Post Christmasness

I don't know what I'm going to do with this playroom anymore. I organized it about 6 months ago, and it's already getting stuffed again. This, I dont understand, because we do not buy toys except birthdays & Christmas? Maybe it just suddenly feels swamped in there because we included another child in there (so baby stuff) plus Sydney had her birthday & Christmas back-to-back. The easle, play house, train table and art table and kitchen have all been in there for 2 years. Why do I feel like its SO much more crowded? I need an answer team.

This little white box here has three drawers in it. One for stamps & colored pencils, one for stickers and one for cards & envelopes and card stock. She LOVES making cards & pictures so I created a little card-making craft "area" on her table for her. There is no stopping her now. The roses? Oh... she needed a "centerpiece". I just have no clue where she gets some of this.

Kelli will be a year old in about 5 months, and we'll start learning how to pick up after ourself. Let's re-phrase. Kelli WILL be a neat child. Now that she is mobile... I walk by this all the time.

See how neat her big sister is? I'm very proud of this. The most I do for Sydney is make her bed in the morning. Sydney is a very tidy little girl. (beaming with pride over here!!!!)

Nowhere to put her new fisher price castle... (absolutely not going on the floor where little pieces can be picked up by Kelli)... so she plays it in the bathroom!!! Which is okay... it has good lighting and she can do her hair at the same time.

Look who I found trying to pull herself up into the toy chest.

I'm sad that in a few days I'll have to take all this down. It's such a downer after Christmas! It's like you're living on a big high for a month (for me... two months) and then all the air is let out of your balloon in one day. ppppphhhhtttttt. I had a good Christmas though! Santa loves me. I got new hardwood floors, some pretty jewelry, Anne Taylor & J Jill, photo frame (I almost spelled frame "phrame"... I need more coffee), and lots of yummy smelly stuff and a CUTE apron! The kids got what they asked for and yes, Santa brought Andy that awkward VT garden gnome he wanted, and everything else VT (pens, coffee mugs, cuff links, tailgate chairs etc), and some gadgets Sling Media Slingbox PRO-HD SB300-100 (whatever that is but Santa got it for him and he's spent 3 days rearranging and rerouting our wireless in our house, so I assume he likes it? or not? I dont know. I hope so!)

This is the best. I completely LOVE hearing Kelli wake up from her nap. No crying. Just little jibber-jabbering from her room as she talks to the walls, cielling and her toys. I walk in and see little eyeballs staring through her crib bars.

Then a big smile. Which is usually bigger, and usually she squeals and rolls over in excitement or tries to pull herself up on the bars... but this time Mommy brought the camera with her, which is interesting, so she's a little curious.

Oooooooh what's Daddy doing??? (Mommy thinks that is SEXY!! If she were not so sick... well...)

Again, very curious about the camera.

tooling around with the camera again. I wasn't feeling well yesterday and needed to kill some time as I couldnt run errands or do anything too physical. Dang stomach bug.

Sydney was happy to pose for a few photos since I showed her how we can do neat tricks on the camera. She thought it was cool.

I caught a cute moment here. She sat down in front of Kelli and called to her, and so Kelli got up and crawled right into her lap and buried her head into her and snuggled up and squealed. it was SO cute. But then a minute later Sydney "defended" her My Little Ponies against her big, mean, bully sister and was sent straight to her room, and had her Achoo Baby Doll taken away for a week. Yes, we understand sibling rivalry will ocurr. We know there will be some fights or jealousy or maybe ABUSE. Haha!! However, I just need to put the brakes on this NOW. It's only happened twice in 7 months and those two incidences happened in these past 2 days, which I'm sure have something to do with the fact that Sydney just got her two favorite toys on earth (and is already possessive of her things) and Kelli is alot more mobile (crawling, sitting, pulling up... & even beginning to walk a little assisted God help me). So those two things, I'm afraid, may be leading to a little gap between the girls like "oh no... now my cute baby sister gets into things and PLAYS and wants my stuff, time to draw boundaries" and being bossy as she is, Sydney doesn't properly understand how to apply the boundaries she wants. So I guess we need to work on this before it gets out of hand. I cannot expect Sydney to share EVERYTHING she owns, so I'll let her pick 5 things she does not have to share with Kelli, and if Kelli wants to play with it or something, then we'll work out a plan to address it without pushing or shoving. Oy!