Another Week Gone...

After six months of coloring with little to no supervision, Gracie found a new canvas last week. Here is the promised picture of the artwork Grace created:

Title: "Crayola Chaos"
Artist: Gracie

And here she is this week:

Mommy, you're gonna be sorry you erased this
 when I'm a famous artist someday...



Last chance to sell this on eBay for millions!

Unfortunately, I think she had just as much fun cleaning it up as she did creating it. She also decided to clean the crayon marks off the table: 

Mommy, those of us with short arms have to improvise
to reach the center of the table...

After all the scrubbing, I have a new appreciation for moms who had to tackle this stuff prior to Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and washable crayons - my arm hurt when we were done, and I went through two Magic Erasers!

In other news, Grace and Mark are really starting to enjoy "playing" with one another. It's hard to explain how much fun it is to hear Grace talk to her "Baby" and then hear Mark burst into giggles at whatever Grace is trying to entertain him with.

This week Grace "helped" get Mark up from his nap, and I had to grab the camera:

The biggest event this week was definitely the decorating of the Christmas tree. Grace helped daddy put the angel on the top of the tree:

Then we turned it on. The angel's wings move and the torch lights up.

Grace freaked.

See how tightly she's holding on to his shirt? She wouldn't let him lift her anywhere near it without burying her head into his shoulder. She had no reservations with our resident snowman though. He got lots of kisses and attention:

See Mr. Snowman? Here's the tree
I helped decorate! Ignore the scary
lady at the top flapping her wings...

Next, Mommy and Gracie hung Grace's "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament together:

And Gracie and Daddy finished putting the ornaments on the tree (while Mommy took ridiculous amounts of pictures):

Mark enjoyed the decorating too:

Yep! This one tastes good. Put it up there!

Ooh, I got another one off the tree... I'm good at this!

After we were finished, Grace and Daddy vacuumed up all the tinsel and other debris from the tree:


Daddy, how come we do all the cleaning around
 here? I just scrubbed the walls yesterday!

We had a wonderful week, and now we're anxiously awaiting Christmas. The house feels very festive with all the decorations.

I've been very busy - Grace no longer stays glued to the television when Elmo is on, and Mark is crawling everywhere... making it hard for me to complete any task that takes more than five minutes! Nap time is my best weapon against household chores - if they both nap at the same time! (Stinkers.)

To end our week, daddy called me over so he could show me what he found when he went to check on Gracie last night:

Dreaming of Sugarplums...

 Hope you and your little ones are having sweet dreams this week, as we enter the "Most Wonderful Time of the Year"!