“Fire”

Lilly is her father’s child, she loves explosions!  New Year’s Eve we bought a few fireworks to shoot off before the girls went to bed.  Lilly was very excited about them, she remembered the 4th of July when we did fireworks last and talked about how we would be doing “fire” before bedtime.  Raelynn was not a fan, she is a very jumpy kid she doesn’t like loud noises and gets scared pretty easily.  We tried putting her in the bumbo seat next to Lilly so they could watch side by side, but she didn’t want anything to do with that.  So I held her in my lap and she was a little better. 

Raelynn showing off her New Years onesie

 

1.  This sums up the girls impressions of fire works and 2. I am that mom who stepped away from my children to take a picture of one of them crying!

Lilly playing with “fire”  this made the mommy bear a little nervous, I can’t believe she held this all by herself.

An artillery shell in the street

Lilly was so excited..she was laughing hysterically the entire time.

 

More sparklers with Daddy.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas day at our house with our parents, I’m very grateful that our parents travel to us for Christmas day so we can enjoy the whole day at home.  I wish I would have taken more pictures, I guess I’ll have to steal some from Amaw since she got lots of pictures of the girls!

 

Lilly and Amaw taking pictures of Raelynn in front of the tree. 

Lilly and Raelynn in front of the “loot”  we may need a bigger tree next year to hold all of the presents.

Lilly playing her new iXL, Santa was done with presents then this neat game player went on sale and he couldn’t pass it up. 

This was after a costume change, Lilly had a matching one, but I didn’t get a picture of them together.  Also she liked the dress but was having a tough day, she didn’t nap well so she was very grumpy.  She’s even cute when she’s crying!

 

Lilly showing off her “Lilly” doll!  I don’t know how she found it but Mimi found a doll named Lilly with two L’s!

Christmas Morning in photos

Raelynn wakes up a bit earlier than Lilly so she got a sneak peak of her presents.

 

Puffs make this kid very happy

 

My first picture of Lilly as she ran into the living room from her room.

She was so excited she set Tigger down.

 

Counting her frogs, she got three! One is now a dog toy. Max claimed it as soon as Lilly turned her back and surprisingly she didn’t mind at all. 

Favorite frog, of course it’s the dollar store one. Not the one “Santa” searched all over town for then finally caved and purchased on Amazon.

Raelynn and her hammer, this kid loves to bang on stuff. 

Lilly and Daddy opening presents, this was the first year that Lilly really understood Christmas and enjoyed the presents more than the boxes.

More Lilly and Daddy

Raelynn’s favorite present, a bath toy. 

 

Lilly’s apron, she wasn’t a huge fan.

More of Raelynn and her fish, do you think this guy will be like Tigger?

A picture of Lilly’s blanket that I made her.  It’s a faux chenille blanket and I  love it.  Lilly like’s it too, but she is more impressed with the satin binding around the outside than the soft fuzz that I spent THREE days sewing and cutting!  Oh well it’s pretty and it fits her toddler bed just right.

Waiting for Santa

 

Lilly and I went on a little shopping trip to Walgreens and found this guy.  Of course I couldn’t say no to a toddler who was shrieking with excitement.  We put him outside of the playroom window so she could see him whenever she wanted :)

Lilly was a little concerned when I told her Santa came down the chimney.  We have a little bitty fireplace.

I found some neat tutorials online about photographing Christmas tress.  So I tried a few out and this is by far the best! I love this picture so much it makes my heart melt.  This was taken before Raelynn could sit up on her own so Lilly is literally holding her up.  About two pictures later Lilly was tired of sitting still and  let go of her sister.  You can only guess what happened next!  No babies were harmed in this photo shoot, a few tears were shed but not permanent damage was done.

A quick picture unload from my phone

I had a couple of really cute pictures on my phone that I needed to post on here.  They are all from different days and random times, so they will probably be out of order.

Raelynn is such a little cuddle bug, she wasn’t sleepy at all, just laying on my shoulder.  Lilly never rested her head on my shoulder until she was at least 18 months old!  It’s crazy how different they are!

 

I caught this picture at the perfect time, you can see both of her dimples!

 

Lilly may kill me for this one when she gets older, but oh well that’s my job as a parent!  She climbed up on the couch next to me while I was nursing Raelynn and said, “Tigger is hungry” Then proceeded to pull up her shirt and feed him :)

 

Lilly (with a Tigger tail on) and Raelynn had a tea party.  This was probably the very first time Lilly and Raelynn sat next to each other and played with the same toy like that.  They normally sit by each other and play with different toys or Lilly just steals Raelynn’s toy from her and Raelynn moves on to something else.

 

Raelynn found the baby toy basket under the table! And learned very quickly how to dump it out.  Since this picture was taken she has now figured out where the board books live in the coffee table.  Nothing is safe anymore.

School Christmas Program

This year I got to witness hundreds of preschoolers signing Christmas songs.  All of the different age groups “sang” a couple of songs and clapped to the music while the parents played paparazzi  and took tons of pictures of their precious children.  I looked around before it started and saw that there were no seats left and people were standing in the back, I am still amazed at how packed the place was. 

Lilly did good, she sat with her class until it was time to get on stage a sing.  She looked around for a while but never really saw me, I’m convinced that was a good thing, I was really concerned that she would see me and run off the stage to come and sit with me.  Once on the stage Lilly kind of faded into the crowd of singing kids.  After they were done singing she moved over to the side so I was able to take a few pictures of her.

 

Lilly loves her teachers

I couldn’t help but to take this picture, these are parents of the one year olds. 

Lilly stretching to see over her peers

Singing “Happy Birthday”

Singing some more

I think I took this picture when she finally found me in the audience

This is what I came home too, Raelynn was sick so Daddy stayed home with her.  He said she cried most of the time I was gone and wouldn’t eat or take a bottle.  He put her in the jumperoo and she finally calmed down, then passed out!  He said he didn’t want to move her after she fell asleep so he left her like that until I got home :)

A frog, really?

Lilly’s school had a special guest come to visit, Santa!! Lilly was very excited to bring Santa her letter.  She asked for a frog, yes a frog, not a stuffed or real frog but a little plastic frog just like the one at school.  The first time Lilly and I visited her classroom she picked up a little yellow plastic frog and she has played with it just about every school day since.  School was also nice enough to let me bring Raelynn along to take pictures with Santa. Lilly said Raelynn wanted a frog for Christmas from Santa too.  She said that Mommy and Daddy wanted frogs too…silly kid wants a family of frogs!

 

If you look really closely in the picture you can see Lilly holding onto the yellow frog from her classroom.  She wanted to show Santa what kind of frog to get.

Raelynn says, “horray for Santa”

My happy girls!

 

Lilly was such a good girl this year, that she got three frogs for Christmas from Santa.  A stuffed one, a plastic one like the one from her classroom and a sticky one.  Lilly also picked out a toy frog for Raelynn, that was her gift to her sister.  I really don’t know where this obsession came from, but I like that she likes the slimy bugs and frogs as well as the pink pretty princess stuff.  She’s a well rounded little girl. 

How much did our family change in a year?

March of 2011

November of 2011

And here’s another comparison picture for you enjoyment…