It's 2013!

Naomi was happy at the New Year's party we went to.  She just doesn't look it here, because we took here away from the toys to try and get her to eat some food.

Happy New Year!  Ok... it's a bit late.  But I know people who haven't taken down their Christmas tree, yet, so I'm still good by comparison.  Since our last posting we've gone through Christmas, New Year's, and the most important day of them all... Daddy's Birthday!  However, somehow the latter passed without much recorded evidence.

Starting to building their first snowman

And the resulting snow(man?)

We had quite a bit of snow in the last couple of months.  On the morning after the first big dump of snow, both girls were standing by the window and jumping up and down, saying "know! know! know!" (translation: snow! snow! snow!).  They seemed to enjoyed going out and building their first snowman/snowthing, being pulled in the sled, and even taking a few sled rides with their mom and dad.

The Popsicle Family on a brisk -20 degree day

But, the love for the snow has worn off for now.  It's a battle to get their snow pants on, and now when we do go out the door, they head straight for the car... none of this messing around in the cold.  My love for the snow has worn off, too.  Lucky for me, I had some help shoveling it over the Christmas holidays.  On Christmas Eve, when the girls went to sleep, we promised that a jolly old man would be here in the morning to greet them.  On Christmas morning, there he was... Grandpa McCourt (a.k.a. Papa).  The twins were excited to see him, and even a month after he went back home, they remind us every time they see the letter P, that "P is for Papa!"

Papa and his little chefs

Christmas was really fun with the girls this year because they loved opening all their presents.  And, they have some pretty generous family members, so there were plenty of gifts to open.  After opening each gift, they get so excited and go play with it until we can convince them to open another.

Opening gifts Christmas morning

"Say cheese!"

Below is a video of the girls making a meal for their Papa in their new kitchen with their chef hats on.  For a while, they kept saying "thank you, sir" while serving pretend food to us.  It took us a while to figure out where they got that from, but it seems to be from Toopy and Binoo.