The girls have been sharing a room for about 8 months now. It’s been going wonderfully and they haven’t had any trouble sleeping or keeping each other awake (they do nap in separate rooms, though). However, the last couple of nights they have thrown themselves a  party in there after we’ve put them to bed.

Of course, we knew this was coming and was just a matter of time… two nights ago there was over an hour of giggling, laughing, talking, and who knows what else, before they finally calmed down. Yesterday, I finally went in there to tell them to calm down, only to find Natasha sitting in Veronika’s crib. The monkey climbed in all by herself! … problem was, she couldn’t get out and was stuck.

Veronika is getting bigger (20 months in two days) and can now do a lot of what her sister can, so we’re definitely in for it now!

Polar Bears ONE and TWO.


  

We got these awesome coats passed down from my sister-in-law, and this is the first time the girls got to wear them. They were SO CUTE! (yes, I am biased). Natasha declared that she’s a polar bear and Veronika kept hugging herself, haha. The girls love the outdoors!

The girls met Santa at the mall today. Natasha was counting the days to meet Santa so she knew exactly what was going on; Veronika, on the other hand, just couldn’t understand why we placed her on a lap of some strange dressed up guy. The poor bug burst into tears. It was sad. But then we got the suggestion for one of us to hold her and lean away from the shot, so once Matthew held her in his lap, she quickly calmed down. Afterwards, she kept pointing at Santa and the picture and going, “Tanta, Tanta!” over and over. I think she likes him better from a distance.

I think this is the first year where Natasha understands the whole Christmas and Santa concept. She’s counting down the days on a calendar to December 24/25 because that is when Santa will bring her presents. Of course, right now it is all about the tree and presents to her, but there isn’t much else to expect from a 3 year old. She’s very excited!

If you ask her what she wants Santa to bring her, she replies: “big talking choo-choo” (check!) “and panda pyjamas” (check!). We had to get Veronika matching pyjamas because I think otherwise we’ll have some jealousy issues. She’s now looking forward to decorating the tree which we’ll do sometime in early December.

We’ll also be starting a new ‘tradition’ this year where each girl will be allowed to buy one ornament for the tree; they can choose any ornament they want and it will be ‘their ornament’… I hope it can become a yearly tradition they will look forward to every holiday season. And of course, same as last year, they will be allowed to open ONE gift on Christmas Eve and it will be a new set of winter pyjamas (the panda ones!) and a new stuffy to take to bed. On Christmas Eve, Natasha will also be leaving cookies & milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer . Did I mention she is excited?

Anyhow – we have a family and holiday portrait session scheduled for 12/5, so that should be fun. We have absolutely zero recent family photos and we desperately need some! Hopefully the girls will behave themselves. :)

My girls are the best! ♥

The girls are finally feeling better after almost 2 weeks of dealing with a bad cold. Veronika is still not fully a 100 percent, but she’s almost there. Natasha returned to gymnastics today which is where I believe she got the germs in the first place, and I was pretty annoyed that one of the moms brought her snotty-nosed daughter to class. Ugh. Keep your sick kids at home. But anyway…

We had a beautiful weekend and we took the girls to a park for much needed fresh air. They had a great time and enjoyed playing in the crunchy leaves. Our trees are almost bare so this might have been their last chance to enjoy them before the winter comes.

I haven’t really been in a posting-mood, mainly because the girls have both been sick for a full week now. This is definitely the sick/flu/cold season and it seems that almost everyone and their momma are feeling sick. I think Natasha brought in a bug from her Gymnastics class which Veronika quickly caught, but I’m not certain. In any case, we’ve had leaky noses and some coughing for a week now. I hope they recover by the weekend…

The whole H1N1 craze isn’t helping. Our kids are fully vax’ed but the seasonal flu has never been on my list of vaccines. And the H1N1 strain is so ‘new’ and with the media blowing it out of proportion, it does make you very paranoid. A few mommies I know have decided to vax their family against the H1N1, but just as many (probably more) decided not to. I guess ultimately it comes down to each family and what they are comfortable with. Matthew and I will probably not be vaccinating against any flu… maybe if our kids were in daycare and either of us working with the public each day, we would. But for now, we will just blow up a big bubble and stick our kids inside and they can play in there until winter is over.