Our Girls

So Santa wasn't a big hit this year. She did talk to him from a distance though. She told him "ho, ho, ho" and "baby" (that's what she wants for Christmas). And if you look very closely...there is the beginning of a smile when Santa asked for 'five'.

We woke this morning to a neighborhood covered in "soooooow" (as our baby says it). Unfortunately mommy and daddy promised they would deliver presents for church so we had to leave the house. Mommy prefers to just stay put when there is white stuff all over. Here is our baby's first venture out into the snow this year. Note to all concerned viewers of photos: She WILL wear gloves when we go out longer than 60 seconds. She WILL wear boots and snow pants, and a big jacket too. We were only out for literally 60 seconds...So please don't report us to DCFS (yet). This adorable coat and hat was a gift from Grammy. It is so warm and snuggly! Not to mention cuter than cute!

Metal mixing bowl = Hat??? YES HAT! Or not a hat??? Hat. Who needs toys when you have a kitchen full of fun things???

This is our Gingerbread Girl all ready to decorate wearing her cute ginger-jammies from Aunt Tracy:) Daddy is showing her how to squeeze the icing. She was all about squeezing it and tasting it...but she did not like it at all when mommy made it in the mixer. Our baby does not like machines that make noise (vacuum, mixer, etc.) They are scary and she feels that they should not be used AT ALL around her. She was a great help! The finished product!

Yes, this is titled correctly. And No, we have not started potty training yet. A few days ago our baby found this book on her shelf (a generous gift from Uncle Nate) and she has wanted to read it nonstop. I am talking 15 - 20 times a day! She is obsessed. More than obsessed. It is actually getting a bit ridiculous. She digs through her books on her book case saying "poop, poop, poop" looking specifically for that book. And then when she finds it, it must be read immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 - immediately read the book! The book has these little 'lift the flap' pages that she lifts and then she says "POOP!" when she finds the one with the poop under it. It must be read at least 3 times through each time you sit to read (no skipping pages either!). Augh!!! Uncle Nate you just wait till you have children:)

It was cold and rainy outside and my baby and I were stuck at home with nothing that had to be done...so we ventured to an indoor play place here in town. It truly was like a huge hamster cage for kids! (And mommy's!) We were the ONLY ones in the place. It was a blast! We started off in the toddler area (where the video is filmed), but then went through the big kids tunnels, down the big-kids slides, on the big-kid trampoline, and over the big kid bridges. She LOVED every minute of it. The slides were HUGE. I made sure she sat on my lap as we went down just in case she got scared...but she didn't. She laughed the whole way down and then signed (and screamed) "More! MORE!". After 45 minutes, mommy was tired. (It was quite a work out folks!) So it was back to the toddler area for our baby. She didn't stop or sit down once! She is quite the climber these days. We have to watch to make sure all of our chairs are pushed in around our kitchen table. She has been known t...

The Andrew and Daughter Day didn't get off to a great start. We couldn't go swimming - too cold, too rainy. We went to the library -closed, too early. We went to see Aunt Mary at a pottery sale - again, too early. We went to the world's largest Burger King play place - too rowdy and too dirty. So finally, it came down to Christmas shopping. Not really what I had in mind, but hey you do what you gotta do. The girl had a blast! I let her run a little rampant up and down the Mall hallways - she ran about half a step ahead of me saying "Hi" and "DaDa" to everyone we met. She burned off a little steam, had a good time, all was right with the world. And then... the carousel. She looks a little somber in these pictures, but this was as good as mainlining chocolate cake as far as she was concerned. She picked out the "Cat" to ride on, she "Grrr'ed" at the tiger and "nay"ed at the horses. All in all it turned out pretty spectacul...

Our first Thanksgiving was with Andrew's side of the family and that was when the baby was sick. This Thanksgiving was with Jessica's side of the family and our baby was MUCH better. Andrew and I were in charge of a small hors douvre. Look what we came up with:) (Well, actually I stole the idea from a magazine so we can't take that much credit for it.) But it turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself. (and I do!) Here is Aunt Jen ready to feast! Speaking of feast...our baby LOVED the fruit salad, mashed potatoes, turkey, and broccoli salad. Yum Yum!!!!

Here is a preview of our Christmas pictures. She was in a GREAT mood and was more than happy to smile for us. We had to take several breaks during the photo shoot so that she could kiss the animals. She has this obsession with kissing things. Including the little boy that I babysit:) Daddy is not too happy about all of this. Here she is getting ready to smooch Aunt Jen's reindeer. And here she is laying a big one on Pluto:) Pucker up! And yet another one on Frosty! So much love to give away!

Here is a video of our baby stacking cups. It is not the most exciting video...but I wanted to see if I could even post it. If this works more videos will follow:)

We haven't seen our long lost friend for many many moons! But at last he appeared! And he got to meet our baby and Jonah (our baby's good friend) for the first time:) Our baby really took to Bratcher and by the end of the night she was calling him "ba-chr". It sounded remarkably close to his real name! "Ba-chr" called her a tease because she would come and jump on his lap and cuddle...but then push him away and run off. After one too many times of running off, Ba-chr tickled her and she giggled and giggled:) Our baby checks out her friend Jonah. "Baby" is his name according to her. Mommy and Daddy let her stay up later than usual because she was having so much fun with her new friend Ba-chr. Ba-chr will have to come back and visit again real soon!

This last weekend we traveled to Q-town to celebrate T-giving with Andrew's side of the family. We also celebrated a birthday for one of her cousins. It should have been a wonderful trip...however, our baby ended up sick and was VERY fussy the entire time. We left early on Sunday morning so that we could go back home and take her to the doctor. The dr. determined that she had a strep infection and an ear ache. Poor baby. I would have been fussy too if I had all that going on. The pictures below were taken in Grammy's sun room during her cousins b-day party. We don't normally let her have her pacifier...but this was an extreme situation and the pacifier just made her feel better. We were willing to do anything to make her feel better that day!

Our girl's latest thing is to take care of this small, cueball-headed, baby. She rocks it; she burps it; She tells it to go "night night"; she puts the baby's pacifier in; she drags it (lovingly of course) by one arm and lets its head bounce on the ground. She has taken her cuteness to a whole new level with the doll. And then, tonight, after having a 100-degree fever, she decided that she needed to curl up with her baby. Just when you thought the cute factor could go no higher, she outdoes herself.

Our precious baby went out to dinner with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa and about 20 other relatives:) We traveled to Navoo and had a delicious dinner! Here is Great-Grandma offering our baby some cold milk. She says "Burrrrr". Great-Grandpa reached down to pick her up and exclaimed "Wow! She is HEAVY!". She doesn't look heavy...but she is a whopping 21 lbs. Thanks for a great dinner Grandma and Grandpa!

Our baby is a little dare devil! She has no fear of anything (probably because she has never been hurt before). Anyway, trips to the park are always fun! She likes to go down the big slides. Sometimes she just runs right up to the slide and flops down on her tummy and goes down head first. It makes it kind of hard for daddy to catch her at the bottom, but he always manages somehow. In this picture you can see her smile and laugh the whole way down!

Our baby called Grammy to see if we should come visit... Grammy of course said YES! So we traveled over her way:) She took us to the PBS Kids play time and our baby LOVED it!!!! She played in the grain bin with Daddy. And she got to meet Clifford the Big Red Dog. She ran right up to him and gave him a big hug around the legs. Then they danced together. Then we went back to the house and took a nap. Grammy, mommy, and daddy went shopping and left Gramps in charge of the sleeping baby. When daddy returned home early from the shopping trip, our little girl had woken up and then went back to sleep again on Gramps lap. "Paw, paw" (as she calls him) was more than happy to snuggle up with her!

Here is our little lady all dressed up and ready for a night out on the town...well, really just to a few friends homes. We couldn't get a picture of her smiling tonight so we might have to reenact Halloween tomorrow. She did have her first taste of candy...fruit jelly things. She ate about 4 and then said "all done". I wouldn't say that they were a big hit. She would take fishy crackers over that candy any day.

This little "Boo" shirt was a gift from Chaela. You can't see them...but she also has matching pumpkin socks! We danced and sang lots of songs. "If You Are Happy And You Know It" is one of of her favorites:) She actually starts clapping BEFORE the song comes on the cd. She hears the end of the song before it and gets all excited:) She stomps her feet (which sometimes makes her fall over) and pats her head. Her other favorite song right now is Secret Agent Spy from the Backyardigans. She sings "shhhh, shhh" along with the song:) Last picture from this morning...She has been carrying around this plastic pumpkin for the last couple of weeks putting blocks and anything else she finds inside. Then she dumps it all out and starts collecting again. We will post more pictures later of our night time Halloween fun!

This is our first post to the new website. We are playing around with adding pictures and notes so that everyone can see how our little one grows:) This picture was taken on a humid day - look at her hair curl up!