Alex in the big girl bed!

January 22: We've been trying to convince Alex for a while to sleep in her big girl "Dora" bed, since the new baby will be needing the crib before long, but she has never had any interest. We had to miss her nap today to go to Katie's parent-teacher conferences, so that night we decided to try out the Dora bed in her new room and just see how it went...it went great! Sound asleep in just a few minutes, and slept all night!
January 23: Katie and I went to get her when she woke up the next morning, and she was so proud that she slept in her bed! This ended up being a very easy transition!

January Pictures

We didn't take a lot of pictures in January...may have been because our laptop was down, or maybe we took way too many in December...I don't know for sure, but here's a few pictures that we did take.

1/3: Katie went with me to run some errands...okay, so I had to bribe her to get her to come with me rather than stay home with daddy. We found a nice ring pop at Michael's and by the time we got home, she had red lollipop everywhere!


1/15: Here's a short video of Alex eating some pudding...she kept calling it "chocolate goo" but we couldn't get her to say that...but you can see the excitement and her love of chocolate...




1/18: We went to check on Alex before going to bed and this is how we found her...
Poor baby loves to have a couple of books to read as she is falling asleep...of course, great parents we are, went to get the camera and take several pictures before taking the book off of her face!

I Love Bubbles!

12/29: Katie decided she wanted bubbles in the bathtub...and the last time we put bubbles in with Alex, she got very upset and wanted out. This time, however, she decided that she "loves" bubbles...

We try to get Alex to say it...

Some pictures

12/27: I had to snap a quick picture of Katie sitting like this...she always sits in this same position, and Rich and I think it's just amazing how flexible kids are. Can you imagine trying to sit like this?
What?
12/28: Alex, thoroughly enjoying her pizza! Maybe mommy put too much sauce on the pizza!

Christmas Eve Christmas!

12/24: Daddy had to work on Christmas Day, but he ended up at the last minute with Christmas Eve off, so we quick wrote a letter to Santa and asked him if he could come the night before Christmas Eve, so that daddy could be home! Santa was wonderful and obliged, so we celebrated Christmas on the Eve instead. Here's a quick slideshow of Christmas (Eve) Morning...

Aunt Andi and Uncle Mike came over later in the day and Nana and Papaw also arrived to celebrate and have dinner with us. Katie dressed up in her Little Mermaid costume Santa brought her and the wig Aunt Andi gave her...

Lots of new stuff to play with...Drew is throwing his football with Papaw (you can see his foot to the left) while the girls play...Alex is actually out of the "vamanos" (what she named her Dora car...for anyone who has not seen the show, "vamanos" is what Dora says for "Let's go!")...
Once Alex went down for a nap, her vamanos was quickly confiscated by others who had been waiting patiently for her to disappear so they could have a spin...
Drew was too funny...he drove around "delivering mail" for a very long time!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Alex!!!!!!!

12/22: Happy 2nd birthday to our baby girl! It's hard to believe that Alex is two years old already! We had a quiet evening with pizza and cake with our friends, the Footes and the Thompsons. Here she is, posing with daddy, with her reindeer antlers...she puts them on and then says "Look at me! I'm so cute!" Yes, you are, little one!!!

As usual, I forgot to take a picture of the cake until it was being sliced. Katie and I decided to do a Christmas theme, since this is the last year we can probably get away with it, but our red and green icing didn't turn out too red or green!Yummy, cake!!!
Chocolate...my favorite!!
Time for presents!!Winnie the Pooh DVDs from Grandma Nancy (Bob's mom)...whenever we go over to Bob and Lisa's, Alex immediately goes to the TV and says "Pooh." She's become addicted to Pooh at the Foote's house :)
Looking in her box from the Footes...A bear Matthew stuffed for her, and named Allie Bear. She loves her Allie Bear!! Thanks, Bob, Lisa, Kelly, and Matthew!
Drew wanted to play Happy Birthday to You while we all sang...I pushed the wrong button and accidentally stopped the recording, then tried to get him to start over, which is why everyone looks confused...but it turned out okay!!

Santa Baby!!

12/22: Miss Lisa and Matthew came over to watch the kids so Mommy could do a quick last-minute shopping run (daddy was working)...and Alex decided she wanted to wear Matthew's Santa hat, and since she had on a cute little red outfit, Miss Lisa thought is was too cute not to take a quick picture! Here's Santa Baby and Matthew...
Santa Baby watching Noggin...

Katie's Christmas Program

12/18: Here is Katie, all dressed up and ready for her Christmas program!! She was very excited, she was going to be the angel in the Christmas play!

Here she is, in the middle, playing her drum for The Little Drummer Boy...Alex didn't find the program all that entertaining...perhaps because it was the same as last year's, and the year before's...
Alex, trying to entertain herself by imitating singing...
Here are all the afternoon preschool classes singing together...
And here's a short video clip of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, which Katie does the motions very nicely...and Happy Birthday to Jesus, which is the only song Katie actually sang! She's at the lower left hand of the screen...

Pretties!!

12/18: This is what happens when I go to the grocery store and leave the girls alone with daddy! Alex is very into finding "pretties"--which is what we call barettes and pony-tail holders to get the girls to want to wear them--and asking someone to put them in her hair...so she found 9 of them and daddy just kept putting them in her hair!
You can see most of them here...in the above picture, you can see Katie's boots in the background...when I got home, her hair was done all up in pretties, and she had nothing on but Katie's boots and a diaper.

Our newest cousin!!!!!

December 16th: Aunt Allison and Uncle Reggie welcomed their 3rd beautiful baby girl into the world today!! Aunt Allison sent us a couple of pictures, but we're hoping to meet her very soon! She is such a gorgeous baby! Drew was looking at her pictures, and said "Wow, I have, like 7 or 8 cousins now", I said "Try 11, Drew!" Our kids are blessed to have so many first cousins!

Baby Jocelyn Blair...


Ashlynne, Jocelyn, and Halle...
Congratulations, Aunt Allison and Uncle Reggie, Halle, and Ashlynne!! We hope to see you very soon!!!!

Christmas Cookies!!

December 15th: Nana braved our crazy winter weather to come and bake cookies with us! The kids had a lot of fun...Drew helped the entire time and Katie sort of came and went. Alex was just really good at sticking her fingers in the cookie dough! Drew and Katie both ate more sugar and toppings than probably made it on the cookies, but they had lots of fun!

Here is Drew decorating the poinsettia cookies...he did a great job!

The finished product, along with the peanut butter blossoms Alex and I made while everyone else went to gymnastics! Alex tried to help put the kisses on, but she just kept eating them (or at least licking them, ewww...don't worry I didn't put those on the cookies!) so she got to watch a few minutes of Dora instead!


Drew worked very hard decorating these Santa cookies. Nana or I would dip them in the white chocolate, then he would sprinkle the red sugar and put the eyes and nose on! Katie wasn't too interested in this project, other than using her finger to scoop up red sugar and eating it!

When Nana got here a few hours earlier, it had just barely started flurrying!
Rich took some pictures of the huge flakes...one landed on his arm that was about two inches across!Drew decorating the sugar cookies, we decided to skip the icing this year since Nana needed to get on the road before the ice/sleet started.


Katie, waiting for her turn to sprinkle...eating more sprinkles as she goes!


Think they could use a little more sprinkles, Drew!!

Sorry for the blurry picture...here are the cookie makers in action...And, the finished sugar cookie product!

Festival of Lights--Columbus Zoo

December 11th: Well, so much for all of that snow! It was 65 degrees today! It rained some early on and melted most of the snow. It was so warm we decided to hit the Festival of Lights at the zoo...here are the kids in front of their favorite animal at the zoo...the elephant. Baby Boddhi is getting so big! He is one month younger than Katie...we've watched him since he was just a few months old and now he is almost as big as his mom! He was inside behind the glass so we couldn't get any good pictures of him this evening! But here is the lighted elephant...

A picture of Daddy, Drew, and Katie walking toward the pond...the lights are just so beautiful!
Rich was able to take a few pictures with our night mode...but you have to keep the camera extremely still so none of mine turned out, but his did...


We cannot go to the zoo without stopping at the carousel! Katie was disappointed that the real ponies weren't out, but you can only ride them during the warmer months, so she settled for the carousel!

Alex was terrified, absolutely sobbing, that I was going to take her onto the carousel...she wouldn't calm down so I had to take her outside of the building so we shot a little video of the lights...she's so funny, everything is a "mommy animal"!

Every year, they have a really cool, huge model train display. Drew just loves it, of course. Katie thought it was pretty cool this year too!

I tried to get a picture showing the whole train set-up...

Drew is fascinated playing with the controls that make the trains stop and start...

Here's a video of the train that Drew wanted me to take so he can watch it whenever...the Trans-Siberian orchestra is just for you, dad!

And the last picture of the night...Katie got tuckered out and I foolishly didn't bring the double stroller! She was not happy about having to walk all the way out of the zoo, but somehow we managed...but she is showing her extreme unhappiness in this picture.