Pip's First Birthday Party!!!

We threw a little party for Pip's birthday on the Saturday after Christmas, and on that morning she fell and smacked her face on a coffee pot she was carrying around. As you can see, it was a pretty bad smack. It swelled up right away and she kind of looked like a character from Star Trek :( But she got over it pretty quick and was still our happy little girl. We had a bagel bar and cupcakes for people to snack on and it turned out to be very fun and very low key. 

But in all seriousness, I cannot believe that she is one (and a month as I'm writing this!). Since she joined us she has been nothing but a happy, sneaky baby. She is going to be a handful as she gets older, but she'll do it with a bit ol' grin on her face. I'm so excited for this next year because kids just get better with age, but also because 18 months is my favorite stage for babies! and also because I have Saltwater sandals that will fit her :)

Cousin Nora is getting chubbier and cuter every second.

PRESENTS!!!

This was our attempt at a staged group photo, we didn't quite pull off the nonchalant feel we were going for ;)

Ugh, she is the cutest.

Pip's Birthday... and Christmas :)

Here are the few photos we took on Christmas/Pip's birthday. It ended up being a very relaxed day and we didn't really do much. In the morning we had a wonderful breakfast of this amazing cinnamon roll with bacon and eggs. Pip enjoyed the cinnamon roll immensely. We ended up opening all of our Christmas presents the day before so the only presents opened today were Pip's birthday presents. Charlie did get to open his stocking though, I think we'll do stockings in the morning and then the rest of the day will be for Pip. Still figuring it out, but I think that might be the future plan.
ANYways, for the rest of the day I went to Star Wars with my sisters-in-law while Andy hung out with the kiddos at home and then we had dinner at his mom's house, so it was a very relaxing, nice Christmas. Here are a bunch of photos of her enjoying her cinnamon roll :)

This picture is one in a series where the next shot is my arm pushing her finger away, it's pretty epic.

Charlie did enjoy the morning, I promise.

See?

Christmas Eve

Growing up we had a tradition on Christmas Eve to open up one present and one present only. I really loved this tradition but when I got married to Andy, we switched to celebrating Christmas with his mom on Christmas Eve, which I love even more than just one present. And now it looks like we'll be celebrating our entire Christmas on Christmas Eve so that Pip can have Christmas all to herself. Or maybe we'll just do stockings in the morning? Who knows. We're trying to figure out this birthday Christmas thing before she gets too old and realizes that everybody gets presents on her birthday. This Christmas Eve was wonderful because there was tons of snow, tons of family, and tons of food to eat! Really, the best things for a good ol' winter celebration. The kids all went outside and played for a while and here are the photos to prove it!

Snow Angel!

These girlies just sat and enjoyed the ride :)

Not sure this ended well

Ben made an awesome sled hill, but only a few kids would actually go down it.

Snow, snow, snow

Man, the snow this year is awesome! We had barely any last year and these photos were taken a few weeks before Christmas and there are still feet of snow in our back yard. We haven't actually been out to play in the snow since about Christmas, but it's sure pretty to look at. It has started to warm up during the day and then freeze at night, so there's a good layer of ice on most of it, but that still doesn't stop Charlie from eating it! Nope! He goes right for the dirtiest snow he can find and shoves it in his mouth, hoping that he can finish it before we spot him. I'm not sure what has gotten into him but he has been getting into so much stuff lately. He ate quite a bit of toothpaste (thankfully it was Pip's so its just the training stuff) and he has been trying to sneak stuff all the time! I'm not used to this and I'm not sure that I'm handling this well. Mostly because I think I scare him into not ever wanting to tell me the truth. Guess I'll have to work on that, or maybe I'll just have him watch some more Daniel Tiger and hopes he teaches him instead ;)
Back to the snow though. It is awesome and sledding hills are the bees knees. We made one in our back yard but these photos are from my brother's house where he made his own sledding hill. The older kids enjoy making snowmen, sled rides, and eating the snow while the babies just kind of stand there and watch. I think it's mainly due to the fact that they can't walk very well in their snow suits, but it does make for an adorable scene. We did pile them into a sled and run back and forth for a bit, which they seemed to handle pretty well :)

Our little love birds. Haha.

See what I mean? Pretty adorable, those two.

Christmas Break

Do you ever just sit there and realize how crazy your life is now? Tonight, as I sat in Pip's dark room trying to soothe her back to sleep, I just looked down at her and couldn't believe she was my second baby. It's just so unreal, you know? I mean, of course I have two kids, I'm not oblivious, but sometimes it just really smacks you in the face and it seems like your ordinary life is beyond belief. It hits me especially hard when I talk to my twin sister. Seriously. I'll be talking to her and then get distracted my three-year old(!!!) and it's mind boggling. I know it sounds silly and whatever, but it's just amazing how your life moves on like normal and then you look back and realize that you've been married for six and a half years.

But anyways, here are some random photos that were taken over Christmas break. It wasn't exactly a break for us because nobody is in school and Andy's work doesn't give him extra time off for the holidays, but it was a break in the fact that I never posted here :) I'm so very glad that we captured some pictures of Andy's tickle fights with the kids. They happen often and the kiddos love them (most of the time), plus they're good entertainment.

And here is miss Pip getting into everything she possibly can. She's gotten into the toilet 5 times in the past week ><