Our adventures with Ralphie

I mentioned a while ago that we've adopted our first elf and his name is Ralphie. He arrived at our house the day after Thanksgiving and has kept us on our toes ever since. Cheyanne loves to find Ralphie every morning and see what kind of mischief he was into the night before after his long trip back from the North Pole. 

Want to see a few things Ralphie has been doing? I'll post more later.

Apparently Ralphie was tired one day because we found him napping in Cheyanne's dollhouse after a little popcorn snack.

We found him overseeing the nativity after laying out our advent baggies (obviously we were a day behind in that). Oops. Thanks Ralphie for the reminder.

 He loves a good tea party gabfest with the gals. I'm not sure in which way, but I assume the best because he seems to have a thing for the orange haired fairy doll. Chey enjoyed finding this in the morning as she loves tea parties.

Like I said, he seems to have a thing for the orange haired ladies. They rode the stocking choo-choos.

 Messy Ralphie.

Apparently toilet paper can be used as Christmas decorations… who knew?!

Its a bird! Its a plane! No, its Ralphie flying around on the fan!!

We love our Ralphie! I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. Speaking of which… its late… gotta go! :)

Uh oh Ralphie, you're in trouble now

As one of our advent tree activities, we made Christmas cookies last week while Daddy was home on a quick work break. I think they lasted for all of 24 hours in our house.

Cheyanne's favorite part of decorating cookies is eating the sprinkles of course. She really couldn't care less about the cookie, but don't mess with her sprinkles.

Well, during nap time, Ralphie apparently got into her cookies and had a little snack.

She is pissed. Not just a little bit. I mean, she gave him the stare down and pointedly said "No Ralphie" when she discovered what he had done. She insisted on eating his cookie that he didn't finish.

She sat like this staring at him the entire time eating her sprinkled cookie. Ralphie, I think you crossed the line this time. You don't mess with Chey's sprinkles.

Some things to know

There are some things I'd like to remember and let you know about our 27 month old Cheyanne since I've been behind on blogging details recently. This is my attempt to flash catch up.

1. She is ob.ses.sed with her daddy right now. This phase is a favorite right now, one I never actually thought I'd see. Literally overnight she switched to a daddy's girl. I did NOT see that coming.
2. She hates getting her hair washed because she still can't stand any water in her face despite my usual best efforts to keep her face dry during baths.
3. Tea time is a daily activity in our house. "Tea party mom!"
4. We've figured out that she can actually say a lot more than she does, except only in times of need does she willingly use her whole vocab. She fluctuates between her usual few word sentences or in "crucial" times she will use speak full conversation sentences. It depends on what kind of mood she is in. Other times she still points.
5. Lollipops are her favorite. Blue ones especially. Just the plain old school Dumdum kind. I just realized that every picture I have of her with dumdums, they are all blue. What are the odds?

6. She is still not a fan of getting close to Santa Claus- maybe next year. And, she is not a fan of all animals bigger than her being too close. Loves them from a distance, still not a fan of getting up close.

7. She loves to say her prayers at night. We go through the list of "God bless"es each night with hands folded and she usually asks for more at the end.
8. Her hair is light brown and very curly at the bottom but stick straight on top.
9. She is quite the artist. She'll draw, color, or paint on anything if you let her.
10. She has a (little) bit of temper.
11. She is bashful when she first meets people but warms up quickly when given the chance to on her own.
12. Once she has warmed up to you, she'll talk your ear off and bat her eyes to make you do anything she wants.
13. She has more energy than most reasonable 2 year olds should have!! At least for this mucho preggo momma she does.
14. Potty training is not a favorite thing in this house right now (for anyone).
15. Blue and red are her favorite colors.
16. She loves most anything with peanut butter .
17. Her favorite game to play is hide and seek. She's not the best hider (miss impatient) but she LOVES to be the counter and then announce "Ready or not! Here I come!"
18. She loves to count "1,2,1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16." Yes I meant to type 1,2,1,2,5. For some reason 3 and 4 are her least favorite numbers.
19. We love to pretend. We pretend to be animals and chase around the house. We pretend to play house with her dolls. We pretend with our tea parties. We pretend a lot. I love this stage of learning to pretend. It is amazing to watch her creativity explode with possibilities, real or not.
20.  She is by far the world's messiest eater. I was prepared for messy toddlerhood, but I had no idea it would be like this. More often than not, she eats practically naked because the food gets everywhere. It is amazing. As good as she is with her utensils, somehow it still becomes a mess-fest. Miss Independent however must do things herself, so we just clean up our "messy mess" afterwards. One day she'll eat without getting her food all over herself, right?!

There's 20 things about Chey Chey that you should know :) I don't know why, but you should.

Love this girl.

But Ralphie beat me to it

Gingerbread Tradition

With this being the Giant's first chance at making holiday traditions with Cheyanne, we are covering our bases this year. He really wanted to make sure he helped make Cheyanne's first Gingerbread house.  She loved it- decorating the house, eating the candy out of the bowls, picking the candy off the roof and eating it… she loved it.

Busted Chey Chey.

She was so proud.

And then she held this pose eating the candy until I got a few pictures. 

Look at that house!

Now if I can just keep little hands off of it long enough to dry and last a while.

Same ol' Santa

While lots has changed this year with Cheyanne, one thing hasn't… her feelings for Santa Claus.

As you can see Santa's hand/leg in the picture below, this is as close as Chey Chey would let me get this year. Not even a Nemo book from Santa would entice her to get closer. 

If you remember, this is the scene from last year. Not much has changed in a year.

2011.

Poor Santa.

The Giant does not handle his little girl being so upset well so he was already hesitant about taking Chey to see Santa at the Children's Christmas Party on base knowing how she did last year. I had higher hopes for this year since we had been really talking up Santa Claus since our Ralphie elf made his appearance here after Thanksgiving.

I was wrong. She's still not a fan. Sigh. At least she had fun at the rest of the party- away from the big guy.

This girl loves a good bouncy house.

And playing with her daddy.

Our favorite part is the mini Daddy plane that they always have at children's events on base.

Family picture. Can you see us all?

 She did get a jingle bell band that helped make the traumatic visit worth it. Eh, maybe next year.