Lyla reading... (video)

The day after....

As we wind down from our Christmas high we begin to clean up the wrapping paper and boxes and pile things high in the trash cans. Lyla loves her Christmas presents. In one of the pictures above she is feeding her baby a bottle after she tried to suck on it herself. The funny thing is she hasen't had a bottle in over 3 months! What a big girl! She also loves her new chair. She also got a whole new library, a ton of books, to read! As soon as I figure out how I will upload a video of her "reading". She also got a little table and chairs that she sat at last night and drew on her magna doodle!

Today we are at home relaxing and napping!! Poor TJ is at work today! Lyla and I may go brave the crowds at Target to get some cheap serving platters for next year...we'll see!

We are looking foward to Nana and Papa coming home from Kansas today and Brandon and Lyndsey coming this weekend. We are going to plan our activities and of course our menu!

2 days 'til Christmas...

Wow, I sure do have a lot of time now that I am off for our Winter Break! I don't know what I would do if I had this kind of time year round!! Well this year we are celebrating Christmas 4 times! We plan on making the trip to New Braunfels on Christmas Eve for family fun and food. We will return to Austin to go to Christmas Eve church, the kid's service, and wake up in our own house on Christmas morning. After we enjoy our own personal Christmas celebration we will head to Seguin for Christmas with the fam part 2. My parents will return from Granny's in Kansas on the 26th and Brandon and Lyndsey (brother and sister-in-law) will come down from OKC to spend some time with Lyla! We will have Christmas part 4 with them when they get here! Wow, busy holiday! We are also looking foward to a visit from Melissa and Valerie (cousins) on the 1st! Soon after that it will be time to go back to school and face the 2nd half of the year!

The pictures above are pics of us getting ready for the holiday! Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas past...

Here is a picture of Lyla last Christmas.... 3 1/2 months old. Here is a picture of Lyla this Christmas (15 1/2 months old)...wow! They grow so fast!

Ho ho ho!

Last weekend we went to the Ray's to see Santa!! Ms. Melanie was taking pictures of the kids as they "encounter" the old guy! What a hilarious thing to see! Most of the kids cried like someone was beating them! Here are a few pics of Lyla's encounter with Santa!

Santa is Coming to Town...

Last Saturday we got up early and went to church to go see Santa! We had planned on going to the Breakfast with Santa, but Lyla had a different plan. She spent the night with Nana and Papa the night before because Mommy and Daddy went to Daddy's office Christmas Fiesta downtown. Lyla woke her Nana up really early on Saturday so by the time TJ and I got their at 8:15am Lyla had already gone down for her morning nap. We had breakfast with Nana and Papa and waited for Lyla to wake up. After we got her ready we headed to church and proceeded to wait in line for over an hour to see Santa. I'll let you guess how that went!! Here are our photos of Lyla with Santa. We are going to do try #3 (try #1 with Ms. Laura went well) tomorrow at Ms. Kristin's.

The Twelve Outfits of Christmas...

At our house we love to buy clothes! Lyla has many cute Christmas outfits that she will be photographed in this month! Mommy is crazy! This picture is especially funny! Note the Longhorn Santa shirt and OSU sippy cup! We support our schools!

Lyla was sick over the Thanksgiving holiday so we don't have any pictures of her eating turkey...because she was too cranky to eat! She is better now and ready to decorate the house this weekend!

Lyla's first "Dede" haircut!

Lyla went to get her first haircut on Friday. Ms. Christie was getting her hair done so we barged in and got Lyla's haircut. She sat on my lap at first while Dede started cutting and then she got restless so I hade to hold her up. It didn't take too long before she started protesting so we had to sing her favorite songs to keep her distracted. Her new favorite song is the ABC's song. Daddy sings it to her while she's in the tub! She was such a good girl! When we got home we had a mini photo shoot to commemorate the day!

Happy Halloween!

Lyla had a wonderful evening of Trick-or-Treating and picture taking! After Lyla ate her dinner of chicken nuggets, peas, baked french fries and applesauce she got all dressed up in her costume. Can you guess what she was?!?! Yes, Pebbles Flintstone! She was a real cave baby in her bare feet until it got cooler outside. We went to Trick-or-Treat at Nana and Papa's house. We even stayed and played for awhile. Then we came home and put on her black pants, shoes and socks so that we could walk around the neighborhood. A couple of streets over two families had turned their front and back yard's into a cemetery. They had a haunted house set up in the back yard. It was really neat. We didn't go into the haunted house but we looked at all the decorations in the front yard. After our little neighborhood tour we came home, gave Lyla a bath and put her in her Halloween jammies before we put her to bed! She was exhausted!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, everywhere!

Today we went with Ms. Kristin, Nolan, and Emmy to the Elgin Christmas tree farm. Yes, Christmas tree farm, except right now it's a Pumpkin patch! We had such a great time. We took tons of pictures, played in the pumpkins, took a hayride and had a picnic. We also met Ms. Casey, Ms. Erin, Elizabeth and Ryan during our picnic. We had a great day.

I'm also including a couple of pictures from our session in the pumpkin patch at church! Lyla got very upset about something...we are not sure what but she was really sad! Ahh...the drama of a 13 month old!

Word update:

Today Lyla said "Thank You" for the first time when I picked her up while she was trying to play in the fridge.

She now says: Uh oh, bear, baby, no, meme = mommy, dada, goggie = doggie, hi, Lyla, oh, wow, car, thank you

Halloween is around the corner...

Wow, we can't believe how fast time is going! Last weekend we went to the Austin Family Music Festival. For those of you who live in Austin, TJ called it "Kiddie ACL". ACL is Austin City Limits it a music festival that brings a ton of bands in over a weekend in September to play live. Many natives enjoy the concerts as well as many who travel here to be a part of the festival. Anyway, the Austin Family Music Festival was tons of fun! We weren't able to stay for "The Biscuit Brothers" but Lyla loves to watch them on PBS early on Saturday mornings. We listened to Mr. Steve sing his funny songs after we played at the Instrument Petting Zoo, yes instruments. The babies also enjoyed playing on the porch with other musical toys set up by the Austin Lyric Opera. We met the Ray's, Kristin, Brian and Nolan along with Allie, as well as Ms. Carrie and her sister, Ashley and her little man, Nathan! The Crane's met us there later in the day! We are excited about going next year. We have a souvenir CD to listen to in the car to help us remember our adventure!

I'm posting pictures from the music festival and a few pictures of Lyla in her Halloween outfit!! Mommy does love to shop!

I'm one....

The day is over and the house is quiet again. We've survived our First Birthday Party! We had a great gathering full of family and friends. Lyla dug into her cake and loved every minute of it. She was so tired when we got to presents that she just wanted to play with whatever was in front of her. She will have plenty of time to play with all of the new toys and books that she got. Thank you to all who came to help us celebrate her special day!

I'm posting pictures from the night of her actual birthday, September 5th. We did a family dinner and gave her a cupcake to dive into! I will post party pictures on Monday!