Holiday Happenings

I think the last time I updated was right before Thanksgiving. Now it's past Christmas so here is probably my last post for this year! Nothing too crazy going on over here. Since we last checked in, Samara turned 10 months, Anayah performed in her first Christmas program at preschool, we all had the stomach flu, and the holidays came and went in the blink of an eye! Nothing new going on over here so I'll just show you what we've been up to for the last month or so:

 Christmas program at school:

One last trip to Disneyland before the end of the year. She was beyond excited to see Sofia!! Samara still isn't quite as enamored with the place hehe:

Checking out the lights with her bestie Jack:

 Samara and Bruno tearing up the house:

 
First present "opening" of the season. Daddy did an amazing job putting this thing together the night before! There were soooo many parts!

 Christmas Eve with the whole family:

 Christmas morning...waiting for everyone to wake up so they can open presents:

 Samara's first Christmas:

 Anayah was spoiled blessed again this year with tons to open!

 I love her screams in this video:

Day 3 of opening presents. She may not look too excited about this chair but this was the ONLY picture I could get because she wouldn't keep still from jumping for joy when she saw it! Thank you to great-Grandma S. who surprised her with it. The pictures on the left are the pictures she took with my phone of her dolls sitting in the chair. Haha they had a photo shoot apparently :)

This cracks me up. In Anayah's words: "this is me and this is sissy" Bahahaha!!!

Hoping to post Samara's 10 month deets tomorrow. We'll see if it actually happens. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Fall Back

Well, life has sure been busy lately. I feel like ever since the time change there aren't enough hours in the day anymore! The girls now get up at an awful hour of the morning (yes, 6am is too early!) and are ready to go once they're awake. We've been keeping busy with our new puppy, Bruno, who I might add is very energetic...it really is like having another child around the house. The girls love him and B is thrilled we finally have a Boston. Me, well, I'm not quite as enamored as the rest of the family, but I'll keep him around ;)

Right before Halloween we hit up our local pumpkin patch for our annual dose of pumpkin fun. It was Samara's first patch and she was thrilled to play with the pumpkins. Anayah loved all the slides and rides and even the swing!

 Sadly, I didn't make the family pumpkin patch picture this year...

For Halloween at Anayah's school, everyone dressed up as cowboys/girls. She loved her outfit and was so excited to get to school that morning! That evening we hung out with our good friends the Von Rosens and Anayah and Jack got to dress up and go trick-or-treating together. They were so cute dressed as Jake and Izzy from Jake and the Neverland Pirates (Disney Jr. for those who don't know). Samara wore the infamous bee costume and looked so cute! 

 See?!

 

Don't they look so alike here?!

 They wouldn't keep still for a picture together!

I can't believe it's a week before Thanksgiving and I've yet to take any pictures of the family on my camera this month! I've been super busy with holiday photo sessions and working on my new website that I only have my phone pics to document the last few weeks. On top of all of that I've been starting to plan for Samara's first birthday! I know it will be here before we know it. Whew! On that note, I'm off to get some work done while A is in school and S is napping! Until next time...

Easter 2013

This year I feel like we celebrated Easter week as opposed to Easter Sunday!

 It started with a package in the mail from great grandma in Hawaii with a kit to dye eggs which A received a week and a half before Easter. We told her we would open it for our Easter party "next week." Now anyone who's ever had a toddler can attest that you should never really tell them anything until absolutely necessary because they don't forget stuff...especially my kid. All week she would "remind" me about her dye kit and our Easter party and the eggs we were going to color. Last Sunday we all went to Brian's baseball game and I decided to bring some plastic eggs to "hide" at the field so A would have something to do and it would give her a chance to practice before the real hunts began. She held tight to those eggs all week...which didn't help her forget about the eggs we were going to dye!

 

On Thursday her bestie Jack came over and they dyed some eggs and had their own little egg hunt inside. They had a blast and it was hilarious to watch them race and knock each other over (lovingly) to get those plastic eggs!

 

  

 

 

Of course we let them open their eggs.

They even shared a few pieces of candy with each other...

but only a few!

On Friday we drove down to SD so we could have an early Easter with my parents since we wouldn't see them on Sunday. Anayah got to be a part of the party that the daycare kids were having which she loved

and Samara got to be spoiled by papa...and Grandma and Grandpa L!

More eggs (and candy) and her second Easter basket of the week! Even Samara got a basket!

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning then headed up to LA to spend Easter with Brian's side of the family.

 

It had been a while since we last saw all of them and most of them hadn't met Samara yet so we were excited to make the drive up. Anayah had a blast playing with her cousins and scored three yes, three, more Easter baskets full of toys and candy!

By the time we got home Sunday evening we were all exhausted but blessed to have been able to see and spend time with our family and friends. Now I need to figure out how to throw away clean up the candy and Easter basket grass (which is strewn all over my house) without A getting upset! Anyone need an extra basket? Or two?

Christmas Cookie Club

Having blog issues is not fun...especially when you have pregnancy brain and you are constantly forgetting stuff, then having to go back and remember the things you wanted to blog about while you were unable to. Ugh. Anyway, before I forget I wanted to tell you about our first annual Christmas Cookie Club (from two weeks ago!).

That is the book that served as inspiration for such an event. My neighbor introduced me to the book when she asked me if I wanted to join her club. I thought it was such a great idea that I decided I also wanted to start one with my friends. Well if you've actually read this book you'll know that their cookie club is slightly different than a traditional cookie exchange. There is an entire list of rules that the members must follow, yes I said members. It's quite an exclusive club with only 12 people allowed. The biggest difference however is the fact that each member of the club bakes 12 dozen cookies and brings each dozen wrapped like a gift to give to the other ladies. Yes, you read that right. 12 dozen. So yes, that means since I joined two cookie clubs, I was baking 24 dozen cookies!

Here are all our cookies wrapped in their beautiful packages. I can't tell you what goes on at cookie club...that's for members only :) but it was a fun night and I'm excited for this new tradition that we started.

You'll notice that there aren't 12 of us in attendance. One of the rules of cookie club is if you can't attend you either send your cookies in your place or you forfeit your spot. One sent her cookies and sadly a few had to be cut. Bummer for them. Thank you ladies for baking your butts off and being a part of a new tradition. Love you all!

Halloween 2012 :: Illumination

So this is A's third Halloween. I'm sure you remember her previous costumes

2010

 2011

Hehe, wasn't she just the cutest?! Anyway, in previous years we've spent Halloween with her buddy Jack, trick-or-treating with his family in their neighborhood. Well this year we decided to switch things up a bit. Miss A is at that age where things are starting to scare her and I really didn't feel like taking her out at night to possibly be exposed to scary costumes/decorations/people and have her freak out. Ummm, nightmares? No thank you. So we decided to attend our church's Halloween alternative called "Illumination." Costumes were allowed as long as they weren't scary. Of course I waited until the last minute to figure out what she was going to be and in the end decided I really didn't want to buy something she would wear once. Sooo what to do, what to do? Raid her closet of course! She must have something in there we can use. This is what we came up with:

2012

having fun at the carnival...the games were too big for her, but she kept herself entertained

after the party, she and Dopey calling her friends to tell them all about it...too bad Dopey is bigger than her!

Aww, she's so cute!! And growing up too fast!! Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!