Oh, Mannion!

Yesterday I decided that we were going to make gingerbread houses. I made all the pieces and had them sitting on the counter. Chloe pulled up a chair to help, as she always does, and excitedly surveyed the pieces. Even though there were plenty of extra pieces and cookies on the rack, she went straight for a piece of the wall and took a bite.

Then I poured the candies into bowls, and put them on the table. She got into her chair, and pulled all of the bowls right around her. Fortunately, she didn't binge too badly. She'd decided she needed a banana snack break right before we started.

Chloe was actually quite a good gingerbread house helper. She did a great job helping with the roof, then decorated a couple of cookies. She did get pretty frustrated, though, when she couldn't get half a dozen candy canes to stand straight up out of a snowman's stomach, though.

Here are a couple pictures of our holiday decorations. It was so fun to set up the old family Christmas villiage this year, with the addition of a Christmas tree Bracken had made as a child. I also did our first outside lights. I wasn't ambitious enough to actually put them up on the house, but I did put a shooting star on our privacy wall.

I'm also including a picture of Addie with her friend Parker. My friend Ashley and I had the same due date with this pregnancy, and our older kids are 1 day apart. They came over today, and Addie and Parker spent some time holding hands. It was pretty darn cute.

And the most recent update on the sleeping. Tuesday night I really made an effort to get to bed earlier. I've not been very good about taking advantage of Addie's recent good sleeping. I got into bed by ten, and then Chloe woke up twice crying. And then Addie got up. I just couldn't believe that as soon as one started sleeping well, the other had to take her place. Seriously, am I asking too much in wanting a good night's sleep?