Christmas 2008

Well another Christmas has come and gone - what a crazy few days it has been. I hope everyone had a great Christmas....It was actually a nice relaxing Christmas for us - especially since this year, none of the festivities were at our house so we didn't have to worry about trying to get our house straightened up (that's a whole other story these days...lol). We spent lots of time with Andy's family celebrating the holidays, ate way too much food, opened up way too many presents and just had a good time. The kids got spoiled (but isn't that the fun of it?!?!?) I think we need a bigger house - actually I KNOW we need a bigger house, but everyday I keep thinking that the house I think we need isn't big enough anymore either - especially after all the toys they got in the last few days. We have already converted our dining room into a play area to accommodate all of Brooklynn's toys, but even that doesn't seem to be doing the trick anymore. Hopefully in a few weeks my mom and I will get down to business and start de-cluttering room by room - it is so overwhelming - I can only imagine how HUGE our garage sale is going to be in a couple of months.....we could probably stock an entire other house with our stuff that we don't use. Its sad to think back when we got this house back in 2004 how HUGE it felt to us - especially since we basically doubled our living space from our previous house....now it just feels so cramped - its amazing how fast things can accumulate in such a short time. But I guess looking back - our family has grown since then too - we added a couple of dogs and another child to the mix so we're bound to have more things.....well thats what I keep telling myself anyway...hehehe.

Ok well I have rambled on enough about the chaos of our house for now.....see once I get going - its hard to stop... Here are some pics of our kiddos enjoying Christmas and opening presents.


Can't believe I actually got a good shot of both kids before diving into the presents...


Brooklynn HAD to be in the middle of all her big brother's presents...



Andrew got a bunch of neat new things to play with - this Bionic Eye thing is so cool (shows way more than you ever wanted to see when you put it to your carpet - we need our carpets cleaned and FAST!!)

Finally getting back to her own presents....

All ready to go celebrate Christmas Day with the extended family....

See y'all later!!! Hope everyone had a great Christmas!!!

Busy...Busy...Busy...

3 little words that desribe our household on any given day. Somehow the last month has just FLOWN by and we are just 2 days away from Christmas - where did the time go? For once though, I can say that I got my house decorated right after Thanksgiving, finished my shopping a few days ago, and even got all the gifts wrapped earlier than normal. For once, I am more or less on the ball!!! But I did realize about a week ago, that my intentions to do a cute Christmas card somehow got pushed aside......so unfortunately this year, we won't be sending any. So to all those that I have gotten cards from, THANK YOU so much - we loved each and every one of them!
Another busy busy busy person in our household is Miss Brooklynn...she is into EVERYTHING!!!! She is running non-stop and is just a crazy girl. She starts the minute you take her out of her crib until the time you put her down for the night - its non-stop 24/7 with that girl. I should have known from all the kicking she did while I was pregnant with her - we thought for sure she was training for the Olympics or something...hahaha. Anyway...thought I would share some pics of how much she has changed in just even a month - I think these pics really show her personality - esp the last ones with the presents - she is one tough little girl - no fear whatsoever - she is a little daredevil....you can see on one of the bottom pictures the scratches and stuff she has on her face (nothing slows her down)....I couldn't even tell you where they came from - just can't keep track of all her run-ins with the wall, floor, toys, etc... but she is so much fun - definitely full of personality.



Getting in the Christmas spirit one morning...



She is fascinated with our dancing/singing snowman...



you gotta love her style...lol - she loves to steal socks
and then wear them - of course she can't wait to take her
own socks off - go figure!!!



This is how her hair was styled one day when I
picked her up from daycare.....too cute!



She always has to be in the middle of everything!
I was trying to wrap presents and she thought they were
new climbing toys...



So proud of herself....

like I said earlier - no fear!

Happy 1st Bday Brooklynn!!!

Well we survived our 1st b-day party for Miss Brooklynn - and had a great time! She loved every minute of all the attention she was getting over her birthday weekend. Friday, Andy & I got to take the day off from work and spend time with our beautiful daughter. We had so much fun with her visiting people that day as we were running some last minute party errands. Then when we finally got home that day, she got to open her presents from us......she LOVED her new school bus ball pit.....125 colored balls for her to throw all over the house - every mother's dream...lol!!!

After opening presents we got to sing 'Happy Birthday' to her and give her a trial run with cake - what a MESS!!! She loved it though - we only were able to get video of it but don't worry - we got plenty of pics the next day at her party with her cake.

Her party was the next day on Saturday at 3pm - the weather was perfect. We got everything set up and were ready to party. She had a blast - she had some other kids there to play with that were around her age - they are so cute at that age when they play together! Anyway....we had a great time - everything turned out very nicely - Im glad its over though....I had been planning this day for months so it was a nice relief to be done with it and to have it go well. We probably ended up having about 30-35 people attend - including kids so it was a great turnout. Here are some pictures from her special day...

All dressed and ready to party!!!

Daisy Party Room...



Yummy birthday cake...

Cruisin' around with Chloe in the new ride...

Present Time - where do I start???

Trying to figure things out with partner in crime, Blakelyn

Only 1 year old and already busy with the phone.....

Waiting patiently for round 2 with her cake....

Oops...taking too long - I waaaant my cake!!!!!!

'Smash Cake' - BEFORE

How the 'smash cake' got its name...

ewww....squishy!!!

Everything is always more fun with your big brother....

..And finally....the aftermath of the 'smash cake'

A First for Everything....

Hey.....well we've had a busy few weeks - who knew that October would be full of so many things going on?? Its funny - up until I met Andy, I never really knew anyone else other than myself that had an October bday....but that isnt the case in his family. October is THE month for birthdays......almost every week it was someone else's bdays so needless to say we got to eat out a lot to help celebrate! Im glad Brooklynn decided to wait for a November birthday so she could have her own month!!!

Well speaking of Brooklynn - she is now officially a walker. I guess technically she started taking her first few (wobbly) steps back in late Sept and has steadily improved since then, but in the last week or two she has pretty much fine tuned her new skill. She can even get up on her own from the floor and take off, she can lean down and pick things up and stand back up - I am so excited for her.....its funny - such simple things become magnified so much with children - you just take it for granted, but you really do have to learn how to do EVERYTHING in life.....how to roll over, to sit up, to crawl, to walk, etc.....I love seeing her reach all these goals - and you can see how excited she is to do them too. Its so incredible to think how far she has come in just one short year.....it has just FLOWN by way too fast. A few more days and she will be 1 year old...its just crazy to realize that.

I keep thinking back to what I was doing this time last year and how i was feeling and how excited I was that she was almost here and of course how terrified I was of actually having to go through childbirth.....but thats just such a short moment of time. When people ask me what I thought motherhood was going to be like and how it compares to how it actually has been, I tell them its absolutely amazing..I have loved every moment of it - yes the first couple of months were rough with sleep deprivation and recovering from childbirth and a dealing with the demands of a newborn but becoming a mother has been the most incredible thing I have ever done - I am sad each day when I have to drop her off at daycare so I can go to work but I know that she LOVES playing with other kids her own age. In the afternoons, I can't get to the daycare fast enough to pick her up.....the drive seems like it takes forever most days even though its only like 30 mins and the way she lights up and gives me the hugest grin when she sees me walking in the door...just melts my heart - makes even my crappiest days go away. It has been such an incredible year with her and experiencing all her firsts......defintely more than I could have ever imagined......she is everything I had been waiting for and defintely worth the wait.

Oh talking about daycare - she graduated to the Toddler Room...that room is a BLAST! They are hilarious in there - they go non-stop and are into everything - just watching them on camera wears me out! I am excited for her to be in this room - defintely more her speed. They even get to go play outside on a little playground. Oh and they do NOT have cribs in this room - they sleep on little mats wtih their blankets - and it actually has HELPED her nap longer!!!! In the previous 2 rooms, we were lucky if she took a 30 min nap the whole day! In this new room she sleeps at least an hour if not longer each day....its amazing. I never in my wildest dreams thought she would ever stay on a mat by herself - nothing holding/strapping her down either! So she's doing really well in this new room - she seems to love it and the teachers seem to be really good too.....

Another first this past week - HALLOWEEN!!! It was Brooklynn's first halloween - she did so well......we went trick or treating and everything. We went to our friends house and tagged along with them and their 2 kids - Zoey is 18 months and Jessie is almost 7 so Brooklynn and Andrew got to go house to house with their friends. Brooklynn held up really well - she walked and held out her basket at people's front doors - of course she had NO CLUE what she was doing but she loved doing it and was smiling the whole night. More candy for mom...lol!!! If she has 1/2 the sweet tooth that I do, we're in trouble!!!! Here are some of my fav pics from Halloween this year. Brooklynn was a lady bug and Andrew was a bloody grim reaper...lol. Gone are the days of the cutesy halloween costumes for him - now he things the scarier and gross things are cool.......lucky us...hahaha. Anyway...this post is long enough - enjoy the pics. I'll post in a few days after the big bday party on Sat...wish me luck!!