Ice cream!

It's as cold as ice cream today! Brrrrrr!  So let's take a look back to Thanksgiving.

For some reason, these are the only pictures I took at any of our Thanksgivings.  Strange but true!  Grandmother has started a new tradition of giving our kids ice cream cones when we visit.  Tasty treat!  They love it!  

We stayed at a hotel between some of our travels, and Daddy and Heather took Lydia on her first hotel swimming adventure!  She got to stay up late and was thrilled!  Exciting times!

Hope you all are staying warm and cozy!

Happy Monday!

Back in December when Lydia had an ear infection, I let her pick out a sucker while we waited for her prescription.  Well, she left it laying around, and Anna happened upon it.

She was thrilled! (and also a sticky mess when I pried that thing out of her hand!)

11 Month Lydia!

I forgot to post Lydia's 11 month picture yesterday, so here she is!

She was doing the same crawl away thing.

And look at sweet little Caleb!  So cute!

Happy weekend to all!

11 Months!

(These pictures were taken a while back, but I forgot to post them during all the Christmas hullabaloo.)

This girl is getting hard to photograph, because 

#1 She is constantly on the move!

#2 She will NOT keep a bow in her hair for more than a second!  (She's gonna have to get over that!)

So here's the best I could get.  (You can only snap so many pictures before your lovely assistant Jessica gets tired of holding her arms up in the air...she's holding up the backdrop.)

Anna Kate is getting more and more fun each day!  She is very smiley and pretty easy going (except when she's not. Ha.) When I go to get her out of her crib after naps and in the morning she blows me a kiss.  So sweet!  She's finally back to being a good sleeper after a couple months of terrrrrible sleep.  She sleeps from eightish to eightish, usually still waking once at some point during the night.  She can stand on her own and can even pick up heavyish objects while she does it.  She's gonna be strong like her Momma. Ha. She smiles big and scrunches up her nose when she thinks she is funny.  Cracks us up!  She loves Lydia...especially when she gives her a little attention.  She is very ticklish and laughs a lot.  We love her so much and are so thankful to have her!

(And I forgot to mention, she is only NINE days away from turning ONE!  How did that happen!?!)

Christmas Morning!

It was finally Christmas morning!  Lydia was amazed that the stockings were filled when she woke up.

Both girls, actually all four of us, got some delicious snacks to munch on while we opened all our presents.

Lydia was so excited about these socks, though you definitely can't tell it by the forced smile. :)

Here goes Anna Kate opening up a present!

Some new toys to chew on!  She's up to six teeth now, with one more due to arrive any day now!

My sweet Grandmother gave us some money to pick out presents for the girls from her.  So here's Lydia ready to see what she got!

She got the movie Tangled (about Rapunzel), which she has been asking for since our last copy snapped in half almost a year ago.  It's probably her favorite movie, besides Cinderella and Minnie-rella.  To go along with the movie, she got this really fun carriage, complete with a dressable Rapunzel and the chameleon, who she thinks is absolutely hilarious! 

Anna Kate got this fun bath toy from Grandmother.  It suctions to the tub wall and twirls and tips when you put water in the top.  Both girls have really been enjoying it during tubby time!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, dearest Grandmother!!!

Moving right along here...Joel got a cast iron griddle, recommended by the Shibleys.

I have a picture like this of Joel and Lydia opening and reading a book at all three of her previous Christmases (or at least two of them).

So I thought I better keep that tradition alive!

I will have to share those other pictures with you someday soon.

Then the girls discovered their shared present, which was hiding in the corner under a blanket.  It's a toddler friendly dollhouse.  I got it used off ebay, and Chris had to come to the rescue by fixing the doorbell and telephone.  Nice to have a speaker repairman in the family!

Lydia has played with it some, but I think she prefers her Little Woodzeez.  I'm hoping Anna will enjoy playing with it when she gets a little bigger.  So far the people have mostly just become a few more chew toys laying around. :)

Here's something I made/bought for Joel.  I got the idea (and the cheesy poem) off Pinterest. 

It's twelve date night plans, some complete with gift cards.  I can't even remember what all twelve are at the moment, but here are some examples: a gift card to Outback Steakhouse, two fake movie tickets (since I didn't know when or what we might go see), Dairy Queen gift card for ice cream, a card that says I will go bowling with him...I think he's been asking me to go bowling for oh, about five, maybe even seven years now...thought it might be time to take him up on that.  One card said we would stay home for a romantic, candlelit steak dinner.  Haha Okay, you get the idea.  I think he liked it!  And now we get to start going on those dates.  Should be fun!

And after all the unwrapping was finished, I realized I wasn't in even one picture, so Joel took one of us girls.  We all had such a fun morning together!  Then Joel cooked us up a delicious Christmas breakfast, as a cherry on top!  

Our Christmas Eve!

Our own personal, family of four, Christmas didn't happen until December 31st!  It was the first day that Joel had off that we weren't celebrating somewhere else.  We didn't mind spreading out the fun though!  

Lydia got some reindeer food at story hour, and we saved it to lure in the reindeer on our own special Christmas Eve.

It was oatmeal and glitter mixed together.  Lydia was so excited to spread it out!

She would throw it out,

and then she would pat it down into the grass.

Took her a while, but she was loving it!

Then we came inside, and Joel moved our mattresses to the living room floor.

Lydia was pretty thrilled!

They had quite a wrestling match!

Both girls (and Joel) were having a blast playing...except for the occasional thunking of heads on the wood floor.

Things finally started calming down, and we all happily dozed off to sleep!

December 29th!

Next up, we had the much anticipated "Christmas with Ash"!

Lydia was very pleased with her presents!

And so was Anna Kate, who had just woken up from her nap.

Her new favorite thing to do is to sit in this little chair that used to be her Daddy's.  

I find her sitting in it all the time.  So cute! 

More Christmas!

I'm back, and I still have four more Christmases to share with you!  So, where was I?  The day after Christmas we headed home from Chattanooga, unpacked and then packed up what we needed for the Gibson Christmas at Aunt Terry's house.

It's always fun to spend time with our sweet cousins!

Lydia could not believe that she got some new George episodes!

Anna got a cute little music player from the Traceys.

Aunt Terry added lights to Lydia's punch to make it extra festive.

The boy cousins love playing together!

Anna Kate was thrilled to wear Poppa's boots!

Here's the best cousin photo I got.  Notice I had to bribe both my girls with candy canes.

We had a thumbs-up great time!!!