Thanksgiving Highlights

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving filled with lots of family, friends, love and laughter. The feast was Delicious and definitely worth all of the many hours that went into the preparation and cooking. My mom is the best cook ever! It was great seeing family and catching up. Later that night, some of us stayed up late and played games. It was a lot of fun to get to do things that you don't get to do very often and to spend time with those you treasure and don't get the opportunity to see as much as you like. I am very thankful for Thanksgiving and for the opportunity it gives us to be with those we love :)

On another note, it is a tradition in my family to wake up early on Black Friday to go shopping. So, crack of dawn at 4am, my mother, sister and I braved the stampede at Walmart at 4:30am. It was cccrrraazzy,but I got some cool deals. Then we booked it over to Target at 6am and got some steals there too. People can seriously go nuts to get the things that they want. Fortunately, we all came out of it without a scratch (although Melinda, my sister, did drop a doll on someone else's head) and were done shopping by 8am! Fun stuff!

Grandma's Make Life Grand!

My mom is always pointing out that I have no pictures of her on heer, so this one is for you Mama! My mom LOVES her granddaughters sooo much and spoils them rotten. They are always so happy and excited to see her. Lily spent her first night over at grandma's last night. I was kind of sad (just that she is old enough now for sleepovers!) but she had such a blast! She loves spending time with gramma and having her undivided attention and gramma loves spending time with her Lily girl. Next to her hugs, kisses and cuddles, Lily especially loves shopping with Gramma because she buys her special treats. Last trip, she bought her a whole set of Christmas marshmallow lollipops and her very own Santa Clause bowl, plate, and cup set that she was just thrilled over! My children are soooo SPOILED!!! Thank goodness for grandparents!

Xmas Photos!

Bridget took our Christmas portraits a couple of weekends ago. I have just been too lazy to post them. The kids did very well considering and I was very happy that we got lots of adorable ones! Here are some of the ones I love. Sorry there are so many, but hey, I narrowed it down from over 200!!! :P


















P.S. I am counting down the days 'til Christmas already! Can't wait!

Meet Jake. . .

Our new little Lhasa Apso doggy that we rescued from the Humane Society today. We have been wanting to find a cute, small dog for the girls. Lily really loves to play with our friends and families dogs, so we thought we could try getting one of our own. . .again. I prayed to find one that would fit nicely into our family and small house! We got sooo lucky! He is 3 years old, very sweet and VERY mellow, which is so perfect for us and our small living quarters. He is already potty trained, what more could we ask for? The girls already love him so much and he LOVES to follow them around and give them kisses (this of course is really hard for me and I have to stop him at times. I am not a big fan of dog licks, especially on the face!) Lily loves to walk him and Alex loves to tug and pull on him. So far, he is very good with both of them and loves when they cuddle him. He loves to jump up on the couch and stretch out. He likes to stretch out on his back with his paws up :) Our cat, Spooky, isn't exactly fond of him at the moment, but he will at least be in the same room with him, just not too close. Here are some cute photos of the new guy!And just so Spooky doesn't think we are biased. . .

We love you both!!!

Loud and Proud!

Alex has become quite our little Screamer! She LOVES to do it whenever and where ever. She is such a riot and yes, I do admit, that I LOVE to egg her on and challenge her to screaming contests. Here's a video I took of her in action today.

*sidenote: Lily is weird and picks random moments to be weird. I have no idea what triggered her giggly bone in this video, but it makes me laugh when she talks and giggles at the same time. Very hard to understand, but hilarious to watch. ENJOY!

Live and In Concert . . .

Lily loves music and anything she can get her hands on the strikes up a tune. Over the weekend we visited Auntie Bridget and Uncle Ted. Lily spotted Ted's guitar almost right away. Throughout the day, she kept eying it with this look of extreme want and desire. You can't extinguish that look of fire in a musicians eyes no matter how young. She did her best to control herself and not touch it, but sometimes she just couldn't help it! So, imagine her excitement when the next morning Teddy surprised her outside with a guitar serenade. Lilyana couldn't help herself. As soon as the music floated to her ears, she got her groove on and started dancing up a storm. It was so cute and entertaining to watch. Then Teddy actually let her strum the strings! She was ecstatic and didn't waste any time plucking away and making her own music. She absolutely loved it! Looks like we got our own little rockstar on our hands!

STUCK!

I was folding laundry when I heard some grunting noises followed by cries of frustration. I wen to investigate and found Alex trapped underneath the chair. She had tried to crawl over the legs, but got stuck with her legs up and nowhere to go.

Of course, before freeing her, I had to snap pictures of her moment in distress. Needless to say, she was all smiles when mommy saved the day!

Silly Girl

I caught this picture of Alexandria crawling around with a plastic carrot hanging out of her mouth. Watching her crawling from place to place like this was too funny. It reminded me a little of a snowman. Only a human one :)I guess when you can't use your hands to carry things around, using your mouth is the next best thing. Such a problem solver!

Trick or Treat!

This is the first year that Halloween has actually worked out pleasantly for us. Lily is now old enough to truly enjoy the dressing up and the candy action. I had really been working on her all month and practicing knocking on the back door and saying, "Trick or treat!" She's become a pro! When Halloween finally came, she was so thrilled and anxious! After dinner, we got her and Alex all dressed up in their adorable little costumes and of course took tons of pictures. Come on, did you really expect anything less from me? :)

Alexandria was the most adorable little witch :)

Totally pumped and ready for trick or treating!

Lilyana was the cutest little Tinkerbell
(So, tell me why people thought she was a princess or an angel? Does she LOOK like that to you? Who doesn't know Tinkerbell? Come on people!)

Michael and I even threw together some fast last minute costumes:

I think I pulled off the butterfly look. What do you think?
Lily's dress up wings were a bit tight, but worked nicely.

The girls didn't know what to think of Michael's costume at first.
Who is this redneck, bearded lady?

I am pretty impressed with this photo. I took it myself!
We may not all be looking, but I was happy to get everyone in the photo!

And here they are all cozy in their wagon and ready for the
trick or treat adventure.

Lilyana is a very fast learner and already a Trick or Treating pro! After each house, she would say "Get more candy, mom? We go to another house? I LOVE candy!"
Once she figured out that this whole thing worked, there was no stopping her!
What a silly girl!

After trick or treating, we stopped by Great Grandpa's house to get more candy and snuggles before bed.

Back at home, of course, we had to check out our stash!

I don't think she has ever seen so much candy before! Look at that excitement!

Whoa, baby!

Lily (and Daddy) were definitely in candy heaven!
(Please divert your eyes from my messy couches. Thanks much!)

It was a very long, but fun night! Next year we are going to think of a family theme to dress up as! ;)