That's 7 inches of hair!

Lilly decided yesterday to get a hair cut. I had been trying to talk her into it for sometime, finally something clicked in her mind. She decided she wanted really short hair! We looked into donating her hair to Locks of Love, but that would of made her hair wayyyyy too short, so we just decided on a shoulder length style.

Before hair cut

Before hair cut, from the back.

After hair cut, from the back! She had 7 inches cut off! I was so nervous for her, but Lilly was totally excited.

Here's the new always beautiful Lilly, right after her visit to the salon.

She looks like such a big kid now, it's amazing what a hair cut can do for a girl :)

Last after shot from the front, with her Bug Juice reward for sitting still for the beautician.
I am excited for Lilly's hair cut, I can't believe she wanted it so short, she would of gone ever shorter, but I wouldn't let her. :)

Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It has been great having Lilly home on winter break and Mike gets to work "day shift" for the two weeks Lilly is on break. So everyone has had enough rest and we've all enjoyed our time together as a family.

We made sugar cookies on December 23rd, Lilly and I made them and cut them out. Lilly was so cute, she insisted on making 8 tiny reindeer for Santa :)

Lilly designed her gingerbread man to look like Daddy (notice the spikey hair) :)

Emma LOVED the frosting :) She called it "Painting her cookies." She was so cute, but really really really had a hard time not eating the cookies while "painting them". :)

We let the girls open their Christmas Eve presents in the morning, I had to work Christmas eve, evening so I wanted to see them open them.  We let them open their new pj's and the presents from their Grandma C. It worked out really nicely, because they got to play with their new toys from Grandma all day and it helped the time go by a little faster for the big night.

This is Lilly and Emma in their Christmas PJ's :) I love to dress them up as twins :)

Lilly Christmas morning really got into opening gifts, she was even using her feet :) We've always said she was quadridextrious :)

Emma really loved her new stick horse, she didn't want to open anything else. I ended up opening most of her gifts for her.

Mike picked out this really cool maze book for Lilly on every page there is a story about the maze, and it's basically an entire book with the same ongoing story.

Emma's favorite present was her new fishing pole from Grandma and Grandpa Y. She really loves it and keeps asking to go fishing with Grandpa :)
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, we are looking forward to the New Year to see what life brings us. I am so grateful for my little family and the miracle that it is.

December in Pictures

I decided to just post a bunch of pictures taken in December. We've had a pretty busy month with birthdays, winter colds, family parties and Christmas programs.

Lilly and Emma visited Santa, Emma was freaked out, but Lilly thought it was cool.

A nice person at the outdoor mall took a cute family picture for us :)

Lilly and Mike made a bird feeder, and boy do the birds love it! It is really fun watching them from the window.

Lilly wrote on the bird feeder, I thought it was really cute and clever.

We've read lots and lots of Christmas books this month, I am so glad my girls love to read!

Lilly had her ballet Christmas program, it was very cute!

Lilly all dressed up for her school Christmas party, she thought she looked like and elf and was very adorable!

Yay for cousins! Yay for family Christmas parties and grandma dressing everyone up in matching outfits, so cute!

Jacob played the piano for the talent show, he did great!

Kaelyn played the piano too and did a really good job, she was so nervous, but pulled it off and I was impressed.

Emma and I sang Jingle bells while I plunked it out on my guitar. Emma was so proud of herself, it was adorable!

Lilly danced around grandpa Y. to Taylor Swifts "Santa Baby" :)

The kids made gingerbread houses and did some great work!
It has been a fun month and I am so excited for Christmas, it is my favorite holiday.

Spirit week!

Last week before Thanksgiving Break Lilly's school had spirit week :) The school week was only two days, so we only had two days of dressing up :)

The first day was "Sports Day"... well... Mike and I don't really play sports, or watch sports and didn't have ANY type of sport outfit, so Lilly came up with the idea of being a runner :) I thought her outfit was adorable! After school Lilly and Mike went on a jog too :) It was a really fun day for Lilly, she ran everywhere and kept her running stuff on all day.

The next day was "Spy Day" Lilly went undercover and dressed "like a normal kid." I gave her a little notebook and pencil to write her spying observations down on, she got a kick out of that!
Spirit week was a success and Lilly had a great time.

Emma Turned 2!

I can hardly believe that little Emma is two! Time is going so quickly... where did my little 3 pound baby go? :)
Emma is now 25 pounds (35%)
She is 34.5 inches tall (78%)
She is mostly caught up from being a preemie, and the pediatrician was very impressed with her vocabulary and also her ability to talk in 3-5 word sentences.
Emma can sing her ABC's, she can count to 13 and loves to do anything that her big sister does.
Her favorite book right now is the Biscuit book and also loves Good Night Seattle. (I keep telling Mike that she needs to go there and see Seattle for herself ;))
She also loves the t.v. show Super Why.
Her favorite letter of the Alphabet is E :)

Emma was so excited to open presents :) This was the gift from Lilly, Mom and Dad :)

Lilly made Emma a little note that she stuck to the present :) I'm so thankful that my girls have each other, sisters are the best!

Emma's birthday this year was Monkey themed. She LOVES monkeys so much.

For our party game we did barrel of Monkeys, this is Emma and her favorite cousin Jacob. The night before her party Mike asked Emma who she wanted to come to her party and the first person she said was Jacob :) Well, besides Mommy, Daddy and Lilly :)

Mike decorated Emma's cake this year, he did such a great job! It is really awesome to have such a creative husband that enjoys helping with things like this.

I think this picture is so cute of Emma blowing out her candles, she was really concentrating on it. Our little family is so lucky to have Emma, she is always full of energy and is really starting to develop a funny sense of humor with a bit of mischievousness :) We love you Emma!

The Rest of Halloween...

We had a scary fight with the stomach flu, a cold and overall sickness in our home the month of October so Halloween kind of wasn't as spooktacular as I wanted it to be, but it was still fun. Things are always so much fun with Emma and Lilly around, they are so awesome.

We woke up early the Sunday before Halloween (like 6:00 AM) to carve pumpkins...me at 6:00 AM is pretty frightening, so no pictures of me, just the cute ones :)
We didn't quite trust Emma with a knife this year, so she got to paint her pumpkin :) She did a great job.

Lilly sketched out her design for her pumpkin and Mike helped her carve it, they even added a bow, because it was a girl pumpkin :)

The final result :) Emma's pumpkin we grew in our garden, it was the only one to turn orange by Halloween so we had to buy one for Lilly.

Lilly and Emma helped me make Mummy Dogs for Halloween dinner, they thought they were delicious.

The girls on Halloween night :) Emma is Minnie Mouse, Lilly is Tinkerbell :)

School Pictures

Hi everyone :) Lilly recently had her Kindergarden school pictures taken :) I thought they turned out pretty darn cute :)

I think she has the most beautiful hair! Lilly is growing up so quickly, it makes me sad and excited because she is a great person and is becoming a smart, funny, beautiful girl.

Time to Catch Up...

My last post was over 2-months ago, wow... it has been a busy 2-months :)

I am not sure where to start, so I will just start from yesterday and maybe play catch-up in the next little while.

Lilly had her ballet Halloween party yesterday and it was so fun! I dressed both girls up and they really enjoyed their costumes. Emma enjoys going to Lilly's dance and watching all of the ballerina's Emma will escape my lap as much as she can so she can go to the bar to dance and look at herself in the mirrors :) It is so adorable :)

Lilly really, really, really loves her teacher this year, and was her shadow in dance yesterday. A cool thing that Ettie (Lilly's ballet teacher) pointed out to us was Lilly's feet are really flexible and she is able to point her toes almost perfectly. She told us that a lot of dancers work years to be able to point her toes as beautifully as Lilly :) I was pretty impressed :)

Aren't their costumes soooo adorable! Emma loved wearing her Minnie Mouse costume and cried when I took her ears off in the car. Lilly is TinkerBell this year and I found an amazing hair tutorial on Youtube on how to fix her hair :) It was really easy and looks great!

Tomorrow is Lilly's classroom party and I am helping out, hopefully I will be able to snap a few pictures there too. Emma is coming with me too (our babysitter cancelled) so hopefully things will go smoothly. Happy Halloween!

Lilly's First Day of Kindergarten!

I can hardly believe that Lilly is old enough to go to kindergarten! Today was her very first day of school. We are lucky enough to have her enrolled in an excellent school in the area.

Lilly was soooooooooo excited this morning to go to school. Mike made her a breakfast burrito and gave her a very special father's blessing.

I made Lilly a little sign wishing her a great time at school and also put together a little surprise for her to open after school. It had bubbles, post-its, smarties, bubble gum and a tootsie pop :)

Lilly's first day of Kindergarten: August 17, 2011

Weight: 41 Pounds
Height: 44 Inches Tall

and just for fun....Lilly's first day of Pre-school: September 1, 2010

Weight: 31 Pounds
Height: 41 Inches Tall

Lilly has changed so much this past year, I am so excited to see how she grows and develops this year. This summer Lilly has read 4 chapter books and continues to love science and isn't afraid of much. She loves, bugs, snakes, plants and her favorite book that she read this summer was Magic School Bus Tornado Twister. She also really enjoys dancing and is really good at making up her own songs. One of her favorite activities this summer was going on hiking adventures and trying to catch lizards in the hills above our home.

Here is a cute picture if Lilly and her new teacher. I think the other girl in the photo is a new classmate. (she snuck in the picture) :)
Lilly is going to do awesome in school, I will miss her terribly while she is at school, but I am also looking forward to spending a little one-on-one time with Emma. Lilly is such a bright and social girl, school is going to be a wonderful experience for her.