Charleigh's Christmas list

Everyone keeps asking what Charleigh wants for Christmas. Well, she doesn't talk so that is hard to answer. Ha! I can tell you what she likes and what catches her attention for about 4 minutes before it's on to the next thing. The biggest attention grabber is Cinderella and Barbie.

She loves to color and paint as well. If you found a Cinderella painting book like above, she would probably squeal with delight!

Next up - bathtub fun! Any bathtub toys really. The crayons pictured above are cool because it would force me to clean our bathtub more than once a month...

She adores baby dolls and caring for them. She has 1 good baby doll, but in the world of a little girl, there can never be enough babies! She likes feeding them and reading to them (Ha!) So any little accessories would be cool for her.

 

We would like her to have some toys that she can be active with over these next few cold months. Something like the sit and spin (see picture) or an eisle.

 

 

And learning games! The more the merrier. Puzzles/playdough are always a win!

 

Books!

Float on...

 

 

 

Meg bakes!

Need a holiday dessert finger food to take to a party or to eat yourself? Take Ritz crackers and lay them on a cookie sheet. In a small pan, melt some butter, brown sugar, and walnuts or pecans. Pour that on top of the Ritz and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Melt some dark chocolate with almond or vanilla extract and pour over Ritz. Bake for 2 more minutes. Then eat. Yum! *My chocolate never really melted enough to “pour,” I basically “blob-ed” the chocolate. Everyone has their own method ; )

December weekend

We had a nice festive December weekend. On Friday night, Charleigh’s daycare had their annual Christmas party. It is a nice event for all the kids, parents, and teachers. Santa even made an appearance! (Charleigh wanted nothing to do with him) Saturday, we started her winter session for gymnastics. I’m glad to have something physical for her during these cold months when we can’t walk to the park. We also drove to Arlington, VA to visit our friends Chuck and Allison. They were having a big holiday party that night, but we just stopped by during the day to catch up. Sunday is football and chili day in the McNamara house! We also got snow and ice! They were calling for an inch of snow, but we ended up getting 5 and about a half inch of ice. Thankfully we didn’t have to go anywhere. I had ran to Target to pick up a few things and got caught in the start of it all. It came on fast! Here are a few pictures.

 

Thanskgiving 2013

Hi again! Happy Thursday. I have more pictures for you today. Over Thanksgiving Greg and I decided to drive to Kentucky/Ohio to surpise two very special ladies - mom and Gramma! All of our concerns about driving 8+ hours with a toddler went right out the window when Charleigh slept the entire way there! We got to meet Kristy and Elliott's new baby. We got to meet up with my best childhood friend Ali (Hi!) And we got to see a ton of family and even sneak in a date night, just the two of us! (Thanks mom and Rod!) Here are a bunch of random pictures in no particular order.

NYC day trip with coworkers!

I love my job and I love my boss. Our team had a great September and October and kicked some major butt in the region, so as a reward, my boss took me and several coworkers to New York City. We left at 7am and took the Megabus! It was a double decker bus!!! So cool. We left New York at 7pm and got home around 11pm last night.

We basically squeezed as much into a single day as possible. We started at the World Trade Center Memorial, which was heartwarming and devastating at the same time. We walked along the Brooklyn Bridge. We ate amazing food and visited Times Square. It was sweet! Here are some pictures from the trip.

Float on...