Christmas, Part One

Our Holiday really consisted of 12 days divided into three distinct parts.

Part One: Christmas at Home

Part Two: Christmas in Xenia

Part Three: Christmas *Break*

And here is Part One (and it already seems like ages ago).  Having our own unique holiday traditions is important to us, and as soon as Josie was old enough to know the difference, we started having one version of Christmas here at home and one version of Christmas in Xenia. We do the morning of Christmas Eve at our house, and since we signed up for Santa's annual reindeer & sleigh run-through program, he comes to our house on Christmas Eve-Eve.

Josie was SUPER excited, as she "got it" more this year than ever.  She had nothing short of a gazillion questions, and we tried to match her wit, play along but not go overboard all at the same time. (What a delicate dance!)  In the end, she was content to hang a sign in the window to let Santa know everyone was asleep and dream of sugarplums while Santa snuck down our chimney and delivered the goods.

Bea was curious about all of the action.

Josie got right to work with the unwrapping.

Josie couldn't wait to give Louie the present from all of us. Even Bea was excited to watch him unwrap it.

It is the rest of the Mr. Putty and Tabby books! Lou's favorite books to read to Josie. And now he has the full set! :)

Bea did some unwrapping (and some wrapping paper eating).

Santa surprised me with some shiny new rainboots that were very much needed (and appreciated)!

Josie and Bea played together as they unwrapped new toys.

Josie smiled...

...And smiled

...And smiled

 Venus joined us.

And Santa came through for Josie...

 ...with The Hugglepod...

...the one thing she picked out in a catalog months ago and didn't forget about once Christmas rolled around. You know, the present she told everyone that she wanted that Santa just couldn't ignore....

And Bea crawled around looking adorable.

And we spent the rest of our Christmas at home playing with toys, reading new books and spending "slow time" together.

And then we packed the car to head to Xenia for Christmas Part Two. (Stay tuned...)

Sunny Solstice at the Playscape

This Winter Solstice was quite a departure from the typical first day of winter in Cincinnati. It was sunny, over 60 degrees and absolutely lovely.

We had a wonderful time celebrating the "official" coming of winter with friends from school at the very cool, add-it-to-your-to-do-list-immediately Nature Playscape at the Cincinnati Nature Center.   

What's a playscape, you ask?  Almost 2 acres of "intentionally designed to provide children with opportunities for unstructured play in a resilient version of local natural habitats. Native plants, fallen logs, boulders, rocks, water and soil create forest and field habitats for children to explore. CNC’s Nature PlayScape contains very few man-made structures, (swings, slides, etc) and strives to re-create the kind of childhood experience many parents and grandparents had in nature when they were young."   

Put simply, a playscape is AWESOME!  It's the yard we all wish we had. And it is a blast to explore (even in the winter).  

On this day there were the typical natural structures to manipulate and explore with the added bonus of lots of muddy puddles. We can't wait to get back to the playscape and play some more!  

Here are some photos of Josie and her friends. We love this crew!

Josie & Lucia discuss sight words on a rock. LOL!

Happy Winter Everyone! 

Holi-daze!

Excuse the overuse of Holiday word-play, but this December has been a huge blur.  I had several out-of-town work trips in December and at least one of the four Schneiders has been sick with something every day this month.  We also had some massive neighborhood & home repair action that left us with a totally destroyed front yard in the name of a new gas line and some pretty significant roof and brick work done to stop the flood of water into my office and the girls' room.  Yea, so it wasn't until about December 20th that I realized it was actually December.  As hard as it was to leave so many things on my To Do list undone, I stepped away in the middle of some work projects and took a couple of extra days off this week to try to get into the holiday spirit. (I hope those of you with paid holidays & vacations don't take them for granted!)

We put up a lot fewer decorations and our tree is still not actually "finished" but the house still rings with holiday cheer.  (And I can't tell you how awesome it is to be putting that FOURTH stocking up this year when I went round and round with myself at the time about whether or not I should buy it - so glad I did).


Anyhow  - that's about enough Bah Humbug! Now onto the Ho, Ho, Ho!


So, in the name of getting December 1st through 22nd off of my camera and onto our blog, enjoy!

Josie's favorite vintage Rudolph from Little Louie's Christmas days taking a nap under our tree - where Josie put "her" after literally jumping for joy when she found it in a box of decorations.

Asking if she could get pictures posing with Christmas things. The results -

Beads

Tree

Angel

Little Drummer Girl -

Josie climbs the ladder to help with the felt garland on the first of five or six nights it took to trim the tree.

Bea is impressed -

And adorable -

This next series is 100% Josie at its finest.

Notice first - her outfit - she dresses herself and has some hilarious ideas about what works. We go with it.

Now this is what she was working on - building stairs to lead her up to her stool so she could then jump on the chair. We went with it.

But like so many good ideas, the plan grew and the stairs transformed and form replaced function.  (See that tongue? That means she's serious.)

 Art emerges :)

Look closely - some coasters, toys, baby monitor, remote control - silly, sweet Josie!

Here are a couple more from our "fancy pants" photo shoot. Josie wanted to pose in pictures with us because we looked so fancy!

And one random day in December, Lou fashioned mouse ears for Beatrice out of an egg carton and piece of string - just because.

This is truly Venus' favorite time of year -

Back to decorating the tree again - we added a little bit more each night over a couple of weeks- 

Have you all noticed Bea's mohawk? Because it is rad.

My attempt at a photo of all three of them.

Mobile funky-haired Bea:

Lou captures Bea's inner glow-worm :)

 Our pedicures -

First Christmas gifts of the year (Thanks Mariah) !

Just last night - adding a couple more ornaments -

And I will leave you with a little collage of Josie before she left last weekend to go for the annual Cookies & Santa trip to Grandma and DD's.  She wanted to dress fancy and this is what she came up with. Then she wanted to "pose for lots of pictures making all different faces" (I fear I've created a monster my friends).

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ONE AND ALL!  

MAY YOUR DAYS BE MERRY AND BRIGHT!