Team Volk: January 2013

I got a new camera lens for Christmas, so our New Years weekend started like this...

With me testing out my new lens and Sydney being my sweet little model...

Ryan got in on the action too...

But then it was back to Sydney. Cameron was NOT interested in being a model.

Then I turned my head for two seconds and this is what I found when I looked back! Sneaky kid! Climbing on the table is now her favorite thing to do.

On New Years Eve, we headed to the Denver Children's Museum for "Noon Years Eve". They do a countdown and ball drop every hour so the kids can partake in the excitement without staying up until midnight and being totally exhausted. Brilliant! Apparently, everyone else thought it was a brilliant idea too, because it was PACKED. But that's ok, it didn't stop us from having a great time.

Before Cameron went to bed we did a little toasting.

And then Ryan got a little carried away with the wine...

Just kidding! Isn't he handsome?!

Ryan and I stayed up until about 11:00pm and then went to bed. Don't say it, we already know, we are SO COOL!

New Years day, Sydney crawled into the stroller and did this...

And then she did this...

Followed by this...

So even though it was super cold, we bundled the girls up and went outside. We had a lot of fun in the snow. In retrospect, I should have put snow pants on them. Oh well!

That's pretty much it for the New Year's festivities. Here are a couple other random pictures from the week. I learned my lesson and got them bundled in their complete snow outfits this time!

Oh Christmas time, how I love you! Seriously, Christmas is the greatest, it's just magical in it's own special way. Watching my girls this year (especially Cameron because she's really starting to understand) was awesome. I can't tell you how many times I heard, "Oh WOW!" out of her mouth. Everything was so exciting, and seeing Christmas through the eyes of a two year old made it that much more special.

So here's how it all went down...

Nick, Annie, Cole and Finley were here for a week from Texas, and the girls were in HEAVEN! They had so much fun playing with their cousins. I just wish we could see them more often. Thank goodness for Facetime.

We started Christmas Eve out with a bang...literally! Sydney managed to knock down the tree and it came down on top of her. Poor baby. She was fine, but it scared her big time. Strangely, the incidence didn't deter her from trying to pull ornaments off the tree like I was hoping, what's wrong with this kid!

On Christmas Eve night, we went over to Papa and Mimi's house to celebrate with the rest of the fam, but before we left we had to take care of a few things at home. We opened the girls Christmas PJs from the Christmas Eve elf, left cookies and milk for Santa (and carrots for Rudolph of course!), said good-bye to Elmer (our Elf on the Shelf), and ate some cookies ourselves. You don't think my girls would let me get away with leaving cookies for Santa and not letting them have one!

At Papa and Mimi's house we played for awhile, had an awesome dinner and then opened presents.

After presents we had birthday cake. Who's birthday was it? BABY JESUS' of course! We have been talking to Cameron a lot about how Christmas is a celebration of Baby Jesus' birthday so it's only fitting that we had a birthday cake.

We were all really excited when it started to snow. There's nothing quite like a white Christmas. Cameron and Cole were ready to head out and go sledding...good thing Uncle Nick intervened!

And of course, we had to get pictures of all the kiddos in their jammies.

These smiles were just too good not to post.

And a few with Papa and Mimi too!

First thing Christmas morning Cameron and Sydney headed down to check out what Santa had left behind. And to be honest, they were more excited about eating the cookie crumbs left on Santa's plate then they were about the presents! Silly kiddos.

Once we finished off Santa's cookies, we quickly moved onto presents. The first thing the girls opened were princess dresses, and before we knew it Cameron had her PJs off and was pulling her dress over her head. HA I should have known. Sydney, not being one to be left behind, quickly followed suit. So much for having cute new PJs in our Christmas morning pictures. :)

The interesting thing about opening presents this year was Cameron was so excited about all the things she got that it took FOREVER to get though all the presents under the tree. We had to stop and play with each thing before we moved on. I don't think we had even finished when she started begging to watch one of her new movies. Sydney was mostly interested in putting everything in her mouth and was pretty excited about the juice boxes that Santa brought her (why did we spend so much money on her! We could have just bought her a pack of juice boxes and she would have been a happy camper. HA)

Another favorite was Cameron's Doc McStuffins' doctors bag. She was thrilled and immediately started giving everyone checkups!

After we finished presents and breakfast, we packed up and headed to Superpop and Granne's house. Cameron wasted no time and gave Superpop a checkup right away! We had a really great time playing, opening presents and eating a wonderful dinner at Superpop and Grannes house.