three.

Looking back.
Our baby girl turned 3 on December 15th.  I think back on the day that I gave birth.  I was working from home since I was 3 days past my due date and wasn't a huge fan of risking my water breaking while in the office.  We had a doctor check up in the afternoon.

I thought it best that Matt attend this one since I knew baby #2 would be arriving soon. I was having some abdominal pain during the day but wasn't sure if it was contractions or not.  You'd think that after having a kid you'd know, but apparently I'm not too bright.

Turns out I was most definitely having contractions and the doc had us leave the office and said he'd see us at the hospital in a bit!  Matt raced to pick Linc up from daycare and drop him at my parents house while I drove myself home to get my hospital bag.  Craziness.  By 9ish that night, we had a shiny, new baby girl in our arms! What a lovely surprise.

And now she's 3.
She's a dancing fool. She loves to sing. She has episodes of extreme shyness around people she doesn't know well.  She has the cutest imagination with her dolls and toys. She does not like the word "no", even when used constructively -- it brings immediate tears. She is very sensitive. She still likes to come "up". She calls her brother her best friend. She loves when dad does "football Cassie" (carrying her around like a football). She's beautiful and challenging.  Her hair is full of static and it cracks us up. She loves her yellow blankies. She is Cassidy Lois "Doodles" Gough.

Her birthday celebration has been going on since before Thanksgiving and will continue through to Christmas Day.  How, then, do I explain that a birthday is actually just ONE day and not 45 days?

Here she is with her first birthday cake, when YiaYia and Papou visited in November.

Here she is loving her new Barbie doll, who we've named Katy (a la Katy Perry).

Hugging Katy.

Happy Cassie.

Feeding her new baby doll who talks, eats, drinks, and burps.  A big hit for a 3-year-old! She's such a good caretaker.

Having a birthday cookie along with ice cream on her actual birthday.

Happy Birthday, sweet Cassie.

"gingerbread" house.

Linc made a "gingerbread" house at school last week.  Gingerbread is in quotes because the house was actually made of a milk carton covered by frosting and decorated by Lincoln. There was a gingerbread man cookie standing by the front door so I guess I'll let this fly as a "gingerbread" house.

Lincoln is very proud of it. He told us it's not for eating when he brought it home so I have it on display in the kitchen.  Why, then, did I catch him breaking off and eating the gingerbread man's arm while he was eating breakfast the other day?

Christmas decorating and the most important letter of the year.

The kids were masters at hanging ornaments on the tree this year.  Mom's job was to unbox (is that a word?) and lay out the ornaments, the kids would then grab one and find the perfect spot on the tree to hang it.  Lincoln did a pretty good job on most ornaments, leaving only a few hanging on just one tiny artificial tree needle.  Cassidy also did a great job this year. Perhaps if we wanted to have a tree with all of the ornaments in one spot (the lower left), we could have left her to her devices.  Matt decided that he'd follow her by sneaking in to spread her ornaments around while she was choosing her next ornament.  She'd then hang the next one in the same spot and on we'd go.  With Matt's help, we ended up with a nicely balanced tree.

Here are a couple of pics of the kids enjoying each other's company while they decorated.

Here, Cassie is hanging her final ornament.

And Lincoln is proudly showing off his "L-for-Lincoln" ornament.

Lincoln wrote his own letter to Santa this year. I believe he said he'd been good, though we did have a discussion about how Santa is watching at ALL times. He asked for Legos and BattleForce 5 cars.

Cassidy dictated her letter to me being sure to let Santa know how helpful she is around the house, especially with the laundry.  She then proceeded to ask for a guitar, which she's been talking about for a full month now (a long time for a just-turned-three-year-old to want something)  I hope Mr. C comes through for her!

We mailed the letters at the local Santa's Mailbox and each of the kids got a  letter back from Santa in the mail!

Christmas kick-off

We enjoyed our first Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in downtown Grayslake on Thanksgiving weekend.  The weather was unseasonably warm which was certainly welcome.

Here's the tree:

And here are Lincoln and Cassidy waiting in line to see Santa at the community center after the tree lighting. Unfortunately, by the time we got inside, we were 150th in line so we convinced the kids that it'd be great to have a treat there and then head home to decorate the Christmas tree.  We'd find another day when Santa wasn't so busy to have a chat with him about our Christmas wish lists.

turkey day crafts.

Now that Lincoln is in Kindergarten, we are graced with his lovely art work regularly. For Thanksgiving this year, his class acted as Indians, while the Kindergarten class next door acted as Pilgrims.  Here is Linc:

And here is the requisite turkey craft -- a paper bag turkey.  Love it.

We enjoyed our first Thanksgiving in our new home, making our very first Thanksgiving dinner! Nearly 10 years of marriage and we've gotten away without having to make a huge turkey dinner.  Go us!  Matt's dad and step mom were here to give thanks with us.  Matt handled the turkey with a recipe a la The Food Network's Alton Brown. It turned out quite tasty!

Hopefully you were all surrounded by loved ones on Turkey Day.  Gobble gobble!

it's hockey time.

Lincoln definitely likes sports. No doubt about it. A sporting event -- any sporting event -- flashes across the tv and he stops in his tracks to see who's playing and which team dad is rooting for. He asks questions constantly...so much so that it's sometimes difficult for Matt to watch the games.  So it makes sense that he's interested in trying to play every sport in the book.  

In the fall, he had a go at his first team sport - flag football.  As he waits to have a crack at baseball in the spring we've been keeping him occupied with sports classes.  He just finished a floor hockey class. Coming from a hockey family I loved watching him learn the ropes.  Here are a few pics: 

Next up: basketball.  Starting in January. 

a spooktacular day.

What a fun-filled day we had this year for Halloween. It started off with Lincoln wearing his Darth Vader costume to school. We headed to the school to watch the kids parade in their costumes which was super cute. We spent the afternoon gutting and carving pumpkins. See the masterpieces below. We then ate a quick dinner while listening to Lincoln ask if it was time to start trick-or-treating every two minutes. He was super excited.

Beer Man made an appearance again this year. Cassidy kept saying, "Dad's gonna beer up!"  And he did.  He even won a prize at one of the neighborhood houses!  Below you can see Beer Man, Darth Vader, and SuperWhy ready for action.

Here are Lincoln and Cassidy gathering loot.  It seriously took about 1/2 hour for Cassie to even be willing to go up to people's doors and put her bucket out. Once she finally understood that she was going to get candy she decided that most houses were worth walking to the door for.

Cassidy's kitty pumpkin and Lincoln's Angry Bird pumpkin (props to Matt for doing this one).

Matt's Frankenstein pumpkin.

A superhero closeup.

Lincoln showing off his goodies.

And Cassidy excited about her goodies.

If you can't get enough of the Halloween pics, you can see more here:  Halloween 2011.