Shenandoah Visit/Christmas 4 (?!?)

Today we had Christmas 4!!! Shenandoah and the Worrels came bearing gifts! Here's the one we got Shenan: it's a Doodle Monster (because Shenan loves Scooby Doo and all of the monsters involved). Sure enough, Shen doodled on him and then wanted him as a snuggle buddy at bedtime! : )

Leia Rose received a really neat Crayola set for outside art!!! It had cool paints to roll or brush (Leia's doing rolling here), stencils, chalk, and all sorts of other little gadgets to made cool art on the pavement! The girls had a BALL playing with this today!
Here is Shenan's masterpiece: it's a blue lake with an erupting volcano!
And here's Leia's masterpiece: a horse, . . .
. . . and a smiling giraffe!
Leia Rose also had a cool idea to spell out her name with sticks! How creative!!! Can you find the small letter "E" made of twigs? How about the dot of the "i" made from a leaf? And Shenandoah found a perfect stick for the letter "L."

I am so happy I caught this picture of Shenandoah! Shenandoah has a way of being incredibly expressive when she's explaining her adventure plans. Here she was saying, "Now, we're going to collect lots of wood and make a big pile in the woods. Then we're going to bring it over here and set it up for our party. But Noelle, we need fire. We need fire for our party!"

Just a little side note: Leia Rose and Shenan love consistency in their games. They love playing "Beach" (see past post) and then last time at Shenan's they collected wood like this to make a "house," and here they are doing that same sort of thing again. : ) (Oh yes, and the girls had a sleepover tonight as well, . . . and it was the first time that they both fell asleep in the same room (Leia's room) on the floor together on separate mattresses. : ) Perhaps it'll be tomorrow that I'll snap a picture of that, . . . but now back to the day . . .
Eating "Madcap Mimi's Oatmeal Bars" courtesy of Laura (and My Girlfriend's Kitchen) here's Shenan, Leia, and Armelle. : )
After Annie woke up from her nap, it was sister time (and friend time). We all went up and took turns bouncing on the trampoline to John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed." ; )
*sigh* And here's another one of Annie's favorite pastimes: sucking on this twisty-springy-metal-thingy on the side of her crib. Hope there's no lead in there!
One of Leia's very favorite thing to do for Annie during their "sister time" is to do a "puppet show" with these little cloth book animals that Leia loved when she was a baby. She starts each show by saying, "In Bug North America, a turtle was BAD . . ." and then she usually goes into an intense reality play about the Turtle hitting/pushing/spitting, until the show where the Turtle was actually lying, and then he turns good. : )