one more day until the countdown begins

yep, we have an advent calendar this year. Just a simple one - paper only. I'm a little fearful that it will inspire too much toy-craze, but I LOVED advent calendars when I was a kid so I am willing to take on the toy-craze in order to teach anticipation and patience. And we already have a Playmobil advent calendar waiting for the year when no one willingly puts small objects in her mouth.

OTHER UPDATES
Have I already mentioned that Sophia is in love with letters? She loves the alphabet and can almost sing the alphabet song. The fast LMNOP part throws her a bit. And she has grasped zero, well maybe not the concept but she recognizes it as a number not a letter.
I'm trying to up the potty effort in the house too. Sophia responds well when we actively encourage using the potty - especially when we roll up the living room rug and do naked butt time. She actually went to sit on it on her own and pooped. I was flabbergasted. She got a big bowl of MsMs (that's m&ms) after that. (Lucy this was right after I talked to you - I think Sophia was listening to the conversation and decided to do potty time - she hasn't been nearly so interested since then.)

Stella meanwhile is full on climbing. After I had washed out the potty and was getting Sophia the msms in the kitchen I suddenly heard water running and ran into the bathroom to find that Stella had climbed up the stool and was standing at the to and had turned on the faucet. HEART ATTACK! There are a lot of sharp corners and porcelain to smash against in the tiny bathroom.

Stella's getting much better about sleeping at night. 2 nights ago she slept through SOPHIA getting up twice. Though Stella has a bad habit of getting up at 5am, something I unwittingly was reinforcing by resignedly getting up myself, and not even trying to get her back to sleep. She pushed the envelope too far this morning and got up at 4:54 so I nursed her, which didn't help- she was still all smiles and giggles and talking, so I sat with her on the couch rocking her and singing "time to go to sleep" over and over again until she did. Thank goodness because BOTH of them need more sleep. This whole house needs more sleep, except maybe the cat.