Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas Fun!

Festive photo fun...

My apple pie! Yes, MINE, I made it! This is actually the third apple pie I've made, I made two for Thanksgiving last year. I've now been officially designated as the apple pie maker for Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with Chris'!
Grace with Nana on Christmas Eve -- a time-honored tradition. These are ornaments of the nativity scene, and Grace is doing what Katrina and I did for years and years. Nana and Grace talked about the Christmas story using the ornaments, and then Grace put them on the tree.

Grace in the Christmas dress that her Daddy picked out for her!

Mommy and her girls! The one of Chris and the girls turned out blurry! :-(

Rachael knows that the fun part is the box, right? (She's actually sitting ON the toy!)

Rachael walking! (Still a little unsure, but she's getting the hang of it!)

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

The Rachael Report!

This kid has been busy! Not only is she sprouting teeth, but she decided to hit several milestones at once! Just in the past week or two, we have heard her calling "Mama-mama-mama!" if she's on her way to Vanessa, and "Dada-dada-dada!" if she's on her way to Chris. That is good enough for us -- we're officially marking those as her first words!

She's also started clapping, and she'll even give us a "high five" if we ask for it -- Grace thinks that is great, she loves it when Rachael smacks her hand! There have also been a couple of times when Mommy's gotten a big, sloppy baby mouth on her face when she requests kisses!

And, the biggest news, we've got a walker! Several times she has taken tentative but completely unassisted steps! The poor thing is usually wearing pants that are too long for her, so she doesn't get far before those get in her way -- we're working on that! Her big motivation is FOOD! Boy oh boy, if we're eating something and she thinks she wants a bite (which is most of the time), nothing will get in her way!

In one month this little kiddo will be a year old -- where has the time gone??

Here's a picture Papa took of the girls after Grace's Christmas choir performance -- don't they look like good buddies?


Let me hear the, "Awwww!"

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Just in case pictures!

Just in case we can't manage family pictures for Christmas, before we went upstairs after Grace got home from school I had the girls sit down for some pictures. I figure maybe I can turn them black and white, slap them on a Christmasy background and manage a Christmas card... Or a New Year's card, which I've done before! :-) They were really cooperative, and as always, CUTE!


Definitely the most natural of all of them!

Grace was hugging on her sister, she was being very sweet! Always good to capture on film!

I don't know what they were looking at, but I liked that Rachael was kind of smiling!

I tried to get a few of each of them on their own, but Grace stayed for ONE and then went to toss grass in the water. (No, I don't know why.) Rachael gave me some pretty interesting faces!

Before she bolted!

Her most thoughtful look...

"What is Grace doing over there?"
CHEESE! She was smiling for her sister here -- and you can see her teeth (top and bottom) poking through in this one!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Chompers!

A great shot of Rachael's top teeth, and you can see more on their way! "Power teething" as one friend called it! She's got two on the bottom coming in the same way, only it's the one on the left that's coming in further on the bottom, so she's all snaggle-toothed! :-) But it's precious to see her smiling with those pearly whites, even if they're all mismatched! Check out those sweeping eyelashes too! Daddy's in TROUBLE with these girls!!


TEEEEEEETH!

"No haaaaiiiir for my hairbrush!" ;-)