Annabelle Stands

This is a quick and dirty stop motion video I just made with Annabelle playing with one of her new Christmas toys and Katherine rolling about in delight in the background.

Annabelle Stands from Sam Thompson on Vimeo.
Annabelle experiences one of her awesome new Christmas presents for the first time!

Christmas in Bellingham

Here are some pictures from our Christmas Eve/Christmas morn in Bellingham this weekend, where we all had lots of fun.  As you can see, Katherine's teeth are growing like crazy and she has 4 now!  Annabelle still has none, but she's very much on the move.  We're having a very busy week this week with Kirsten working 6 days straight, but trying to recharge as much as we can from all the Christmas activity with quiet evenings.

Our First Christmas

Our First Christmas from Sam Thompson on Vimeo.
This is our very first Christmas with the girls, and they LOVED opening all their fun presents.  (We loved watching them too...)

Merry Merry Christmas!

We've had a busy week here in Seattle, and unfortunately Kirsten and I have been sick for all of it... yet another cold in our house.  Fortunately we're on the upswing now and the girls seem to have dodged it other than runny noses.  Yesterday evening we celebrated our own new little family's Christmas with opening presents and a visit to the Bellevue Botanical Garden Christmas Lights display.  The girls were thrilled with opening presents and are beside themselves with exploring all their new toys and outfits.  The lights were really incredible too, despite a fairly steady rain.  The girls loved being outside and seeing all the sparkly beauty.  It's funny- Kirsten and I had talked about going out to see these lights for the past several years and never made it.  Now that we have babies to share it with, we're finally motivated enough to make the trip out there!  Merry Christmas to you all!

Annabelle Claps

I've been remiss in posting videos of late, but here's a short and sweet one capturing Annabelle discovering the art of clapping last night. 


Annabelle Claps from Sam Thompson on Vimeo.
On 12/15/2010, Annabelle was playing and snuggling with Kirsten on the couch and decided to give clapping a whirl for the first time ever.  Fortunately the camera was nearby and I got it on video!  Needless to say, she's very proud of herself.

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

As I'm sure everyone is these days with Christmas coming up, we've been busy lately, and having lots of fun enjoying various Christmas festivities.  The girls have both been sleeping really well lately (knock on wood...), which has been really nice... perhaps all this Christmas fun is tiring them out a bit more.  Here are some pictures of decorating our first tree.  We also went downtown last night for a fun nightly indoor snow event (fake snow, but still really fun).  They play Christmas tunes and drop snow from the heavens.  Kirsten and I danced in the snow with the girls for a while and they just loved it!

Our First Christmas Tree

We'd had every intention of going out and cutting down our own Christmas tree with the girls this year.  The reality of life became a quick trip down to Home Depot yesterday with the girls.  Ah well.  We picked a good one, the girls had fun, the house smells delightful, and we'll go out to the woods to get one maybe next year... or the next.  This way certainly was easy!

Yep, this one's a winner, Mom!

Picasso... and Friday Dress-up Pics

Last night we braved the crowds once more to take the girls downtown to the SAM to see the huge Picasso exhibit.  This time I got tickets in advance online, and we went straight in with no problem!  The vastness of the exhibit was almost overwhelming- this is just a sampling of his work, but Picasso was incredibly prolific in all mediums.  The girls really enjoyed the first several galleries, but soon became very very restless (largely I think because it was very crowded and got really warm in there).  So, we probably weren't able to spend the time at the remaining exhibition rooms that Picasso is due, but we did the best we could and still had fun seeing such iconic works in person, even if briefly and in a somewhat hectic manner.  There were no photos allowed in the exhibit, and the girls were in no mood for photos anyway, but here are some photos from today when we were playing dress-up with some fun new clothes and hats.

 

Healthy Family and Back to the Zoo

Well, the whole Thompson gang is finally healthy again, and boy are we happy!  Kirsten's feeling much better, I'm better, and the girls' congestion and runny noses are pretty much gone too.  Whew!  Annabelle had a really rough patch over the past few weeks of not sleeping well at all during the night, which was very negatively impacting our sleep too, but all is well again... at least for now.  We now have Annabelle in the guest room by herself in the pack and play and Katherine in her own crib in their room.  Hopefully we can transition Annabelle back to their room for sleeping again soon. 

Yesterday, the Seattle rain let up a bit, so we headed to the zoo.  The zoo is really fun in the winter- hardly anyone is there and many of the animals are far more active and fun to watch- yesterday we hung with the gorillas and jaguar for a while and the girls got a kick out of getting so close to them.   Oh, and yes- this is a new blog layout.  Bigger pictures, a more fun background... the old layout was just too boring.