Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!! One Christmas Eve, we went to my parents house to celebrate with the extended family. The kids were spoiled and we had lots of fun with the whole family there. My favorite part was singing Christmas carols, with Evan "leading" the band with this guitar (along with Jon - the real leader of the band). We acted out the Twelve Days of Christmas and Evan sang Rudolph more times than I can count!





We then had Christmas morning at our house, and it was super special. The kids slept until 8 (present for Mom & Dad) and Dad went down to get a picture of the presents that Santa had left..
All the food for Santa and the reindeer was eaten, so he must have come :)
This is the funniest face that Evan kept making - the I don't know what it is - but I'm excited to find out face. He did end up getting his telescope and hand-held video game, and he was so sweet and excited about everything.
Evan was also so sweet and made presents for me (a necklace and spoon). He helped Daddy and Ainsley open their presents too.




We then headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the day. The kids were so good and everyone was so generous. Ainsley had so much fun that she decided not to nap at all :P She also decided that crawling on the boxes was way more fun than opening them!



On the 26th, we celebrated Christmas at Nani & Poppy's house. We had brunch and opened presents..


oh, an Evan got tossed out in the trash. What a wonderful Christmas!!!

Christmas Festivities

We had so much fun in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I got to take Evan and Ainsley downtown to eat lunch with my co-workers, and then we got to check out the Duke Trains. Evan loved it! We ended up staying for over an hour just watching the trains go around.



We also decorated a Gingerbread House with Aunt Jen and Uncle Chad. Evan was really into it, although he was hot - so he's not wearing a shirt in any of the pictures :P He favorite part was tasting and placing the candy!

We also had lots of fun with our annual cookie decorating with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma made us super-cute matching aprons and we all got to work!
Evan helped roll out the dough and cut out cookies. He also iced and decorated quite a few. His are the ones with lots of icing and "hots" (red hots).

Ainsley spend most of the time chasing after Buddy - or as she likes to call him.. pat-pat.


We were so lucky to have so many fun things to do this Christmas season.

First Snow

Right before Christmas, we got our first snow - thankfully on the weekend. The snow was perfect for building snowmen and forts, and Daddy and Evan did just that. They made one of my favorite snowmen - and he lasted for a long time!

What Evan doesn't like...

Straight from preschool...

Eight things about Ainsley at 8 Months...

Here we go again - another month older. Ainsley is growing sweeter by the day. Here are 8 things about our little princess as she turns 8 months old..

1. We have a baby on the move!! Ainsley is now crawling, sitting from laying down, standing (often with just one hand), and bending over. There is no stopping her now. It's so fun to watch her crawl around - but I definitely have to keep a much closer eye on her!!


2. Her favorite noise to make is a popping sound. I'll hear her around the house all day long - "pop, pop, pop". She has done it so much that her bottom lip has actually turned purple from all the practice!

3. This is her favorite toy by far! She loves to sit and play at the table forever, and now she loves to crawl all over the table.

4. Ainsley's hair is growing like crazy! It's getting really long all over and mommy's getting excited because the bows are staying in better... now, we just have to decide if we are going to trim her bangs. It's always so hard to know what to do with the little one's hair!


5. She loves to wave hi and bye, and is always giving up big smiles! She also loves to kiss mommy and the baby in the mirror!


6. Ainsley is finally breastfeeding every 4 hours (yeah for me!!) It just makes it so much easier to go anywhere for either of us. She's still so-so on soild foods, but of the few she likes, her favorite is pear-blueberry.

7. Ainsley had her First Thanksgiving (actually two Thanksgivings). She did great! However, we have now discovered that she doesn't like to nap on the go :P

8. Recently we gave her a bath with Evan. She had a great time and so did he. She didn't mind getting splashed in the face a ton, and tried to suck on the wash cloth the entire bath .. why do babies do that?
Next up.. baby's 1st Christmas!!!

More Fall Fun..

We have been really enjoying all the wonderful fall weather lately!

Painting a birdhouse with Poppy:

Enjoying "water" boots given to us by a neighbor:

Ainsley's Dedication

On November 1st, we had Ainsley dedicated at our church, 4 Corners. It was a special day for us all - thanking God for our special blessing, celebrating that she's here, and promising to raise her with our Christan faith. We had all the Grandparents and Aunt Robin, Uncle Dave, Mya, and Aunt (to-be) Jen attend. During church there was a thoughtful blessing from Ben and a slight mishap with A's shoe flying off. We then went back and celebrated at Nani & Poppy's house with lunch. It was a wonderful day!

Beautiful Fall Day

Last Saturday, we had nothing on the calendar and forecast for a beautiful day! We decided to take the kids up to Youngstown, Ohio for a little day adventure. We had so much fun!! We made our way up to Young's Dairy first. Evan got to check out the scene - there were tractors to play on, goats to look at and feed, and farm animals to watch.
We had lunch at the store, and, of course, homemade ice cream!

Evan picked bubble gum ice cream - and to his surprise, it had real gum in it!

He was also waiting for the cows - which were outside - we had to come back later that evening to see them get milked.
We then headed over to Clifton Gorge to do a little hiking. The scenery was beautiful and we saw lots of waterfalls. There were lots of leaves to jump in too. Evan found a walking stick and Ainsley just hug out in the front pack and enjoyed the outdoors and took a little nap!


We then headed back to Young's Dairy to feed the goats and watch the cows get milked.
Evan definitely thought that seeing the cows get milked was the coolest thing ever! We probably watched for about 30 minutes.
This was one beautiful, fall day that we'll remember for a long time!