Thank you GOD for Mary...

.... and for fitting into smaller jeans.

Today was a great day and I am so thankful for my girl Mary. I am always especially thankful for her exceptional behavior... in public.

Nothing in my closet really fits me right now. It is either too big or too small. I needed to get over to the mall and get some jeans that fit. The girls were ecstatic about going there as they get to play with the "squishy toys" --- rubberized toys on rubberized playground.

Before going into Banana Republic and Gap, I strapped Sally into the stroller and handed her the nigh-nigh (2 seconds later thumb is inserted into mouth and quiet time ensues). Then I bent down to Mary's level and told her to stay by my side, not to run into the clothing racks and to NOT DO ANYTHING TO EMBARRASS ME!

Seriously.

If all went accordingly, fun at the squishy-climby-rubberized-playground area would be had by all, followed up with a chocolate chip cookie.

Operation " new jeans for mom so that she can stop wearing a belt and tugging at her pants all day long" equaled success.

My great night was followed up by my little Mary arriving at home to enter the house and follow bedtime procedure to the letter so that I could blog about her awesomeness.

She is truly rad.

COMPLETELY potty trained!!

We do have a video of Sally receiving her reward that we will post soon --- but she is officially out of diapers!! This month she turns 2.5 and it was just around that time that we trained Mary too. Such a milestone!

Sea World Photo Booth pictures

These photos were so much fun to take and we were
all laughing so much. We were basically pretending we
were inside a photo booth.

Our pass expired on December 31st, so we got a couple of last days in before the end of the month. We had the most fun at the Christmas Shamu show and enjoying the holiday decorations at the park.

Probably the second most fun we had was taking these goofy photos during the Shamu show....

Opening Christmas Gifts

Dolls or cars - Sally likes everything equally so
we encourage both!

When she saw her gifts she just wanted to hug them
for a while instead of opening them.

Keepin' it real with underwear as a stocking stuffer...
My girl was not thrilled with that gift.

She got this nightgown for one of her gifts and put it on right away! So cute!

Here we are - Christmas morning 2009. This is the beginning of the many fun years to come - from here on out Mary is fully aware of the true meaning of Christmas: PRESENTS!! ha, ha.

We had a "Happy Birthday" banner up and she knows that the true meaning of Christmas is Jesus... but for now she is 4 years old and was really excited to see what was going to be in her stocking this year from Santa.

Unfortunately Mommy kind of forgot (due to lack of experience) to talk up the whole Santa Clause tradition and I just threw some presents under the tree and said "Wow! Merry Christmas!!"

Fast forward two days later...

Mary: Why didn't Santa bring us any gifts Mom?

Me: What??!! You got lots of nice gifts this year!

Mary: Those gifts are from you Mom. I know this because you used the same wrapping paper that you used for Daddy's gifts. When is Santa coming?

Long story short - I proceed to tell her that Santa did come and that he brought us nice gifts. She continues to ask about Santa and Jason skips ahead about 4 years and tells her that he is not real.

Can you picture the red face with steam coming out of my ears???

Fortunately within hours she let it go and the next day and days to come we were back to talking about how much fun Santa is and how he will come again next year and that he lives in our hearts and it is really fun, fun, fun.

Mani/Pedi with nail tech. Mommy

The girls really wanted polish on their fingers and toes.

And they really wanted a picture taken of them

And Sally wanted me to take multiple photos of her toes...
Look at those little baby toes! I still want to eat them up
every chance I get! :)


Happy New Year from the 2littlethomases! Tomorrow Mary will
be officially 4 1/2 years old!!

Merry Christmas from the Thomas Family!

Our pretty girls Mary and Sally in their Christmas outfits!

The girls are dancing instead of posing! :)

This is exactly why I love living in San Diego!

Here are my ladies walking along the cliffs on
a beautiful day in December!

On Saturday we took some pictures over at the Pt. Loma Nazarene University campus. We were posing for the annual Christmas
card photo and had a great time!
The weather was gorgeous that day and actually pretty hot at the coast.
Christmas in Southern California never looked so good!

A Mom and her Dog

This post is dedicated to my first born - Clifford.
Clifford is officially 6 1/2 years old and still an important part of the family.
We took him out for family day yesterday in Point Loma and he had a great time
on the playground with the teeter totter.

Well - OK. Maybe it was not his favorite part of the day - but he did enjoy
being off the leash and roaming around the park. He has matured so much that he
just lounges around, sniffs stuff and rolls in the grass. Except for those 2 kids in the back
we had this park all to ourselves. It was great!

We love our dog Clifford!!

Little Thomases baking Christmas cookies!

We are starting a new Christmas tradition here in the
Thomas house. Every Christmas we will make and decorate
sugar cookies with the girls. I told them it was a "cookie decorating party", so
they got really excited and dressed up in their best princess attire.

The dog bone shaped cookies are in honor of Clifford

The girls were so happy and proud to be making cookies!

DONT TOUCH THE TREE! please....

Hands behind your back --- and please
stop touching my ornaments!
(Yes, those are her training pants -- we are
having so much fun using the potty)

Seriously - Christmas is next week? Oops... so much for the Christmas cards going out anytime soon. Maybe we will just be sending Happy New Years cards....

At least we have a tree up and decorated!

The girls were really excited to go and pick out the tree. It was my idea to let Mary pick out the tree and it was Sally's job to look cute in the shopping cart at Target while we take the big box to the register.

Saying "big box" is an exaggeration as we got a smaller artificial tree for about 50 bucks. Artificial is the way to go for me because this pretty little housewife doesn't want to be vacuuming up any pine needles for weeks to come. Sheesh!

Thank you - we are so blessed!

This is a special thank you blog to our friends up in the East Bay from Clayton Community Church. Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and treats recently received. If I had my camera I would take a photo of the girls with their new purses. They are so happy right now. (I left my camera at my Dad's house)

The past month has been difficult for us, but if it were not for the support and prayers from our friends we would not have been able to experience any peace over the loss.

We are doing better each week and while there are still some bumps in the road emotionally, physically I am well and we are taking great delight in our 2littlethomases that are both beautiful and very healthy!!

For now we are the 2littlethomases with great hope for another addition someday in the future.

With much love --- xoxo

Happy Thanksgiving 2009!!

This year we spent Thanksgiving with the Rowe Family in
Rolling Hills, Palos Verdes.
Below are the photos from this year's smaller gathering.
The Grandparents of Mary and Sally were in Nevada this holiday, but we
will see them for Christmas down in San Diego!

Addie home from her freshman year at USC, Donnie home from
Jr. Year at Oxidental College,
Molly is still living at home and attends Chadwick High

Cute little turkeys!

This was the kid table for 2littlethomases!

Both of the girls just LOVED having their own
little dinner table that night!

Sally was tickled over seeing her own name card

This was the best part of their evening - dessert!
Mary and Sally really enjoyed licking the whipping cream off
the beater and spoon! Who needs the pie??

Little Sally is growing up

 

When I look at this photo I see a big girl that is learning to toilet train! Watch out public toilets!! HERE WE COME!!

Thanksgiving Celebration at Mary's Preschool

Mary's Preschool had a Thanksgiving celebration with some "Stone Soup" based on the book and dinner rolls from scratch. The kids all helped prepare the meal and parents and siblings were invited. Mary made the place mats for us and the festive hat. Sally had a great time too being at school (she wants to go badly) and we met Mary's best friend McKenna.