The girls had a wonderful Christmas this year; it was fun watching it through their eyes, and while Veronika took everything as it came, Natasha really understood what Christmas was all about; I think next year Veronika will get into it as well. The family was very generous and the girls got a lot of wonderful toys and clothes. And of course, Santa visited our house while they slept and in the end, they really made out like bandits!

While they visited their family Christmas Eve, Santa dropped by and left them each a gift under the tree – new pj’s and stuffed reindeer!

Natasha then left cookies & milk for Santa, and carrots for his reindeer so he has a snack to grab when he dropped off the presents. Unfortunately, “Santa” ate it all before I could take a pic…….. Santa was good to them!
 

Yesterday while I was getting some things done, I gave Natasha markers and some printing paper and told her to draw me a snowman.

I think it’s pretty cute! I don’t think she intended for it to look sad, that is just how she draws the mouth. And the little black sticks coming from its head are hands, not ears! =) She later drew another snowman on her magnetic board, but she erased it before I could snap a pic. I love it!

Her drawing skills are generally getting a lot better. She is practicing drawing different shapes, but her favourite is definitely a circle. She still prefers drawing trains with a number 1 on them (like Thomas) over anything else, though.

My princess…. 3 years. 3 months.

Today Natasha & I had a little outing to a mall. I promised her that each year she and her sister would each get to pick out a new ornament for our tree. Well, being as Veronika is recovering from a cold and it being the last weekend before Christmas, I did not want to drag her to a germy mall with us. Plus, I needed some one-on-one time with Miss. Big Girl.

I was really impressed when Natasha headed straight for the store’s “blue” ornament section; our tree is blue/silver themed so I guess she knew she needed a blue-ish ornament. She found her perfect ornament about five minutes later. She did not like any of the fancy ones, but she LOVED this very shiny and sparkly blue ball one.

Natasha’s ornament- 

She then picked out an ornament for her little sister. This is Veronika’s ornament-

She had a lot of fun looking at all the decorations in the stores. We then picked out some blue and silver “filler ornaments” for our tree to make it a little more interesting. Matthew’s planning on doing a completely different color theme next year, but we’ll see about that.

So I’m a bit sentimental when it comes to saving my girls’ “memories” and little items they create. When they get older, I want them to have a box full of different items that would bring all kinds of memories back from their childhood. Right now all these items are in a large round box, but it looks like I may need a bigger box very soon.

The girls have identical record books that I got them over a year ago. These books are simply beautiful and the illustrations are adorable. They’re not fully up-to-date, I just need to find the right time to sit down and update them.

Link: The Blessing of a Baby: A Baby Record Book

Each girl has a plastic ziploc bag with their name on it. (hopefully I can get prettier bags later on). Right now each bag has their hospital bracelets (and mine!), and Natasha’s bag has her Gymnastics award ribbons she got last year at the end of each term.

Then I kept some small homemade gifts, event invitations & cards, and pictures the girls drawn or painted that I felt were special. I also kept Natasha’s 1st Reward Chart she completed a day ago.

A small jewellery gift box contains their very first set of earrings!

And this is the part where you can call me a hoarder, but I save every greeting card the girls ever received – birth, Baptism, birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s, etc. So if you ever gave them a card, chances are when they’re 18, they will still have it. :p Again, I need prettier baggies for it.

Yep… definitely need a bigger box!

A while back I got a suggestion to do a reward chart for Natasha. Toddlers like praise,  accomplishments, and rewards and we were having trouble keeping her quiet in her bedroom while her sister slept. It was a rough few months, but since then we have passed that stage. I have Googled toddler reward charts and found this awesome train chart which she loved (no surprise there, it’s a train!)

She had to complete the entire 24 squares with stickers to get her reward, and she was allowed to put 1 sticker per day, only if she behaved well the entire day (mostly, anyway). It took her about 1.5 months to complete this chart, but she finally did it, and today she got her reward. She requested a Spencer train from the Thomas the Tank Engine show and she got her Spencer.

And interestingly enough - ever since we introduced the reward chart, she started napping again in the afternoons (5 out 7 days a week, at least), and during the days she doesn’t nap, she stays in her room and quietly plays with her toys or reads her books.

Completed reward chart
 

Loving her new Spencer!

The girls love our Christmas tree! They helped me decorate last Tuesday and had lots of fun, even though little Nika did manage to break a couple of ornaments. I am yet to take them to a store so they can each choose an ornament, but between the freezing weather and Natasha’s cold, we haven’t had a chance to.

This is Veronika’s favourite dress-up outfit. It was passed down to us, so I am not sure “how” it is supposed to be used, but she LOVES those white “pom-poms” as she calls them that hang off of it and asks to wear it almost daily.

Today I got Natasha to practice writing some capital letters on her dry-erase easel. She loved it more than I can explain! It was her very first time and I think she did a good job.

Row 1 (me), Row 2 (me holding her hand), Rows 3&4 (Natasha herself).

She did some numbers too…

We’ll practice more tomorrow. It’s hard to believe that next month I have to register my little girl for school, she’s be starting JK in September 2010. This is a whole new world to us.

This morning Natasha went through a list of all her favourite colors for me. She explained that she really loves blue, purple, pink, and green. Then she told me that her least favourite colors are red, brown, and black. And she reeeeeeeeaaally doesn’t like brown. And while black is understandable, I am not too not sure what her deal with red was. The rest of the colors she just likes.

When in the afternoon I asked her to list her favourite colors again, she decided she likes red after all. But she still doesn’t like brown or black! She’s been recently getting picky about her cloth colors too. :)