Extra Pics

These are all the extra pics from 2011.  Either they are from our real camera and just never made their way into a blog post, or they are from my phone, which is very outdated, so I had a hard time figuring out how to get those pics onto the computer.  But I was victorious! :)  Enjoy:

At Mimi&PopPop's house this summer while we were transitioning to NYC

Ice Cream with PopPop

First pedicure with Mimi

Playing dress-up with Mimi.  Love the look of adoration!

Crawling at Uncle Cannon & Aunt Amy's house in June

Delilah & Greyson:  "Popsicle Superheroes...Cousins Unite!"

Playing in Greyson's bounce house

One of my favorite pics.  This is the first time Delilah saw our apt building in NYC

Noelle's first time in the swing (in July)

First of many swing times together

Noelle riding the subway like a pro

This was one of the first times we hung out with our new friends in the building.  Jonna has a giant balcony, so all the kids went swimming in kiddie pools while the moms drank wine.  It's pretty much how we spent our summer. :)

At the Southstreet Seaport, Brooklyn Bridge in the background

Grammy Di sent a Halloween package with lots of fun stuff and this costume was in there.  Delilah loved it!!

First time Delilah wrote her own name!!!

First time down the slide!

In front of the Christmas toy chest at Mimi & PopPop. Taken while Chris & I were in Guatemala

At the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  So FUN!!!!!

In front of the beautiful holiday windows at Macy's.  Delilah LOVED all the displays and for weeks afterward has asked to go back and look at "all the beautiful windows"

First time that Noelle walked the streets of New York.

And I think that's a wrap on 2011!  What an incredible year it's been.  So many changes, but through it all, we felt surrounded by the love of friends and family.  Thank you all for being so supportive.  And to Chris, Delilah, and Noelle:  thank you for making every adventure so wonderful...the love I have for three of you makes my heart swell to bursting at least a hundred times a day.

Delilah-isms

Just a few cute and/or sweet and/or funny things that Delilah has said lately:

-While in the bath, she was covering Noelle with bubbles and those foam letters that stick to the bathtub walls (and stick to Ellie Bug, for that matter).  After doing this for about 5 minutes, she put one last heap of bubbles on Noelle's head and said, "There's the star!  I decorated Ellie Bug like a Christmas Tree!"

-A few days before Christmas, Red kept saying that 3 comes after 4, and I kept correcting her and saying that 3 comes before 4. Eventually she sighed and said, 'Just wait, Mommy. I will show you." The next morning she asked me how many nights until Christmas and I said '3'. She patiently said, "Yesterday we had 4 nights left and today we have 3. 3 comes after 4. I told you I would show you, Mommy".  :)  The best part was that she didn't have any attitude about it...she just seemed kind of sad that her poor Mommy didn't understand.

-She is constantly saying that she is going to marry me.  The first time she said it, I asked "What about Daddy?" and she replied, "He can marry Ellie Bug".   Problem solved.

-I sent her to "thinking time" last week and she stormed off, grumbling "I don't like you very much right now, Mommy".  5 seconds later she yelled, "But I still want to marry you!!!"

-Piano lessons with Daddy and the show Little Einsteins have officially affected Delilah's vocabulary:  when I asked her to be quiet for the millionth time she replied, "But, Mom, I love being FORTISSIMO!!!"

-Red is pretty convinced that her parents are slow.  If she has to repeat a request multiple times, she will finish with "I already TOLD you that.  I told you THREE TIMES!!"

-And we will end with my favorite story:  I always sing "Hey There, Delilah" to my little red one, and as I was singing it one morning she said, "Oh,Mommy, I love it when you sing that to me. Can you come here so I can just hug you while you sing it?" And she hugged me and kissed my face the whole I time I sang the song to her. Perfection.

Merry Christmas!!!

For the last two weeks, Delilah has been asking every day how many more times she has to go to sleep until Christmas and/or Jesus' birthday.  This is the first year that she really understood what was going on and it has been SO fun to experience the holiday season with her. 
Last night the girls opened the traditional Christmas Eve present of pajamas from Grammy Di & Papa H.  Delilah is going through a phase where she LOVES to match Ellie Bug, so she was ecstatic to have new, matching pajamas.  Sadly, she got too excited and had a little potty accident so she couldn't sleep in her new pajamas. :(  But Santa called while she was brushing her teeth with Daddy and said that if he had time, he would really try to wash her pajamas while she slept.  I gave Delilah this news when I was tucking her in and she responded with the most precious, breathless, "Really? Oh, Mommy, do you think he'll have time?!?!"  Luckily, he fit it in to his schedule and her clean pajamas were waiting for her this morning.  He left them right where she had left his cookies...she was thrilled.
The rest of the day can best be told in pictures:

Trying to get a shot of the new pj's on Christmas Eve. Not always a Kodak moment around here. :)



Loving the pajamas



Annual opening of the mailbox on Christmas morning.  Lollipop inside!

Reading the letter Santa left.  He liked the cookies and milk and had time to clean her pj's.

Probably my favorite moment of the day.  Delilah looked at all the presents under the tree and asked where Noelle's presents were.  Then she brought this present to Noelle before she ever opened one of her own.  That's love.

Getting the hang of unwrapping.

As always with toddlers, the least expensive present that Santa brought was her favorite.




Kisses for sister

 

Funniest present of the day.  Chris recently gave up chewing tobacco; my brother, Cannon, sent a hammer and a can of Copenhagen, sealed in a box, with a plaque that reads "Break glass in case of emergency".  Too funy.

"This is the best Christmas EVER!"  That's what Delilah kept saying all day.

LOVED the Rapunzel present from Mimi & PopPop

Making Christmas breakfast.  My first attempt at homemade biscuits and sausage gravy...they were good!

New tea set

Delilah has recently become interested in card games.  Here she is concentrating on the new princess version of Go Fish that Santa brought.

First sleepy one.

Second sleepy one.

We missed our friends and family in Texas & Utah, but we made the most of our intimate Christmas at home.  The four of us played all day and as I type this, it's 9pm and I am the only one still awake. :)  Merry Christmas to all of you...hope your day was filled with love and laughter.

Noelle's 1 Year Photo Shoot

We had a photo shoot last month to celebrate Noelle's first birthday. I am SO glad that we invested the money to have regular photo sessions of the girls during their first years. I know it was pricey, and I know a lot of my friends and family have thought I was crazy, but the images we have from all the sessions make me unbelievably happy. I can hardly think of anything that I would have rather spent money on. I mean, seriously...how cute are they?!?! :)