Blue Mountain Snow Tubing

After two days in the house we decided to take advantage of the new snow and take Simone snow tubing with her cousins. The family tubes were a real treat to be ablet to come down all together, although we also tested the single tubes. It was great fun and, of course, Simone preferred the fastest spinning runs possible.

Christmas Eve 2010

We continued our Christmas traditions this year with Simone appreciating more and more of all the holiday happenings. Everything about Christmas is magical when you are three years old.

Dressed for Mass on Christmas Eve.

Simone fell asleep on the drive to church and slept on the pew through the entire Mass.

Afterwards, we visited baby Jesus in the Nativity scene.

Opening her gifts Christmas morning.

This year Simone asked Santa for a red kitchen, some toy food and a Pillow pet. Needless to say, she did in fact receive them all for being such a good girl.

This year Simone was finally old enough to officially join the kids table for Christmas Eve dinner.

Simone with her cousins, sporting their Christmas hats.

And for the grand finale, a Christmas chorus...

We Froze the Grinch

We went again to the ICE show at National Harbor this year. And again it was impressive. We went on a weekend, so the lines were a little overwhelming --lesson learned. The theme was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, which incidentally turned out to be one of Simone's favorite Christmas shows on TV. I think she watched it at leat 5 times this season.
The view from the balcony in our room.

Not sure who's grinchier--daddy or the Grinch? tough call.

Another year, another tree!

For the 8th straight year, we made the hike out to the tree farm to hunt the perfect Christmas tree. Once again, we scored a lovely blue spruce that we cut and drug with Simone's help. We started off with some hot apple cider and then made the climb and begun the hunt. After about an hour, we settled on one about6 ft tall and perfectly manicured.

It was a long drag back to the barn but Simone was a trooper both uphill and down.

And her reward was a peppermint candy that made her happier than any old tree ever could!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year Simone was lucky enough to get to spend Thanksgiving with all of her grandparents at our house. Yes, she got more than a little spoiled but that's what grandparents are for, I suppose. She was very excited to wear her new Thanksgiving dress that, coincidentally, coordinated with the table linen. LOL!

The turkey was nearly too pretty to cut, but no worries, we did.

Clearly we were too busy eating and shopping to get many pictures of the kick off to our holiday season, but it was great!

First Ballet Lesson

This Saturday Simone took her first dance class -- in Tiny Tutus. We have to admit, she wasn't totally into every minute of it, but she did look pretty adorable. And isn't that what really matters at this age?

Many of her moves looked a little more like kung fu than ballet, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

Stay tuned for progress on this front...