Snow Babies!

What a beautiful snowy day we had today! We were all packed and ready to go visit my Granny in Marble Falls this morning, but the weather made us reconsider and I am so, so glad Luke got to play in the snow. He thought it was too much fun and even Lily seemed to like it.

Daddy and Lily (notice the precious winter hat and boots - I love them!)


It was really coming down.


If you click on this picture you can see that Luke has his tongue out and is trying to catch snowflakes.


Matthew made Luke a little tiny snowman and after saying how much he liked it, Luke decided to eat it.


We also got to build our Gingerbread Train this afternoon. I have always loved decorating gingerbread houses, but Luke loves trains so we decided to let him loose on this one once I got it built. He was very proud of himself (I was proud that more of the candy made it on the train than in his mouth.) He admired the completed train for all of two seconds and then took a giant bite out of the roof!


It is days like today that remind me how much I love my family and how thankful I am that I have such a wonderful husband and that I get to be Mom to these two precious children.

Dewberry Farm

I just wanted to post a few pictures that we took when we went to Dewberry Farm last weekend with the Proctors. We all had a great time and will definitely go back next year. There was tons to do!

As usual, Lily loved the swing.


Luke had a blast on the bouncy thing.


Sweet Lily loving on her Daddy.


Daddy and Luke in the corn maze.


Luke on the rope swing at the haystack. I was so proud of him for trying it!


It really was a great day and I'm so glad Jenn and Matt invited us.

Halloween 2009

So, first things first, we did make it to the Pumpkin Patch this year, but the kids were not particularly in the mood to have their pictures taken. These two are the best ones we got, and yes that is my hair blowing in Lily's face.

This picture is from the Fall Festival at church. Luke had a fabulous time but we were too busy playing to take many pictures. I did like this one of a happy ladybug though.

And here is my pride and joy - Luke in his Man with the Yellow Hat costume. I spent many, many hours working on this and I am so happy with how it turned out. Luke loved seeing himself in the mirror and he especially loved wearing the galoshes. In retrospect I would have made the hat lighter because it didn't really stay on all that well, but otherwise my first costume making experience was a success!

Me with my two sweet babies just before trick or treating!

And last but not least, a goofy shot of Lily with her animal crackers. Not sure why, but EVERY time she got ahold of this bag of animal crackers, she put the bag in her mouth and took off. I have numerous pictures of her roaming the house, animal crackers clenched betweeen her little teeth. She makes me smile!

Milano

Our weekend in Milano in pictures...

Here is Luke climbing on the remnants of a tree that was cut down.


Luke with a grasshopper that PopPop caught for him.


Sweet Lily with a grasshopper bow in her hair.

Mommy and Luke.

Lily and Daddy on the tractor. She was loving it!

My babies and their Dad.

Nina and Lily bean.

Luke feeding the cow at the neighbor's.

It was a GREAT weekend.

Lily at 9 months!

So here she is at nine months old! She is all over the place and usually has this happy grin on her face. I can't believe it's been nine months since I held this little girl for the first time. She brings so much joy to our family - we are so very blessed.


Some things for the record book...At 9 months Lily is

• Pulling up on everything and cruising around the furniture like a pro.


• Standing for several seconds at a time before plopping back down on her bottom.


• She has seven teeth and the cutest little grin in the world!


• She weighs just over 16 pounds.


• It's not in the book yet, but we're pretty sure she knows who she's talking about when she says Mama and Dada.


• She adores Luke and always wants to see what he's doing. She drives him crazy trying to touch whatever he's playing with, but he is super sweet with her and will always go get her another toy to play with.


• She still loves her Mommy best when she's sad or tired and I still occasionally get to rock her to sleep. Just thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes.

She is such a precious girl and we love her so much! And on that note, a final picture...

September

We have had a very busy September moving into the new house and getting everything unpacked and everyone settled in. We are really liking the new neighborhood and Luke absolutely loves having a playroom for all his toys. There is still A LOT to be done, but we are mostly unpacked and we finally have a few things up on the walls. No paint yet, but hopefully soon we'll get started, most likely with the kids' rooms.

Anyway here are just a few pictures from the last month...

This is Luke's new "smile" - he has this one squinty eye thing going in almost every picture we have taken lately.


For those of you who missed seeing Lily's first two top teeth...may I present Vampire Baby! ( I would like to add that she has since gotten her two front teeth so she no longer looks like she has fangs!)


Luke helping with Daddy's tools.

Sweet Lily girl playing with her kitchen.

I promise I'll post again soon(ish)...maybe Lily will get a 9 month post.

Just a Few Pictures

I just wanted to post a few pictures of my precious kids. They make me smile!

Can you tell we're getting ready to move?

One of Lily's few happy times on her belly...mostly she prefers to sit up. I'm not sure she's ever going to crawl. Her current mode of transportation is scooting around on her bottom.

Luke helping Mommy with the dishes (or dumping water on the floor, however you prefer to look at it!) He is such a great helper, especially when it comes to cleaning.

6 Months!

Lily is six months old today! It feels like time is going by even faster with her than it did with Luke. She is such a sweetheart and she brings so much joy to our whole family. Here are just a few of the things I want to remember about this time:

• She is a talker! She loves to be social and will coo and babble endlessly with Matthew and I.
• She is a Mama's girl. She lights up when she sees me and it makes my heart melt every time.
• She is sitting up on her own! She loves to sit on the floor and have Luke make her musical zoo go around.
• Luke calls her "Sissy Princess" and has become her spokesman for whatever is wrong, especially in the car. If she starts crying or fussing, Luke announces the problem and tells her "It will be okay, Mommy will fix it when we stop."
• She is a great eater and hasn't disliked any of the foods she has tried. Her favorites right now are peas and oatmeal.
• She is a drama queen. If something is worth getting upset over, it's worth getting REALLY upset over.

Here are a few favorite pictures of the Bean.

Luke Needs a Vitamin

Here is my conversation with Luke from a couple of days ago during breakfast.

Luke: Mommy, I need a vitamin.
Me: Oh, you need a vitamin, huh?
Luke: Yes Mommy, just like I said.

This is a new one that he's come up with. Ever since he learned to talk, Matthew and I have repeated things to him, just to confirm that we heard him and we know what he wants. Up until recently he would just continue to repeat himself until we acknowledged what he was saying. Evidently this is no longer necessary, seeing as how he has begun telling both his dad and I that things are "Just like he said."

I love, love, love my little boy!

Sweet Girl

Our precious girl is five months old already! Here are a few pictures of the Lily Bean.

Lily is four months old!

Our sweet Lily is (over) four months old now! She is doing great. I just took her to her four month check up and the doctor said she looks perfect! She is 12 lbs 10 oz and she is 25 inches long. That makes her in the 23 and 73 percentages for weight and height. She is gaining weight at a steady pace now, but because she started out slow, I am adding some high calorie EnfaCare to her cereal for the next month. Hopefully this will help her gain a little more weight!

Here are a couple of pictures of Lily at four months.

Isn't she beautiful?

Loving that exersaucer!

She is such a fun little girl. She loves to have people pay attention to her and she talks to everyone...Mommy, Daddy, Luke, people in line at the grocery store, the frog attached to her carseat, etc. She has just started rolling over and she loves to ride in the sling and nibble on her toes.

Time is just flying by. I'm trying to slow down and enjoy these sweet baby moments before they're gone.

A Pretty Girl and A Little Reader

Sweet Lily Bean in one of my favorite dresses.

Luke is so into reading right now - I love it! This morning I told him I would be right back and when I came back he was sitting in the corner on his stuffed puppy dog reading to himself.

I love, love, love these precious children!

Easter

Well, the plan for today was to try and get some pictures of our family. (You'll notice below that there are exactly zero pictures of all of us.) But sometimes kids don't quite understand how much effort goes into these things, and this morning my children had absolutely no interest in being photographed. We did however, get a few good ones of my sweet babies this afternoon.

I love this picture of Luke. He is so very intent on watching the ants crawl.


I really wanted to get a few pictures of Lily outside, but I'm glad I snapped this shot before we went out. Here is the progression of how Lily felt about having her picture taken.

Just hanging out inside.

Obviously she was not loving the fresh air.

It took quite awhile to get her calmed down, after which she was all done in and had to nap in Daddy's arms.

I love these precious children so much! They bring me joy every single day and I can't imagine my life without them.

Lily's First Overnight Trip

I have so much updating to do...but I'll start with the pictures we took in Marble Falls last weekend. We got to take Lily on her first trip and she actually took the 4 hour car ride a lot better than we were expecting. It was so nice to see my Granny and she got to take her first in person look at Lily. Here are a few pictures we took while we were there.

Luke checking out Granny's flowers.


Lily laughing in Nina's lap.


Four generations: Nina, Nikki, Lily and Great Granny


The whole genetically related crazy crew: Nina, Luke, Great Granny, Aunt Billie, Nikki and Lily


We had such a wonderful time - beautiful weather AND great company!