Thanksgiving Family Visit

 Early last week we were thrilled to welcome Momma Shedd for a much anticipated visit.  As she usually does, she brought tons of fun for the kids including a GINGERBREAD HOUSE KIT!!!  The kids spent a wonderful afternoon eating candy and frosting, decorating their house.

Mid week Uncle Todd made HIS much anticipated appearance.  They both were wonderful with the kids and read stories for hours and hours on end.  The kids were in heaven!!

 Then came Thanksgiving.  It was the first Thanksgiving we have had family over to our house and it really showed us all we had to be thankful for:

We had a wonderful time together and are so thankful that our family was able to spend the time with us.  In fact, we had such a wonderful time we didn't get nearly as many pictures as I would have liked but this is what we did manage to get:

 The Girls:

The Boys:

David was pretty lukewarm on the whole Thanksgiving meal until he discovered PUMPKIN PIE!!!  It was soooooo good he just had to share it with his bear:

(While David wasn't overly thrilled with the meal his mom was quite proud of the Turkey she and Momma Shedd made so please admire it in the forefront :-))

Delaney just loved the food.  She always does:

And just because I am their mom,  and this is my outlet to brag on my kids here are two cute pictures of two of the things I am most Thankful for:

After the thrill of Thanksgiving we got down to the serious business of decorating for Christmas.  At least some of us were serious about it.....some of us just wanted to play in the tree box:

Check back soon for updates on the Christmas decorating......

And a HUGE Thank You to Momma Shedd and Todd who absolutely MADE our Thanksgiving by visiting and sharing time with us!!!  We hope we have started a tradition this year :-).

Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Carving the Shedd Family Pumpkin.  Looks like mommy and babies are doing all of the work but really it was all Daddy....we just played in the guts :-)

Starting out.

On their Way.

David Dinosaur

Girl Monkey Delaney

This is the kids enjoying the fruits (candy) of their labor.  Notice David with no pants?  Yup, the dinosaur costume was a bit more difficult to take off at potty time than we anticipated.  OOPS.

Cooler....

The weather has (finally) turned cooler.  Time for footed PJs and fires in the fireplace......

Kitchen

Homeownership.  Then endless effort to make a house "home".  Then endless trips to Lowes.  The Money Pit.

For us it has always been about the kitchen.

This is what we got when we moved in:

After Andree set the oven on fire, adding a microwave so she wouldn't have to cook with the oven, and adding granite because Lowes had it on sale.....

And finally getting new cabinet doors and the cabinets painted from 1970's orange/brown to white we think we are finally there.  On the kitchen anyway.......

Happy Fall !!

We made our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch this weekend.  The weather finally turned somewhat cooler (at least not in the 90s!!) and it was just one of those perfect, clear crisp fall days.  It was perfect!!

David.  And Thumb.

Delaney LOVED the tractors.

So did David.

So did Daddy.

 Horsey Swings.

 These are two activities David throughly enjoyed.  Given Delaney's tendency to eat everything not nailed down we decided NOT to let her play in the corn (sand) box or cotton jumpee.

 Cool corn-stalk horse.

My little pumpkin!!!!

Oh what a difference a year makes!!

We go to the Pumpkin Patch every year and these are some comparisons as to how far we have come in a year:

2011

2010

2011

2010

Delaney's First Birthday

 HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY DELANEY!!!

We had a party for Delaney's first birthday tonight.  It was so much fun and little girl was VERY excited about her party!!!!

MOMMY AND BIRTHDAY GIRL

DADDY AND BROTHER DAVID

THEN IT WAS TIME FOR CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS:

After cake it was time for presents.  We were really worried about how David would handle the new experience of NOT getting things when Delaney did but he turned out to be quite the helper for her and it was sweet to see them share (sort of :-)

Helping Delaney open a present

LOVING her new cell phone.....Thanks Aunt Emma and Uncle Matt!!!

MOMMY got me a DOLLY!!!!

And then the GRAND FINALE:  A COZY COUPE CAR!!!!!

David did have a little difficulty letting this one go by

But after a bit he jumped right into the spirit of things!!!

My sweet little Delaney has made the transformation from baby to little girl.  As with most things this is a somewhat bittersweet transition.  I miss my little cuddly baby but I am enamored with Delaney as I see her little personality start peeking through.  She is so much more social than David and after accomplishing something (like her favorite activity:  climbing on the coffee table) the first thing she does is look around to see who is watching her.  Then a BIG SMILE and frequently a clap.  She eats very well and is now walking freely on her own.  She LOVES walking!!  Despite my best efforts she is every bit as much of the "blankey baby" that David was so frequently they roll around together on the floor wrestling blankets.  It's too cute!!!  Delaney and Tim have a bond I can't even begin to describe.  All Tim has to do is walk in the room and little Delaney just LIGHTS UP and Tim will spend hours contorting his face just to make Delaney giggle.  It is precious to watch the dynamic that Delaney has brought to the family develop.  She is such a gift and we love her so much!!  Happy Birthday Sweet Delaney!!!!!

P.S
It seems that Blogger has updated it's site and made things a bit easier so I am going to renew my efforts to keep the blog updated.  Having said that we are off to the Beach for much needed R&R so look for a beach update in a week or so.

Random Update

It's been a while since we posted....the kids grow and change soooo quickly it is hard to take time out from watching them to document it :-). Our days continue to be full, busy, and hectic with growing and playing. It's impossible to exactly show how our lives are filled but this picture shows alot: David is ALL boy (see him 3 feet off the ground?), Delaney loves being with people. She has to be touching or cuddling someone at all times....she grabs mom and smiles and has recently started "screaming". She screams then smiles and patiently wait to be "screamed" back at. It's a fun game guaranteed to bring smiles (and headaches) from all involved :-)

One of our favorite times of day is bath time each night about 7:00. About a month ago we started bathing the kids together which they both seem to love......David LOVES to play in the water and Delaney loves to be with her people:
DAVID

David is becoming quite helpful and has earned (?) his first "chore". He unloads the silverware rack from the dishwasher for Mom every morning. It's a great exercise in matching and he seems to think it is fun :-) He's very good at it and has stopped licking every piece before putting it away so it's actually helpful now :-)

On Sundays after unloading the silverware he gets to help mom make pancakes. Not quite as helpful there:
DELANEY

Delaney is such a happy child!!! She is forever watching David and trying to interact with him. This does from time to time lead to tears as he likes his space but generally she takes his rebuffs in stride. She started standing the day she crawled and I suspect it won't be too much longer before she is walking. She has two beautiful bottom teeth and we had almost given up hope of getting any more when POP! two days ago two top teeth made their appearance. This is one of the last pictures of "two-toothed Delaney" we got :-) She's displaying one of her favorite activities.....waving bye-bye.
Delaney LOVES to feed herself. She is lukewarm to baby food and really couldn't care less about formula but put ANYTHING she can pick up herself and put in her mouth and she's happy. This is dangerous as she crawls around the house as I am not as good a housekeeper as I'd like but so far this is the most dangerous thing she has found :
NOT THEIR BEST LOOKS

David is still challenged when it comes to eating neatly. Part of the problem is that he LOVES anything that is messy to eat. This is him after a GIANT bowl of my grandma's famous hamburger soup: Not his best look!
And Delaney has this weird habit of running around with a circle puzzle piece in her mouth like a pacifier. Don't know why she does it as she really doesn't eve like pacifiers but if she finds this puzzle piece she puts it in her mouth and will crawl around the house with it for as long as we will let her: Not her best look!!