Sweet Moments

Today is sugar cookie day at the Cotnoir house! I'm bravely mixing, rolling, cutting, baking, icing, and decorating sugar cookies with 2 toddlers. Crazy but fun. This morning, we baked and rolled out our cookies. The girls were covered in flour (I forgot to put aprons on them) and the floor was a mess. Audrey kept getting mad and throwing the dough on the floor. I was trying to remain calm, but my type-A, perfectionistic personality was making my blood pressure soar. Deep breaths. Sophie did really well cutting out shapes. I suppose all that play-dough time has really paid off.

While the girls napped, I iced the cookies in white. I also prepped the icing in baggies for them to mix up to make different colors. Here are a few snapshots of our day.

Cutting out our cookies...

Waiting for them to cool. Looking good so far!
Iced and ready to mix our colors and decorate! The snowman on the left sacrificed himself for the cooks.

Sophie loved decorating and having some special time with Mommy while Audrey slept. She was so focused!

The final product and one proud little girl!

It's Fall Ya'll

To celebrate this amazing fall weather, the girls and I visited the Dallas Arboretum with some friends. They had a blast checking out all the pumpkins and cool pumpkin houses and arrangements. It was beautiful! I am trying to learn how to take better pictures with my camera, so this was a perfect opportunity to practice. I had a hard time getting shots of them because they were constantly running away from me and toward more pumpkins or looking down at the pumpkins. But I did get in a couple of cute ones (patience – the pics are at the end of my ramblings).

I’ve noticed that Sophie is becoming quiet the attentive big sister. I watched her share her yogurt with Audrey by feeding her like she’s a baby doll. Audrey just loves it! They play ‘chase’ quite a bit these days and giggle while they run after each other. Audrey has learned to say no and does so with her whole heart: “Nnnnnnoo!” It’s her new favorite word. And Sophie has decided it’s more fun to poop in the potty than play with it on the floor now that we’ve reintroduced the lollipop incentive. Thankful I found a Groupon for carpet cleaning! That’s the big update in our little world.

Me and my girls at the pumpkin patch!

For more photos, check out my Facebook link at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150354387609764.370738.822694763&type=1&l=8980464db7.

This and That

September just zipped right on by and I barely breathed. It was a crazy, busy month with Benoit’s tonsillectomy and recovery (still underway), his mom’s visit, and the start of Sophie’s school. I need a break already! But life is good and I’m a blessed woman. Here are a few things for which I’m thankful.

Sophie loves school and dove right back in. There is NO crying or whining when it’s time to go. She’s practically running in and I’m watching the other moms kiss and hug their kids while mine is apparently ready to be rid of me for a few hours. I’m very happy that she loves it and wants to be there to play and learn. She is getting so growny and the other day she colored a picture and then put in on the fridge for display. She also went on a ‘big kid’ playground this week shaped like a rocketship. There were older kids on it (and it was probably 30 feet high) but she went right to the top to play with them. An older girl, probably 6 y/o, tapped her on the arm for tag and she got upset. She slowly walked her way down nearly tripping on her bottom lip, I swear. It was so sweet and sad. I just hugged her and told her the girl was playing a game and then we went over to the smaller playground.

Audrey is getting rather chatty these days and while her words are not very clear, her meaning is. She signs ‘milk’ and ‘please’ while saying ‘peees’!!! So adorable. And she LOVES milk. She’s infatuated with it to the point that she doesn’t want to eat food. Just give the girl some milk and call it dinner, she doesn’t care. When we have snacktime (which she calls ‘nack time’), Sophie usually takes Audrey’s food because she’s not eating it and then announces, ‘Audrey share with me!’ I suppose that’s one way to teach sharing.

And here are some of our new Halloween decorations. It is October, after all!

A family portrait!

Playing in the sandbox and concentrating so hard. Sweet little memories.
Sophie is not big into dress up but rather enjoyed being a princess at a playdate.

My favorite people!

I ain't afraid of no ghost!

Spooky!

Christmas Cheer

I'm skipping Thanksgiving on my blog and diving right in to Christmas. I am way too lazy for that. Let's start with Sophie's Christmas party at her preschool. For each holiday, parents volunteer to throw a mini-party. This usually includes cupcakes and a holiday themed craft. Before age 2, Sophie understands that party=cake and she gets so excited because she doesn't eat a lot of sweets at home. For days afterwards, I get repeated requests for 'cake', 'me cake', Sophie cake', etc. Cute until about the 400th time I've heard it. But here is my girl with one of her teachers enjoying her precious cake.

A picture of me and my girls at the Christmas party. I was lucky enough to get at least one of them looking in the general direction of the camera!

Sophie is very proud of her Christmas tree. This is my secret weapon for keeping her out of my Christmas tree as she is allowed to play with her ornaments, not mine.

My handsome Brittany, Cody, for his Christmas photo.On Sunday, we went to Frisco Safety Town to meet Santa and tour the miniature town filled with holiday games, balloons, etc. It was super cold, so the girls are all bundled up. We had a great time and I think Sophie really enjoyed seeing all the Christmas lights and hearing the music. She loves to point out all the reindeer, snowmen, and Santa decorations. For the big moment with Santa, she was pretty brave and sat on his lap willingly. She was stunned into silence, though, and didn't say a word until we left the room. Audrey, on the other hand, was all smiles and was grabbing his beard!

Sophie and Benoit riding in Santa's sleigh.

Audrey keeping warm. Isn't she squeezable!

Sophie was proud of her gingerbread man tattoo and balloon!

Trick or Treat

We had a great Halloween with the girls and here is a quick pictorial rundown. We carved a pumpkin on the patio Halloween Eve with Sophie. It was both Benoit and Sophie's first (at least that Benoit can remember).
Here is the final product, carved by Benoit. We ate pumpkin seeds snuggled on the couch later that night.
On Halloween, Sophie decided to dress up her outfit with a pair of my shoes. This is one reason it takes us so long to get ready to go anywhere.

Our cute little hare ready to go trick or treating after practicing all week.
Benoit dressed up as a 'hard workin' man' and escorting Sophie door to door.
Our first house was a hit...Sophie was a little nervous at first and did not say trick or treat but she did say thank you!
Stopping at the Kim's for candy. Sophie said trick or treat and thank you! Made her mama proud!

My little tortoise and hare! Audrey did great, she was so curious about all the kids on the street and was very patient as we kept her up past her bedtime a bit. She made a very cute little turtle!Sampling the goods after we got home. Sophie was constantly asking 'tricktreat' because she thought that meant candy. She got upset when people started coming to our door and we gave them candy. She soon understood that we shared with our friends and would occasionally put candy in their bags. Mostly, she just asked for 'my tricktreat' as soon as the door closed! Blue hands and face after multiple M&M's. She ate her candy really slowly like it was some precious treat. So sweet!

Fall Festival Fun

I was way to busy (ahem, lazy) to upload pictures the other day from our trip to the local Fall Festival, so here they are. As you can see, we had a pretty good time even though it was raining and it took forever. The line eventually wound it's way inside the fire department, which is where most of these pictures were taken.

In other news, Audrey has started rolling over from tummy to back. She was only rolling from back to tummy (both directions), which is the more difficult way I hear. Maybe she just likes a challenge. :) She's also starting making tons of little noises, which is exactly what Sophie calls it: 'Audrey noise!'. She grunts a lot and is starting to roll her r's. She sounds like a little pirate: 'Arrrrgh!'. I love it!

Sophie as a little bunny at the Frisco Fall Festival.
A quick shot as we were leaving the car...no rain and daylight.

An hour and a half later, after the rain we made it to the front of the line to see the old firetrucks. Here I am with my little turtle.The turtle and the hare!Sophie figured out quickly that people were putting candy in her pumpkin and she held it all night!

Trick or Treat Training

In preparation for Halloween, we've been in Trick or Treat training at the Cotnoir house. We take Sophie outside and have her knock on the door, say the magic words, and reap her reward. She doesn't get much candy, so she's loving this new game. The drawback is that all day she walks around with her pumpkin saying 'TrickTreat, TrickTreat' and wanting to play over and over and over. But she's so cute, who cares! Video of this adorable training session below.

This past weekend we, along with nearly every other family in Frisco, attended the Firefighter's Safety Town Fall Festival. Turned out to not be my best idea ever. We stood in line with probably 2000 other people for 1.5 hours waiting to enter the miniature town to trick or treat. Did I mention it was raining? And that Audrey pooped on me in her sling? Despite all of that, Sophie did great in the line and was so entertained by the utter chaos that she just chilled out and watched everyone. Audrey did great until she pooped but who could blame her. So we quickly left when we realized her leg wasn't wet from the rain, changed her in the car, and headed home with a pretty small amount of loot. Better luck next weekend on the actual Halloween. We'll be taking the girls around the neighborhood to show off Sophie's new skills!