Thanksgiving 2012

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday! We spent the day with Eric's side of the family... yummy food and great company, of course! 

Some pictures from our day....

Waiting patiently for dinner to be served.

They love each other so much!

 Family photo shoot after we filled our tummies. 

 Eric and I so rarely have an opportunity to take a picture together, and I am IN LOVE with this picture of us!

The kids with their Grandma

 Oh my gorgeous Ella.......

 you're so precious just playing in the leaves. 

 So fun! 

 Handsome little buddy. 

He is currently obsessed with Jake and the Neverland Pirates, so I'll always look back on this picture of him with his Jake and remember that about him at 3 1/2 years old. 

Me and my baby girl

LOVE!

 And my best little friend.....

Eric was kind enough to take most of the pictures this time, so unfortunately he didn't end up in many. That's okay though, I love seeing myself in so many pictures for a change! :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones! 

Christmas Card Outtakes

Yesterday evening, we took the kids to a park nearby our house to take some pictures for our Christmas card. I would have been happy with just one descent picture of the two of them together, but thanks to my super cooperative children (really!!) and my handy helper of a husband, I got SO many more than that! I actually had to pick and choose which would go on our card for this year.

Here are a few that I'm not using, but they are too cute not to post somewhere! And be on the lookout for your Christmas card in the mail very soon!

 

A little fun walking on the rock wall.... even though it doesn't look like it, I promise there was a grassy space on the other side of that rock wall! And it's also not as high up as it looks. :)

Big Girl Ella at 13 Months!

Ella, you're 13 months today!! It's been one of those months where you literally seem like a different child than you did only a month ago, and I just wanted to document lots of the changes we've seen in our girl lately!

• You have become so much more communicative. You nod your head 'yes' and 'no' a lot lately.
• Your speech and vocab has all of a sudden exploded out of no where. I'd say you now have close to 10 words we hear from you regularly. Mama, Dada, Bye, Hi, Ball, Baby, Book, Uh Oh, Night Night, & Dog. And the other day I even heard you say "Ca" (Ka) when looking at Carter. I'd never even heard you make that sound before then!
• You've picked up on a bunch of animal noises recently, probably due to your obsession with all your touch-n-feel books. You can do cow, sheep/lamb, doggy, & kitty cat. You also growl, but I'm not sure you associate that with any particular animal just yet, or if it's more to be silly.
• You answer your "phone" (which is usually any hand-sized toy nearby) and say Hello..... although it sounds more like "Yooooo!"
• You're walking about 75% of the time at home, but still not that much when we are out at a park or something.
• You now give kisses (force your mouth up against whatever part of my face that it hits) and you also give "love" (snuggle your head onto my shoulder), and you do both of these on command.... so cute!! You also give High Fives!! Daddy loves this.
• You wave and say "bye" unprompted and in appropriate situations..... like when we're leaving the grocery store or when someone is leaving the house.
• You love to clap and cheer for yourself or for Carter. You think it's hilarious. :)
• You love to brush your hair and your teeth, and you know which is which. I just have to hand you one and you know exactly what to do with it.
• You have figured out how to safely get down off of things by going down feet-first and backwards. The couch, the playset, the slide.... any of those things you climb on a daily basis. Makes Mommy feel much better about all the climbing :)

You're at such a fun (and funny) age. Carter and I literally are laughing at you and your silliness ALL DAY LONG. I'm not sure when it happened, but we have flipped from Carter being your main source of entertainment to you being his. He loves to watch you learn and play, to laugh at all the cute and funny things you do, and to cheer for you when you do something wonderful. And it makes my heart sing!! Love you, baby girl! 

Park Fun!

We went to the park this morning, and I actually thought to bring my camera! I feel like I never take it anywhere with me anymore, or I forget it. Glad I brought it, because I got lots of good pics of each of the kids, and that's hard to do! 

Swinging is always fun! 

 My gorgeous boy.  

 He looks like such a little man here. 

I love this picture because way far in the background you can see the water tower. Every time we drive by it, Carter refers to it as "our water tower." And I know he associates it with being very close by our house or almost home if we're driving. Pretty smart!! 

 See Carter way back there? Playing football with Daddy.

 Got hurt while playing football and came running to Momma. 

 Hugs from Daddy help too.

Las Vegas Trip

Eric and I took a much needed 4-night getaway trip to Vegas last week. We had so much fun, and really enjoyed the time with just each other. I didn't even bother bringing my good camera because I knew I wouldn't even care about taking pictures, but we did manage to take some using our phones, and that was good enough. :)

Driving in from the airport, we saw the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. Neither one of us had ever seen it before, so that was cool. 

  

I had never been to Hoover Dam before, so on Friday morning we drove out to Lake Mead to do a lunch cruise and tour the dam. 

View of Lake Mead on our drive in.

Quick stop to take some pictures. 

 At the Marina getting ready to get on the boat.

Such a cool boat.

Enjoying the ride. 

  Floating up by Hoover Dam

 It's pretty amazing.

 Looking so wind blown! It was quite a windy day :)

When we got back from touring the dam, we stopped at Starbucks for some coffee. This little table was off by itself in a little nook. It looked totally awkward, like the table that no one wanted to sit at. I had the giggles, and Eric just HAD to take a pic. I forgot about it, and when I was going back through pictures, it made me smile. :)

Friday night we did some sight seeing, a little gambling, and walked down to the Bellagio to watch the fountain show. 

Eric with the Bellagio behind him.

Me with Paris behind me. 

And the fountains. I always love to go see this when where in Vegas. It's so awesome. 

 Walking back to out hotel that night, we ran into Buzz Lightyear, so I had to snap a pic for Carter :)

Saturday morning we went and did more sightseeing and shopping. 

We stayed at the Luxor, so I had to get a pic at the pool. 

This is Eric in front of the pirate ships at Treasure Island. Another pic for Carter :)

Saturday night we saw Ka by Cirque du Soleil at MGM. Totally amazing show.... highly recommend if you're in Vegas soon! We loved it. 

Eric in front of New York, New York

Sunday we gambled a little, shopped some, and had lunch at a yummy pizza place and watched the Cowboys game. Then Sunday night, our last night there, we went to a comedy show.

This was the most delicious pizza.... one of the best we've ever had. Would love to eat one right now, as a matter of fact. It had prosciutto, grilled red onions, mozzarella & ricotta cheese, and the arugula salad sprinkled on top with olive oil. So Yummy. 

New York, New York

 Over the strip looking at the MGM and the Eiffel Tower in the background. 

 MGM

Fun trip, as always!! Loved the time with my hubby, but was definitely glad to get home to my babies!