Christmas with Mommy's family!

Juliana and Hannah were the centers of attention once again last night, followed closely by my Mom's amazing roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, fruit salad, peas and carrots, rolls, and blueberry crumble pie. We had a sweet time of fellowship with everyone. Joel took the camera out of the car when he unloaded from our trip, so I will be depending on Bec and Dad and Amy for pics once again. Juliana is tolerating Hannah's bear hugs and kisses and nuzzles much better than she used to, even returning some of them. Both girls are learning to share their toys, spoons, and damp wash cloths (great teethers).

chuck-e-cheese& 2nd tooth!

i forgot to mention that hannah's 2nd tooth broke through last friday and has been growing taller every day since then. so she officially got her 2 front teeth for Christmas.

yesterday was girls' afternoon at chuck-e-cheese. hannah loved it. she slid down the slide in the toddler zone, and she loved riding the cars with stuart little and barney, as well as the one with chuck-e-cheese. she was not the only 1st timer... an 18 month old named ella was sharing the slide with her. her cousins were old pros, maddie climbed through the towers like crazy, and emily would have made uncle joel proud on the video games. hungry hippo also made hannah laugh.

tech mom (gramma t.) said we (me, her and crt) deserved a badge proclaiming "i survived chuck-e-cheese".

Merry Christmas

these aren't in their proper order. but they do provide a glimpse of our family Christmas weekend.

Christmas Eve firelight

when the kiddos are asleep... Princess comes out of hiding

Hannah "helps" great-Gramma with her presents

building a gingerbread house...

she's got everything under control

great-gramma and maddie

a warm fire, an uncle's hug and milk... what else do you need?

opening gifts.. with daddy's help

looking down at the tree and gifts from the stairs

Finally

... here are some photos which were taken by Dotson Studios over Labor Day weekend. We wanted to surprise the grandparents with pictures of the young ones, and we somehow managed to keep them until Christmas. So although they are a little old, they are still priceless. We so appreciate the time and effort that Joel's sister and her hubby have taken in capturing special moments of their nieces' childhood. The girls will appreciate the torture, too, someday....

Now presenting....

Juliana and Hannah in some of their Christmas pictures! (taken 11/14 at Sears)

Hannah & her younger cousin Juliana in their Christmas dresses!

photos of the week

hannah-bear has provided lots of cute photo opportunities this week! mommy had her camera ready!

silly mommy, trix aren't just for big kids!!!! (these were pretty stale, but hannah didn't mind when she found them in their box next to the trash)

they don't make crayons like they used to... they keep breaking!

yummy leftover bowtie pasta with meat sauce

no longer terrified of the vacuum, hannah-bear wants to be in on the action!

I love to pat the Bible!

In toddler nursery, we sing a cute little song with the kids. Each one is given a new-testament to hold. Then we sing, "Oh I love to pat the Bible with hands God gave me" and "I love to read the Bible with eyes God gave me."

Daddy's Bible was on the couch under baby bear's backpack. She started pointing to it, and tried to pull it off the couch herself. I got it down for her , and she began to pat the Bible and say "Ba-ba". (Any two-letter words that start with B are "bab-ba" to her right now." )

It was so precious.

learning to drive!

hannah bear rode in the car part of the grocery cart... she thought she was such a big kid!

and now she just figured out how to climb on top of the briefcase to get to what's on top of the stack of books on the nightstand.

i'm now grounding myself from the computer until i get some things done around the house....

lunch with daddy's office

hannah charmed her daddy's co-workers at lunch today! she was such a good girl in the restaurant, we were very proud.

standing tall

baby bear is steadier on her feet every day.
of course, it helps when she is focused on an object...
such as her baby einstein neighborhood animals dvd.
(she walks more and more, but still favors crawling if there is nothing to hold,
or she does not have a focused destination.)

the food wars are on!

my glory days of bragging rights about how well baby bear eats are over. we fought the first battle of the food ward tonight. she wanted pizza, not her veggies. can't say that i blame her. well, she gets constipated enough as it is, so there was no way i was going to let her eat just cheese pizza for dinner...

we listened to a lot of screaming, but eventually she caught on and after she ate 5 peas or carrots in a row, i gave her a bite of pizza. took a while, but she did eat her veggies.

pics from cousin's fiesta

a hannah-bear hug for juliana

kissin' cousins

yummy cake!

opening presents

Juliana's birthday party

cousin juliana turns one year old tomorrow, and we celebrated today. the party was at her gramma liz and poppa's house. i met her friends luke, gracie, and her other cousins, except for her cousin emily, who had to work. (she has a cousin emily and an aunt emily and i have a cousin emily. talk about confusing!)

she got a lot of fun gifts. i got to color with crayons for my first time. her cake was so pretty. she loved the orange frosting... picked it off her smash cake symmetrically.


granwendy and grandaddy were there, too. i was shy around the strangers at first, but by the end of the night i was tackling my younger cousin with kisses. mommy is trying to teach me to be gentle. i also tried to yank my cousin's arm off and steal her new elmo doll at the same time.

1st ear infection

hannah-bear had a rough night last night. (so did mommy and daddy). she's starting antibiotics today, so hoefully she'll be good to go to cousin juliana's party tomorrow....

bar-b-cutie

last night was our weekly meal at bar-b-cutie. hannah loves their green beans. anyway, this cute older couple and their daughter sat in the both behind us, and hannah kept flirting with them, especially the old man. his wife had asked "how old is she?" while her husband was ordering their food. upon his return, he asked ,"boy or girl".

"She's far too pretty to be a boy!" the wife scolded the man.

I agree.

pre-bedtime fun

i am not too big for this, am i making myself clear??

i may be to heavy for the motor to work, but daddy does a fine job keeping me swinging.

 

the girl with the curl

how does that old rhyme go? there once was a girl...?
anyway, check out my curl! i was trying to do flips, and my hair curled on top of my head in the process. normally it's curly at the bottom of my neck... 

matador

tonight, hannah discovered she likes chasing a blanket when mommy waves it like a matador. daddy yelled "toro! toro!" while she "bucked" the blanket and laughed her deep, throaty chuckle.

thanksgiving

daddy, uncle brett, juliana

watching grandaddy carve the turkey

uncle adam, me, aunt amy

grandaddy, me

me and 'cuz learning to share
(our mommies did not plan to have us match,
but aren't we cute?)

stepping out...

hannah took 8 steps halfway across the bonus room tonight. her daddy and i think she'll be chasing her cousins on foot at Christmas! she stands longer, her steadiness is increasing... she's growing up so fast!

i better keep that camera nearby so i can get pics of this adorable "almost walking" phase...

greetings from hannah-bear

tbi o ox0pllip-/mloh
jj;;;;;;;;;;;iiiiiiiiiii
bhv'b " BBBBB'/ /l6

4th day of feeling icky....

we went to doc's office today as walk-ins. i wasn't about to wait for a 4-4:30 appointment when baby bear would surely be miserable. turns out her sickness is viral, mine is bacterial- sinus and ear infection for me. she has mommy's scary-sounding cough, is napping longer than normal, waking in the middle of the night, and refusing to drink milk from her sippy cup, making it hard for her to get enough fluids. so weaning from the bottle is just going to have to wait a bit longer. but when she's better, it will be a battle of wills! she was doing so well in that area before she got sick. oh, well. at least she doesn't need antibiotics. fave nurse was actually more worried about mommy's temp than baby bear's. i didn't know i had a temp i take hers so often, the last thing i want to do is check my own. (the great thing about family practice- one stop care, instead of having to go to 2 separate docs when both of us are sick).

worst cold yet...

baby bear and i are sick. she woke up at 3:30 saturday morning with a 101.5 temp. we got it down with tylenol drops, although it hovered around 100 on sunday and is now closer to 99... not quite so high.

the last time i took her to the doc, it was viral and we just had to keep doing what we've been doing. i think we might take her in anyway, only for the peace of mind of my mother and sister. (i am also praying that juliana didn't get sick, since baby bear fell ill the night she came to visit!!!)

i don't have a temp, but my signature seasonal hack has returned, and i hate it. hopefully it will be gone by thursday. lol. like that will happen.

******

christmas is in the air...

hannah and i did some of our Christmas "shopping" with juliana, becca and brett today. it was a long afternoon, but we had fun.

1st birthday weekend review

ottie the otter came to visit, too.

proud grandpa

family portrait (in front of Great Grandma Eileen's piano. Hannah Eileen was named after her Great- Grandma, who played this piano)

hannah & maddie with ottie

opening a gift with mommy

duet

kissing cousin

this hat won't last long

hannah & juliana are tired from too much partying