Only 2 more sleeps!

The girls have gotten to the point on our Advent calendar that they're marking the days until Santa's visit by the number of "sleeps" they have to get through before he arrives. They are TOO excited about it...it's so fun. I'm still not even that sure they understand what is about to happen. I can't wait until Christmas morning to see their faces!
We leave in the morning for Hilton Head and then Kiawah...and so the girls were able to open up some presents here today before we go! They got to open up presents from Auntie Ronna...some adorable new outfits and pajamas and the cutest little monkey stuffed animals you've ever seen. The girls are currently sleeping in their new pjs and hugging their monkeys. A BIG hit!!!! Cousin Scott sent the girls Old Navy gift cards which is HUGE and will be such a big help to me!!!! We love Old Navy! Aunt Kylie, Uncle Matt and Grace and Greta sent the girls some Princess Ballerina t-shirts which are so cute and gave them each a personalized book. They loved reading them before bed with Daddy and thought that it was awesome that their names were in the book! Then...they opened up their presents from Nana Susan! They got a Playmobil Zoo which they had so much fun putting together tonight and the best gift of all...an easel with all of the paint and paper and supplies that we will need to create many, many masterpieces! They were in heaven and didn't want to stop painting! It was another beautiful day and so we put the easel outside and let them go to town painting on the driveway. They had a ball.
The girls are SO blessed to be SO very, very loved by so many people! Thank you so much for picking out such thoughtful gifts for our girls! They were so happy today! Merry, Merry Christmas to everyone...will do a post when we return from Kiawah! And we can't forget...as Reagan and Riley keep saying "Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus!!!"!

Gingerbread Houses!

Our neighbors across the street, Beth and Dave McCarthy, are just about some of our favorite people. They have an amazing family and we are so lucky to live near them. They have 4 kids...ages 8, 10, 11 and 13.  Two boys and two girls and all of them are crazy about Reagan and Riley and the feeling is very mutual. (Reagan and Riley are in LOVE with Patrick and Danny). They help the girls all of the time and come over to play with them and just take such good care of them. We took the girls to see Cara and Patrick and Danny play in their basketball games at school and ever since they've wanted to play basketball! (which they now can thanks to Uncle Ron and Aunt Conni!!!) Today, Mary (the youngest) asked the girls to come over and make a gingerbread house with her. They had everything all set and Reagan and Riley had an absolute blast. They ate just about as much as they helped, but it was too cute and they loved every second of it. Having such great neighbors is such a blessing. Today was an awesome Christmas memory for me and definitely for the girls!

SANTA!!!!!!!!

The PGA Tour throws a huge party every Christmas for all employees and their families. They hold it at the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass. It's all decorated for Christmas and absolutely beautiful. They go ALL OUT. Fabulous food, tons of activities for the kids to do and of course, the main attraction...SANTA!!!! Now...just in case you have forgotten our previous experiences with Santa, let me remind you.....

YEAR ONE

YEAR TWO

Needless to say, our expectations were pretty low. We'd been prepping the girls for about 2 weeks. Seriously.While the bad mom in me was secretly hoping for another epic picture to add to the collection, the good mom in me didn't want my kids to have nightmares about their visit to Santa.  While waiting in line, I actually had butterflies in my stomach. Ha!!!! Last year the girls screamed so loud that the entire upstairs of the clubhouse (read...all of Matt's new colleagues) were hysterically laughing and staring at our girls. While it was pretty funny (for us, not them) I was praying for a good experience! And while both girls talked a BIG game all week...they sort of started to get nervous in line. But...once we made it to the BIG GUY, they were so excited to talk to him and tell them what they wanted for Christmas (both want a "blue scooter with sparkle wheels and princesses on it" and a camera) that they did AWESOME!!!!!!!!!  I got a little choked up realizing that my little babies are growing up! I don't have the professional pictures (yes, they take professional pictures) so I'll add it once I get that...but I did take a video....

The Tour had also set up an entire room dedicated to making gingerbread houses. The girls got really into it (really into eating the candy too) and Riley especially loved every single thing about it. We have them at the house now and I've had to move them around a few times because some of the candy and pretzels started "mysteriously" disappearing. 

So...while I don't have a picture of the actual visit to Santa, I did take one in front of our beautiful tree which the girls helped to decorate. (they really did!).

It was such a fun morning....they are so excited for Santa to come!!!! We're using our Advent calendar from Nana Mimi every morning to count down the days! Only 9 more days until Christmas Eve!!!

Christmas came early!

Grandpa David and Stephanie came this weekend to celebrate an early Christmas and we had such an awesome visit! They arrived on Friday night and brought the girls some things from their trip to Italy...including a Pinocchio ornament, the Pinocchio book and the movie! The girls loved it and we started to watch the movie but haven't gotten all the way through just yet. They've read the book about 943 times at this point. On Saturday we went to the PGA Tour Family Christmas party and the girls had a ball. (see previous post). We played outside, Stephanie brought some fancy Christmas nail polish and gave the girls manicures and we even introduced David and Stephanie to their favorite restaurant (besides Bob Evans), Bruccis! It was a BUSY, fun filled weekend! They brought the girls some absolutely perfect presents (which Grandpa David picked out by himself!!! so impressed!) and laughed a lot all weekend and the girls were thrilled when we told them we could all go to Bob Evans for breakfast this morning. (Grandpa David loved it too!). We had a fabulous visit and can't wait to see them again!!!!! What a great kickoff to Christmas!

DATE NIGHT!!!!!

Tonight was Iofredo Date Night....Daddy and Reagan had a date and Mommy and Riley had a date! It was so much fun! We told the girls last night that we were doing this, which may have been a mistake because they didn't talk about anything else ALL DAY LONG. They were so excited they could hardly stand it, which proves that we need to do this again soon! We let each of them choose whatever restaurant that they wanted to take us to. (We gave them a list of about 5 of our usual spots). Riley didn't need 5 choices...she shouted out "BOB EVANS!!!!" the second we told them they could choose where they wanted to eat. So...our date was set. Reagan wanted to go to one of our other favorite spots, Bruccis. It's a little Italian restaurant right by our house (and next to Bob Evans) that is SUPER family friendly! Matt and Reagan dropped Riley and me off at Bob Evans and went to Bruccis, but it was dollar pizza slices tonight (and dollar beer and dollar wine night too) and Matt said they could hardly get in the door. So...they changed plans and went to the Mexican restaurant next door. Reagan could have cared less because she was just so happy and proud to be with her Daddy! Matt said that she didn't stop smiling and hugging him the whole time they were there. Riley was just as happy but I'm not sure that she wasn't more excited to be at Bob Evans than to be with me. That kid LOVES Bob Evans. Matt and Reagan finished their meal in about 6 minutes (typical Mexican restaurant!) and came back to Bobs to have dessert with Riley and Mommy! It was an awesome night and the girls really did have so much fun. It was so nice to sit and talk with our girls alone for a bit...and Matt and I both agreed that we'll be doing this a lot more from now on. I told Matt we had to make sure and take pictures at dinner tonight...so here they are!!!

And...one of my friends sent this to me the other day. It's from the movie UP...if you haven't seen it, you should. It's so awesome! But I thought it was especially fitting for our day today and something that everyone can benefit from every once and awhile!

School Christmas Party

Believe it or not, even though it's only December 9th, the girls had their class Christmas party this morning! Their last day of school is this Friday. Yikes for me! (Just kidding...sort of!). We continue to feel so blessed by their amazing school, the friends they've made there (and the friends we've made too!) and the girl's teachers, Ms. Janet and Ms. Kelly who love our girls so much! Here are some cute pictures from this morning. (I tried to get pictures of Reagan and Riley together...but they just weren't having it!). Matt snapped a couple on the way out of the party but they were so excited at that point because their teachers had given them each a present and they were dying to get to the car to open them! Riley had put her present down for the picture...that's why she's looking at the ground. She couldn't take her eyes off of it! Such a fun morning!

Mary Had a Baby

We've been reading a lot of books about the real meaning of Christmas and the girls talk about the Baby Jesus all of the time. Nana and BopBop sent a Playmobil Nativity playset and that's been a huge hit! So when the girls started singing this new song last week and I'd never heard it before, at first I thought they were making it up as they went along. But then I realized it was just a little too good and they kept singing it sort of the same way each time!  They didn't have all of the words right but kept singing nonetheless. When we were at school today I asked the teachers about it and they showed me that they had it written down and that the class sings it every morning together. I took a picture of the words so that you could see what they really are in case you can't tell. (sung to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb!)! Reagan put on a show for us in the car yesterday on the way to the playground so I grabbed the camera to try and get it. Here it is....quite beautiful, don't you think?!?? My favorite part is when she talks about the "swaddling clothes". We love it. 

We LOVE Florida!!!!

We had such a great weekend (minus a Buckeye's loss to Sparty!)!  We couldn't believe the amazing weather on Saturday...85 and sunny all day long. We spent the entire morning at the beach just playing on the beach and swimming in the pool and then took the girls home for naps and decided to head back down to the beach for more fun after they woke up! We laughed because it took the girls quite a bit to get used to swimming again! They hadn't been in a couple of months and it took about 5 minutes before they were back to acting like fish and crying when we made them get out! We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful spot and try our best to take full advantage of the gorgeous weather we have whenever we're able! Here are a few pics and video from Saturday!

Thanksgiving FUN!!!!!!

We had such a great Thanksgiving this year! We were lucky enough to have Nana Susan and T, and Auntie Liza and Uncle Mark travel down here to come to our house for Thanksgiving! We had too much fun and miss everyone already! We missed all of our family members that we didn't get to see this holiday, but rest assured we thought about you and you were in our hearts the whole time!
We did a lot of just playing at the house as it was a little colder than we wished it would have been, but we also went to the playground, the zoo, out to dinner and the beach and did lots of other fun things! It was a packed week! Auntie Liza and Uncle Mark continue to be two of Reagan and Riley's favorite people in the world even though we hadn't seen them since Februaray,  and they had so much fun playing with them. Liza brought the girls each their own little "makeup" kits and they were constantly asking her to play makeup with them and paint their nails. They even talked Uncle Mark and Matt into letting them paint their nails one day! Ha!!!! The girls had fun showing them how to feed the giraffes at the zoo, and Auntie Liza came up with a new favorite game...the "Hairdryer Game" which they keep asking me to do with them now (see the video below!). It was just a wonderful Thanksgiving and we're so blessed to have such wonderful family!

My little reader

Yesterday I was in the kitchen doing a bunch of things while the girls played and read in the family room. I wouldn't necessarily say that I was ignoring them....but I was definitely focused on what I was doing and NOT on what they were doing. All of a sudden, I heard Reagan reading the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle.  She had the words right (yes, it's a super easy, repetitive book, but still!!!!!....) and was reading the book to Riley. I stood and stared at them for about 30 seconds trying not to cry at the fact that my little baby was "reading" a book!!! Then I ran to grab my phone to try and get it on video. It was amazing. I was so impressed!!!! Here is a link to the video...for some reason it was too long so I just uploaded it to YouTube! Check it out!!!!

http://youtu.be/PjbkN28dJ2M

A random assortment!

I know it's time for an update...but truthfully we haven't done anything SUPER exciting in a while. The weather has been great still (I hear it's changing tomorrow!) and so I've taken the girls to the beach every day, every chance I can get. They love it there so much and have so much fun (and so do I!). This morning we were there and were the only ones on the beach for a whole hour...amazing! We've also been going to the playground a lot too which they LOVE. We went on Sunday with Matt and I got some video of them singing for us in the car. They still sing NONSTOP all day long. The videos aren't the best, but you'll get the idea!
Last week we did have a rainy day and I think I've said this before, but the one thing that Jacksonville is lacking is something to do with toddlers when it rains! We're not ready for the movies or museums yet and I clearly can't go to the beach or the zoo! So....I took the girls to the one indoor mall nearby (our biggest shopping area is amazing but like everything else is all outside), and they got to ride the train inside of the mall all around.  It was probably one of my least favorite things I've done in awhile...but they were in heaven and talked about it for the rest of the day, so it was worth it!!! We are having a set of twins (boy/girl) over tomorrow afternoon for a playdate so that should be fun/interesting!!! I'll keep you posted! Anyways, enjoy the random assortment of pictures/video below!!!

It's going to be hard to top this Halloween!

Our Halloween has been going on for two days straight.  Nana Mimi came in on Tuesday night and went to school with the girls on Wednesday for their Halloween party/parade! The girls had so much fun and it was so adorable...maybe a little over the top for a 2 year old class Halloween party....but, pretty amazing nonetheless and the girls loved it! Then today, on Halloween we drove to Hilton Head to celebrate Gigi's birthday! We had an absolute blast! We got to go out to lunch, have cake and ice cream and open presents and the girls wore their costumes to lunch, which was pretty adorable if you ask me! After lunch, the girls practiced trick or treating (since last year we only made it to one house...) at Ron and Conni's and they did great! (video below...). Tonight was trick or treating in our neighborhood and we got to go with our best buddy, Joshua "Joshy" and our best buddies, Kay and Christian. We made it to about 10 houses and Riley wanted to keep going. They loved it SO much...Riley kept running up to all of the houses (even without Reagan, which is HUGE for her) and as soon as she was done getting candy would say "We can go to another house, ok?"! It was too much fun. The girls were on candy overload after 3 M and M's and a lollipop, but are officially passed out already and Matt and I are close behind! It was an awesome couple of days, a great birthday with GiGi and a fantastic Halloween 2013!!!!

Carving Pumpkins

When Matt got home from work tonight we carved the big pumpkin we got from the pumpkin patch this weekend (not the ones from Publix!)! We did it outside since our weather is unreal...80 and sunny today! The girls were really into it for about 5 minutes and then Matt and I were really into just trying to get it done! So...here are a few pictures (yes, our driveway looks awful...it's getting pressure washed on Friday) and a couple of videos from the beginning of the carving. I didn't get a picture of the finished product (will get one on Halloween) but no one got hurt and we have a jack-o-lantern, so all in all, a successful night! 

Fabulous Fall Weekend!

The weather has finally changed a bit so that it sort of feels like fall around here! It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend and we were SO busy that it's now Sunday night and Matt and I just put the girls to bed and both of us just looked at each other and said "Where did the weekend go?"! It was an awesome weekend and here are the highlights....
We went to the beach Friday night with our sweet friends, Kay and Christian and their son Joshua. It was definitely chilly! There was a cool breeze and as the sun went down it got pretty cold. The kids didn't seem to be bothered by it at all though and had fun playing and digging in the sand and just running around! We met up with some of our other friends who have boy/girl twins (Luke and Kinsey) and all of us ended up having dinner together. It was quite the crew! The kids had a blast together and the girls were up until almost 9:00...Matt and I actually thought that might mean they'd let us sleep in on Saturday morning. Ha! Riley was up at 5:30 ready to go. I give up.
Saturday we took the girls to a "pumpkin patch". I use the term loosely, because for our friends and family in Ohio and other places up north, a pumpkin patch means an actual patch, or at least a place with hundreds of pumpkins and corn mazes and hayrides etc....but our pumpkin patch was in a church parking lot and while the girls had fun there, we ended up only finding one pumpkin that wasn't rotten and ended up buying the rest of our pumpkins at Publix. Does that make us Halloween Grinches?! Reagan and Riley didn't seem to mind...it did make Matt and I miss Patterson's in Cleveland though...maybe we'll need to take a fall vacation to Cleveland next year to give the girls a real pumpkin patch experience! Saturday afternoon we all went to a birthday party for the girl's friends, Addy and Emma (4 year old twins) and it was super cute and so much fun! Makes me a little nervous though about how much seems to go into planning a little kid's birthday party these days! I'm hoping the girl's don't have their expectations too high come April! Finally....today, we spent the majority of the day outside. It was amazing. The mornings are starting out chilly and it's 75 and sunny by the afternoon...perfect! We picked up the girl's best buddy from school, Nathan and took him to the playground with us this afternoon (his mom just had a baby last week so we gave them a bit of a break!) and then grabbed some ice cream after the playground.
I told you we had a big weekend!!!!! It was great though...and we're looking forward to this week! Halloween, a visit from Nana and a trip to Hilton Head for GiGi's birthday so we'll get to see GiGi, Grandpa, Uncle Ron and Aunt Conni too! Yay! Can't wait!!!! Here are some pictures and one video from our weekend!