7 Months Old

Annie is 7 months old! I can hardly believe it. She is growing up and changing so fast. Her army crawl with a push of one leg has evolved into a frog hop of sorts. She is crawling all over the place! She is trying out her vocal cords and "talking" like crazy. Annie is a happy baby and loves to giggle and smile, especially at Emily. She has her two bottom teeth and is working on getting more all of the time.

Jingle Bells

Emily has been singing Jingle Bells for about a week now. The only problem is that she doesn't know all of the words. But that hasn't stopped her from belting it out at the top of her lungs! I tried to help her learn the right words today, but she was having too much fun singing the wrong ones on purpose! Here's Emily's rendition:

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride in a "hope-a hope-a" sleigh.

She's such a silly girl. Got to love it!

Family Home Evening

Emily and her dad have been looking at some old pictures on the computer. She came across some of her and her dad wearing p.j.'s as hats. Tonight after dinner we planned to have our weekly Family Home Evening. Emily, our resident activities director, decided that we need to start off with an activity before the lesson. She went to her room, grabbed some clothes, came back and started passing them out to each of us. She then said, "Put on your hats!". We each put on p.j. bottoms and tops on our heads. Annie was given an extra special "hat" that, later, everyone had to take a turn wearing. Ha! We then had to play "Got You" around the couch. Emily has such a fun personality. We love her!

Da, Da, Da, Da!

Annie said her first "words" tonight. We were eating dinner together and from the direction of the high chair we hear, "da, da, da, da, da..." She just kept repeating it over and over. She was so proud of herself! We were proud of her too. Especially her dad who was grinning from ear to ear! Annie's a talker. Can you believe it?! She's growing up so fast!

Annie's Got Teeth!

Annie's got teeth! Two of them to be exact. She has traditionally been a pretty good night sleeper. She was having a really hard time sleeping and we couldn't figure out why. We realized that it was probably due to teeth coming in. Sure enough. Her two bottom teeth finally broke the surface around October 21st. The bottom right came through first and then left. She started sleeping better but is still teething on everything in sight. I think that her teeth are in well enough now that we can get a picture of them. Cross your fingers. They are so cute!

Happy Halloween!

Our ward had a chili cook-off, carnival, and trunk-or-treat. It made for a large crowd and was lots of fun! We were afraid that it might be pretty cold, but the weather ended up perfect.

Emily got her fill of doughnuts from the
carnival and then was ready for trick-or-treating.

She had lots of fun, but Emily and her friend Nyah were so excited for the trunk-or-treat to start that we could barely get them to pose for this picture!

Chad had to run home between the carnival and the trunk-or-treat to retrieve Emily's prized "princess bucket". This is the second year in a row that we have forgotten her trick-or-treating bucket at home. Last year she ended up using my purse! Ha! There was no getting around it this year. She HAD to have her princess bucket to hold her candy. Dad saved the day...AGAIN! It's a good thing he's around! Ha!

She was so excited to go trick-or-treating!

Annie had a great time!

Emily and her friend, Jakob.

Tinkerbell and Buzz
Emily's friend, Jack was showing her his cool goggles.

(Does this look familiar to anyone else?
When Emily was dressing up as Tinkerbell at Nana's
this summer, her cousin, Patrick was dressing up as Buzz.)

Emily's "scary" faced pumpkin.

Her friendly ghost.

Chad put the pumpkins out on our trunk during
the trunk-or-treat. They turned out great!

Our cute family.
It was a fun night. Happy Halloween!

Annie, Our Little Princess

Annie was our little princess this year for Halloween. Originally Emily was going to be a princess too, but Tinkerbell won in the end. Annie looked so sweet in her little princess dress.

Over the last couple of weeks, Emily has been really into dressing up. Any time she put on her princess dress, she wanted Annie to dress up in hers too. Annie really seemed to enjoy taking part in the fun. They are so cute!

Emily always puts her hand under Annie's chin.
I know it looks like she's choking her,
but rest assured, she's not.

Sweet sisters!

Emily (a.k.a. Tinkerbell)

Emily has been talking about being Tinkerbell for Halloween since she was at Nana's house this summer. In Nana's Mickey Room there is a closet of Disney costumes. It it there to provide hours of dress-up fun for the grand kids. Emily put it to full use this summer. She woke up each morning saying, "I dress-up like Tinkerbell?"


Nana was kind enough to send the Tinkerbell costume to her on loan for Halloween. Emily was so excited the day it came in the mail. She has been bouncing off the walls ever since.

Halloween night Emily was so excited for our Ward's Trunk-or-Treat. The minute she put on her costume, she WAS Tinkerbell! She was "flying" around our yard nonstop and giggling in delight! I wanted to take some pictures before leaving for our party. She was only allowing "action shots". Chad was a good sport and chased her around to take her picture. He got some great ones!

Emily is such a crack-up these days. We love her!

Carving Pumpkins Part 2

Chad was determined to carve the other pumpkin we bought before Halloween was over. Emily decided she would like a friendly ghost on this one. They carved out the ghost before our ward festivities. Annie was their cheerleader and loved watching as they carved the pumpkin. They had a great time!

Decorating Halloween Cookies

Emily was chief cookie decorator this year.
I helped out with the icing, but she put on the candy.

I they turned out pretty cute.

Annie had fun too!

KABOO!

On Monday night Chad and Emily carved a pumpkin. Emily told Chad that she wanted a pumpkin with a "scary" face. They found a template for just the perfect one and went to work. I was unsuccessfully putting Annie to bed. When I came out, Emily was bouncing off the walls with excitement and told Annie and I that we had to come outside and light the pumpkin with them. When we came outside, Emily jumped up and shouted, "KABOO!". I'm not sure where the term ka-boo came from, but she loved saying it! She was very proud of her scary pumpkin!

KABOO!
Every time you see her hands up in the air,
she was saying, Kaboo!

"scary" faced pumpkin

Notice the Christmas PJ's. We are starting early this year.
She's been singing Jingle Bells at the top
of her lungs for a week now! Ha!

She was proud of her pumpkin!

Annie enjoyed all the excitement.
She eventually went to sleep.

Making Sugar Cookies

As is tradition, we made sugar cookies for Halloween this year. Emily was all hands on! She was determined to do it "all by myself". She is quite the little baker and does very well for being 2 years old. We had a great time together.

This year we tried putting on some
sprinkles before we baked the cookies.
She really liked sprinkling them on the cookies!

She also decided to make her own design in the cookies. She asked if she could make a few heart shaped cookies. Then she decided that some of the pumpkins should have a heart center. I thought it was a great idea. They turned out cute!
She's getting pretty creative!

Annie's First Haircut

Annie had her first haircut last Saturday (at 6 months old). Boy, did she need it! To my amazement, both of our girls have been born with a head full of hair! (My parents say that I was bald, had "peach fuzz", until I was two.) And both of our girls have had need of early haircuts.

Remember Emily's mullet and double cowlicks (hers both went in the same direction)?

--PICTURE SOON TO COME. I couldn't find it tonight.--

Meet "Annie of the Crazy Hairs".

She was also born with double cowlicks (Thanks Chad!), however, hers are conflicting. She also has some left over baby hair that is a voluminous semi-wavy top.

On the sides in front of her ears she has more baby hair that looks like what I call "Amish curls" (I don't remember the real name.) sticking out on each side of her head. It is longer than the hair behind it and when brushed forward makes for some nice "chops". Anyone else thinking of Elvis? Ha!

As her parents we felt it our duty to have her hair cut before taking family pictures. Due to the complexity of her hair needs, we decided not to try this ourselves.
We took her to Chad's barber.

BEFORE

We brought our Bumbo seat for her to sit in but
she started to cry when he moved the chair up.
Chad was a good sport and held her while she got her hair cut!



A little wiggly. She's ready to go!

AFTER
SO CUTE!!! It's amazing how much of a
difference a little off the sides makes! :)

Music Class Halloween Party

Last Friday Emily's little music class had a Halloween party for all the kids. She, of course, dressed up as Tinkerbell!

Emily had so much fun dressing up this summer at Nana's house. She decided that she needed to wear the Tinkerbell costume for Halloween. Luckily, Nana saved the day. She mailed us the Tinkerbell and princess dresses. The day they arrived in the mail Emily was jumping off the walls! She's been talking about being Tinkerbell nonstop! Here's her debut.

Annie was a princess. Originally they were both going to be princesses, but Tinkerbell reigned supreme! Nana sent this dress for Emily when she was little. It was fun that Annie could put it to good use. They both looked darling and had a great time!

This is Tinkerbell flying.

Fly Tinkerbell, fly!

2 Peas In a Pod

Our girls are like two peas in a pod. It has been fun to watch them begin to interact with each other. Annie watches her big sister like a hawk and is interested in everything Emily is doing. Emily is eager to entertain and of course Annie loves the attention.

The other day I watched them from the kitchen. Emily was being sweet with Annie, talking with her and trying to make her laugh. Annie had her eyes glued to Emily and both were laughing with delight. SO CUTE!!!

Annie's 6 months old!

Annie's 6 months old! Annie has been so much fun lately! Her cute personality is coming out more and more each day. She loves to have her tummy blown on and be tickled. She is full of giggles and smiles. Annie is curious about everything and is beginning to be mobile. She has tasted freedom and loves it!

At the beginning of the month she was rolling from one corner in the room to the other to get something she wanted. Then she did a sort of airplane/belly rock. The next thing we knew, she was doing a combo rolling/army crawl. It has now evolved into a full fledged army crawl.

She is interacting with Emily a lot. She watches Emily all the time and wants to play with what Emily is playing with. This has caused a bit of tension with her older sister who seems to be "emotionally attached" to EVERY toy we own as soon as Annie is playing with it. HA!

On a brighter note, Annie and Emily keep each other laughing and love to give hugs and kisses to each other. They are very cute together!

Shandy Baby Photo Shoot

My sister, Erin, is the provider of all of my girl's cute hair accessories. She is so talented! I am so grateful that she shares her talent so freely with us. She and a friend have an online business called, Shandy Baby. They sell all sorts of cute boutique type baby supplies and hair accessories.

She needed some pictures of the girls wearing some of their products. So Chad and I took some pictures of the girls. Some turned out really cute, others just okay. You got to take what you can get when you are working with 6 month and 2 year old! We did our best!

Check out her sites, shandybaby.etsy.com and shandybaby.com, if you are interested in seeing some cute kid stuff. They've been on a bit of a sabbatical, but they are starting back up again. They will be updating their site with all sorts of cute products over the next little while.

Painting Pumpkins

We decided to let Emily paint her pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. We went to the store and she picked out all of the paint colors that she wanted to use. (Of course pink was among them. That's her favorite. Note that the small pumpkin ended up completely pink!) She then dictated what color each person was to paint with! Ha! She had a great time!

Say Cheese!

Time to show off their pumpkins
from the pumpkin patch.

Are they cute sisters or what?!

More Pumpkin Patch Pictures