Christmas in Oklahoma

Jeff and Caroline blow out the candles on their Dora birthday cake. Caroline is 4 and Jeff will be 34 in January!

It snowed for like 10 minutes, so the girls had to get all bundled up and go outside to play in the snow!

The kids were getting a little restless in waiting for presents opening time, so we had a little production of the Christmas story. I was the narrator (Luke 2), Zach, the only boy, was Joseph, Caroline was Mary, riding on the donkey, Kallie (hey, she chose it!) and Bennette was the beautiful angel. Lilly was supposed to be a shepherd so she crawled along the floor behind the donkey!

Homa Grammy making Christmas cookies with the girls.

Lilly thinks she's getting the hang of opening presents now, we've been doing it for three days straight!

Caroline is so excited about everything she opens!

Bennette and Caroline playing with their new Princess Barbie dolls. Bennette got Ariel and Caroline got Jasmine. They're running around (hehe!) and singing "Under the Sea!"

19 Months old tomorrow

My little Lilly. I can't believe she's so big now. I was holding her last night, telling her how little she used to be (8 lb 9 oz, haha!) And now, at her 18 month old appointment, she was 32 inches tall and 25 pounds & 3 ounces! I really love, love, love her at this age. She's such entertainment...always learning something new and doing something funny. She likes to color with crayons, markers, pens, anything. Her babies probably her favorite though. She holds them, loves on them, gives them bottles and pacifiers and covers them with blankets. She has two blankets of her own that she calls "mamie". I think she's copying her sister who has a lambie! She loves to play outside and requests to swing almost every day. It's not uncommon to see her wear several different pairs of shoes in one day. She especially likes sneaking into Caroline's closet to get out some of her princess shoes to clip-clop around in. Food... she's not a big fan of anything healthy I'm making or trying to get her to eat. But she's never seen a cookie or cracker she didn't like. Cheese and watermelon are probably her most favorite foods though if given a choice. This girl talks all the time, although you may not know it if she doesn't know you very well. She can be very serious and clingy to momma if there's strangers around. Here's a list of all her words (the ones I can remember!)...bath, walk, shoes, sock, poo-poo, please, thank you, cereal, yummy, bowl, shooey, no, mine, see, Chloe (for both of our dogs), milk, cookie, cracker, teeth, eyes, why (this is my favorite because I don't think she should know what it means yet but she always uses it in the right context!), yeah, yah!, baby, mommy, daddy, Elmo, bubbles, hi, nose, toe, hold me, uh-oh, whoah, sorry, & ball

Christmas Jammies

I've always wanted the girls to have matching jammies for Christmas. I say always...it's only their 2nd Christmas together! They indulged me by trying them on and even smiling for a picture by the fireplace!

Family Christmas Picture

Caroline posing in Santa's chair at Cook Children's, where I work. We thought that would be a good indoors place to get a family picture to use for Christmas cards. The family picture is always an adventure because, for the third year in a row, we've taken the picture ourselves! We try to get the girls to smile at the camera with no person behind it to get their attention. Then, you never really know if you got a good shot until you get home and upload the pictures!

Sweet Lilly is hard to get to sit or even stand still for a picture, much less smile. She's a pretty independent little thing. I love this picture because you can see the reflection of her and the whole atrium of the hospital (which looks like a castle) in the shiny ball next to her on the tree.

Outdoors, the girls ran wild while we sat and waited to try to get a picture. With the slow shutter speed, Caroline appears translucent and has no legs!

Lilly in November

Bless her heart, fell right asleep during dinner.

She can look so serious a lot of times, very hard to get to smile for a picture. But she always wants to see the picture after it's taken..."see, see" she yells!

I love it when she will actually smile for a picture!

Daddy took them to the park on a day I was working to try to get some good pictures.

Caroline in November

Caroline is a real poser now. She loves to be in pictures. She's always cocking her head to the side or trying to lean in with someone else to look sweet.

Not sure what this is, she said it was her doggy face. I don't know!

She's almost easy now to get to take a picture, just now as Lilly is moving into that hard age!

Sporting her new domino necklace..."it's a nomino" she told everyone who commented on it.

September 2nd, first day of Wee School

Caroline has her new lunchbox all ready for the first day of Wee School. Going to new preschool with all new teachers and friends, she was a little apprehensive this morning. "I don't want to go to school!" That's not a good thing to hear on the first day!

Lilly is contributing to the morning chaos by repeatedly taking off one shoe! But those dimples and curls are too cute!

Raggedy Ann was a gift from Homa Grammy who came to visit this weekend with Papa. Caroline had to take her in the car with her on the way to school.

Outrigger Island, VBS 08

Caroline had a great time in VBS this year. She is really growing up. Her class rotated to different sessions like Missions and Recreation. She loves the music and we still play the CD in the car ALL the time! Lilly had fun too, getting to do her own crafts and ride in the Bye Bye Buggy everyday! I was the nurse-ographer again this year. I took care of all the bumps and scrapes, headaches and rashes! And when I wasn't busy doing that, I got to take lots of pictures!

August 2008

Family movie night with popcorn. You can see Lilly sharing her popcorn with Cooper!

Daddy and his girls, playing crazy on the bed!

Rainy Day in August

It's been a rainy week in August in Texas. I got the girls all dressed up in their rain boots to enjoy the coolness of the wet patio!

Caroline & Mr. David

This week we lost someone very special to our family, Caroline's Sunday School teacher, Mr. David. She loved that Mr. David so much! Caroline can be very hard for some people to win over due to her initial shyness. But Mr. David (and Mrs. Kim too!) greeted her at the door every Sunday morning, so excited to see her at church. They just loved on all those kids in her class as they taught them about Jesus every week. And for that, no one could help but love him back!

These pictures were taken on Halloween 2007 at Birchman's Trunk R Treat. I love these pictures (I've blogged them before) because it's the only time Caroline smiled the whole night! She was a little bit overwhelmed with all of the costumes and people and wouldn’t even talk to anyone. Until she saw Mr. David. When she saw him and he squatted down to talk to her, she had the biggest grin on her face!

The other night when I was uploading these pictures to print, Caroline saw them and very matter-of-factly said, “That’s Mr. David…he’s not coming to our class anymore. He went to Heaven to be with Jesus.” And very sympathetically I said, “Oh, I know honey. Does that make you sad?” And very bluntly she replied, “No.” A little surprised, I thought, “how weird that she’s not sad.” Then, the more I thought about it, in her 3 year old faith, she must be happy for him that he gets to go to Heaven and be with Jesus! And that’s not a sad thing at all! So then I said, “I guess Mommy is just sad that she will miss him so much, will you miss him?” Caroline, slowly pondering and nodding her head: “Yeah"

A Dancing Cowgirl Butterfly Luau Princess

Caro loves to dress up. It was bedtime tonight and she headed into her room and put together this ensemble herself from her dress up box! All pink...princess crown, butterfly wings, Hawaiian lei, cowgirl boots, purse and swirl around skirt. I said, "you can't wear your crown and boots to bed" and she said "no, I need to be pretty, princesses are pretty!" Oh and the purse. It's something that drives me crazy but I laugh almost every time she does it. She packs one or more (tonight it was two) of her zillion purses full of stuff...plastic food, lipgloss, all her jewelry, bouncy balls, slinkies and whatever else she can fit in there. Then she brings it to me to zip it closed because it's so full she can't zip it herself! Maybe she's a packrat like me. Or she just knows, you never know when you might need something!