Valentine's Day 2009

We had a special family day this Valentine's Day. It was also Lauren's 1st Valentine's Day too. We had a special breakfast and gave the girls a balloon and pink roses with a little gift for each. Jessica got a penelope peapod and Lauren got a little stuffed animal.


After breakfast, we took a trip to the Crayola Factory. It was a lot of fun spending this "day of love" together.


Jess got a photo with the world's largest crayon!

Also for school she gave out some cute princess Valentine's Day cards with play-doh for her classmates.


Oh, just as an aside, you'll see that we have a TV in our dining room. We just haven't had a chance to get it back to our bedroom since the super bowl party!

Lauren ~ 10 Months

Yesterday, 2/11/09, Lauren pulled herself up to a standing position for the first time. When I went to get her from her crib this morning she was standing again! She's really getting around. She crawls everywhere and is constantly trying to get into things. She has more interest in regular stuff lying around the house than toys. She loves to go for our shoes that we take off when we come in the house. I'm always trying to get them away from her.

She is all table food. She really won't take a spoon unless you sneak it in while she is feeding herself something else. She's eaten all kinds of veggies, pancakes, meatballs, blueberries...lots of good stuff. She says momma a lot now. She says dada sometimes too. I'm pretty sure she said "bye bye" to the cashier at the supermarket.

Lauren seems extremely observant. She can hang out in the stroller for awhile now without a toy or snack. She just observes her surroundings very intently.

Now one thing I hope she stops doing is grinding her teeth. It sounds horrible (nails on a chalkboard). She also bit Jess the other day for the first time - she got a little feisty when someone tried to take her toy.

Growing Up

Today we were driving around this morning because Lauren fell asleep in the car and the house was getting cleaned. I figured we would drive around a bit and I had to drop something off at someone's house. Anyway, Jess and I had a chance to have a nice little talk. Sometimes life is so hectic that you don't really get a chance to just talk.

She was telling me a story and I said when she gets bigger and learns to read and write she can write all her great stories down. She told me that she has lots of stories in her head - in her imagination. I started to tell her that some people write stories / books as their job.

I told her when boys and girls get bigger like mommy and daddy they have different jobs - doctors, police man, police woman, store owners, restaurant owners, teachers, veterinarians, writers etc. Her response was:
" Mommy when I get bigger I want to be a princess at Walt Disney World and take photos and sign autographs with boys and girls." I see it as a way to give back to the community, don't you? :-P

She then talked about wanting to play school when we got home. She said she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. I mentioned that Grammy is an art teacher and that there are all kinds of teachers - math, reading, science, gym, music, art etc. I asked her what kind of teacher she would like to be:
"I want to teach learning."

I hope she never stops wanting to learn. Gosh, she's so precious.

Christmas 2008

I'm finally trying to catch up on my blogging posts. I never wrote about how our Christmas was this past year. It was Lauren's first Christmas too! This year we decided to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our house and then we went to visit Grandmom, Pop Pop and Nana w/ Paul, Amy, William and Ella in the afternoon. We went to Christmas Eve service at New Providence Presbyterian Church and then we came home for dinner .

The girls were up bright and early and were very excited to open presents. We opened presents from Grammy, Granddaddy, Tita, Uncle Steve and Aunt Jenny on Christmas Eve. We just thought it would be best to space them out. I think the fave toys this year were My Little Pony stuff, Disney Princess stuff and this little ice cream shoppe play tent we got Jess. Lauren would've been just happy as a clam with bows and tissue paper but I do love the little rocker we got her.


Christmas Eve Presents:




Christmas Morning:


Christmas Afternoon:
I've been really trying to think about what Christmas traditions we want to establish for our family. Our family is still young so I'm sure more traditions will naturally be created over time. I like the idea some people have of giving gifts on Christmas Eve before bed. I read about one mom that would give PJs, a book and an ornament. I also like the idea of creating a Christmas card tree where you hang all your Christmas cards as you receive them. I definitely want to do that but that would have to be another house. We just have room for our one tree in the living room. Jess had a tree in her room that she really liked. Jess really enjoyed doing the advent house this year but it does get tough to come up with ideas of things to put behind those little doors. We also did Operation Christmas Child through our church this year. Jess really liked putting together our two boxes to be sent to two little children. We have a special children's nativity set which I loved using this year. Each day you open a box and it's a piece that goes along with a little nativity scene. We read a lot of books to help teach Jessica (and eventually Lauren) the real reason we celebrate Christmas. It's really hard to balance the true meaning of Christmas - celebrating the birth of Jesus - and how that relates (not relates) to Santa and toys etc. I guess it's just one of our parenting challenges.

Jess and I baked our special allergy free Christmas cookies. I tried a new recipe this year and they came out pretty good. I just have to remember not to roll the dough too thin.


We attended the Wesley Center Preschool holiday party. The kids sang songs and had special treats. I love attending stuff at her school. Scott was able to be there too. I think that was one of the most special things about this Christmas. Scott was off for almost 2 weeks! He was able to go to Florida with us for a few days too (that's a separate post).

Overall it was a really special time. I love being a family of four. I love watching the girls interact and play together. I feel so blessed that even though the economy is awful right now we were able to provide a special Christmas for the girls.

Lauren ~ 9 Months

Well Lauren is now 9 months. At her checkup, she weighted 21 lbs 6 oz (about 85%). Jessica was 23 lbs 3 oz at the same age. She is getting around by army crawling but she isn't into everything yet. She has such a beautiful glow about her. She is so lovely to look at and I know I am bias. :-P She is eating mostly table food now - everything from sweet potatoes, avocado, pasta fagioli, pears, bananas etc. We are in that phase where she just makes a big mess. When she wants to get your attention she has this scream that is so high pitched, you can't help but be shocked that that sound came from her. She tries to talk all the time and is constantly pointing at things now.

When we got back from Florida on 1/11/09, we were hanging out in the living room and Lauren pointed at Scott and said da da. We both looked at each other because it was so clear.

I started writing this post awhile back and I'm finishing up right before Lauren turns 10 months. She is crawling like a champ now. She is pretty much just eating table food. Sometimes we try to give her a stage 3 jar because it's easy and it's quick but she really doesn't want to be fed. She's an "I can do it myself kind of girl". In this past month, she's had 4 teeth come in, at the same time! The 4th one has almost come all the way through. Lauren likes to talk all the time and if you ignore her for too long she will scream to get your attention. It usually works! She wears 12-18 months clothes. Hmmmm...what else...she is totally cute!!

Video Test

I just want to see if I can upload video.

Christmas Tree 2008

We got our Christmas Tree the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend this year. I kind of like doing it that way. I thought we would do it Thanksgiving weekend but there just wasn't enough time. We thought we would save a few bucks this year and go to Home Depot for our tree. The only problem was that most of their trees were bound and leaning on each other which made it hard to look at them. It was cold and tree hunting there was a real hassle so we bailed. We went to this landscaping nursery where someone else showed us trees and the first one they guy pulled out was the one we took. I love it...but we had to pay for it. We picked a 6-7 foot frasier. Note to self for next year - choose a tree that is 7-8 foot. We are still decorating so I'll post Christmas decor pics later.