfortunately, Evie will NOT be seeing "The Lego Movie." 

Gobbling through a delicious Thanksgiving!

The family traveled up to New Jersey to celebrate Thanksgiving and had a delightful and relaxing couple of days with Bebe and Popi. While Dad cooked up a delicious turkey and everyone contributed fantastic sides, Ellie digs into her gourmet mac n' cheese while playing with her pilgrim placesetting - the kids got a big kick out of their "mini-me's". 

Stan was all smiles, a big fan of the pilgrim hat!

Julianna and Evie had seats of honor next to Bebe. And yes, that is a cream cheese sandwich Evie is feasting on. She doesn't know what she's missing! 

 

Ba digs into a drumstick, caveman-style! 

JJ was very prepared for her turn to share what she was thankful for this year... we all were touched that Stanley made the top of the list! 

Dave and Casey model some festive headgear. 

Popi, Bebe, Ba and Opa get comfy before we dig into some pumpkin and mince pies, with Dolly already showing off his modeling abilities. 

  

The girls get ready to dig into the delicious chocolate turkey cupcakes - what a way to end the night.  Actually, that probably kept them up a couple of hours! 

Thanksgiving at Belle View Elementary

We were delighted to get an hour in Evie's school for the big Thanksgiving pageant and luncheon today. It was wonderful to hear Evie share what she is thankful for: "I'm thankful for my little sister." Needless to say, Ellie was very touched.  Here she is hamming it up for the camera while Evie works on her word search. Then, we listened to the kids sing songs and each read a part from "The Night Before Thanksgiving."  

Evie recites her part above.  Afterwards, we joined her class for a feast in the cafeteria of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and best of all, pumpkin ice cream!  The girls, needless to say, loved the sweet ending.  

Adventures in Baltimore!

On Friday we decided to take a family trip to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore to take advantage of Port Discovery's family night.  After a long drive through DC and Maryland, we finally made it.  

Ellie hit the Tot Trails course and showed off her balance.

Evie enjoyed the sand station with a keen focus on ensuring the sand was finely sifted. 

Later Ellie joined her sister with the same idea.

Ellie found it a little challenging to keep the sand in the station and decided to keep the edge clean by sweeping the sand onto the floor, unfortunately.

So, Ellie figured play where the sand is!

Meanwhile, Evie tipped over on a wobbly seat...

...and Mom barely escaped a mummy...

...with Evie right behind her. Ellie helped keep the door of the sarcophagus open.

Ellie even had an opportunity to be queen for a day... okay make that a minute!

Fun Around Town

We have been having some nice laidback weekends on the homefront.  On Saturday we experienced some art at the Corcoran Gallery during their Community Day.  It was a little nerve-wracking for mom and dad to keep the kids from touching the art, especially around the sculptures and installation pieces. But luckily we made it out alive!

Evie enjoyed reading about the descriptions of the paintings and analyzing the artists' choice of titles while Ellie listened on. 

Then it was off to create some art of our own - catfish made out of water bottles! 

Ellie really got into decorating her catfish. 

Even Dad got into the action. 

The three girls proudly wave their art, after making the fish kiss. 

Nothing like a trip to Clemyjontri for some fun sister times! 

Let's make some beautiful music together! 

A monkey and ladybug hit the streets to Trick o' Treat!

 

The night before Halloween, Evie and Ellie helped Daddy create the jack-o-lanterns by drawing faces and helping scoop out the pumpkin seeds. 

Ellie thought the pumpkin insides were a little too gooey for her liking, and made a big "Yuck!" face. 

 

Then we all got into our costumes and got ready to hit the neighborhood.  Ellie holds on tight to her costume inspiration. 

 

We had a headless man chilling on our front steps and welcoming all the kiddies. 

 

The family poses in our costumes - ladybug, bag of jelly beans, the man in the yellow hat, and Curious George, before we head out the door.  Everyone had a great time trick o' treating, even Ellie who lasted to the last 2 houses on the block!