10...9...8...7...6...5...

is it 2010 yet?? Happy New Year!! I will be asleep long before the new year rolls around my clock, so let me give the New Year's cheers now. I had a wonderful 2009, as we celebrated becoming a family of 4, appreciated the friends and family we had, and welcomed new friends and family members into our lives. Let us rejoice and be glad.

Finally, camera 3!

Audrey thoroughly enjoyed her makeup kit from Ana and Isabel.

Grandma and 3/4 of her grandchildren.

Grandma is really good at the sleeper hold.

Cutie pie.

Audrey calls him her "little bear cub" when he wears this coat.

Abusing the swing set.Papa and baby bear.

A little fun to break up the drive.

Being in a car this long makes you a little silly.

Crawling in the tub.

Bathing beauties!

Stat update

Ben is now 9 months old and put his crawling gear in to forward today. It's official, we need to hide the Barbie shoes and get the stair gates up! Ben was declared practically perfect in every way...again.

Weight: 20 lbs 4 oz. (50th) (Audrey weighed 21 lbs 3 oz at 9 mos)
Height: 29 inches (75th)
Head: 40th
Eyes: bluest

Random thoughts at 3 am....

"Mama! Mama!"
"What, did you have a bad dream?"
"No. What do worms eat?"

Christmas Pictures: Round 2

These are pictures form another camera, and there is one more camera to download. Enjoy!

All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care....except for Ginger's whose is missing since the move.

Making luminaries

3 mischievous girls ready to bake cookies

Proud of our creations for Santa...gingerbread!

Ben loves Uncle Eric's goatee!

Santa filled the stockings.

Alice in Wonderland shoes too!!!

Stay tuned for camera #3.

Like a kid on Christmas morning...

Oh, there really were kids on Christmas morning! Happy birthday Jesus! Yes, Christmas day has finally arrived, and Santa did manage to get a few thing to FL for Audrey and Ben. There are a lot of pictures to go through and a lot of wrapping paper still flying around, so I'll try to get to the point. Ben sleeps in the room with the computer, so between naps and an early bedtime, I don't have a lot of time here to go through the pictures. Oh, not just Ben's naps, but my naps to. Having around the clock babysitting is pretty awesome. Ok, so Christmas photos: round 1.

Can't go wrong with a Jumperoo!

Homemade biscotti! Yum!!!

Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.

Santa came to FL!

Alice in Wonderland dress!!! She wore it ALL day.

Helping Ben unwrap his presents.

Wrapping paper!

Three excited girls!

Alice and the cowboy.

Giddyup!

Stay tuned for more....

Christmas in Florida

We made it to Florida early this morning after an all night drive. The good news....we made good time, but it was not the most fun we ever had. We are having a great time now and saw some old friends and familiar faces. Of course, we are enjoying our family too. Ben is charming his 2 cousins and the rest of us as well. I have taken lots of wonderful pictures, but there is a catch. My apologies to my loyal follower for not having pictures tonight as I promised. I do not have the proper USB cord so I will have to switch to a new camera tomorrow in order to add pictures. Merry Christmas!!

Do you need to laugh?

Laughter is surely the best medicine, OTC, anyway, and with holiday stress I know we could all use some humor.

Please visit:
www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com and www.sketchysantas.com

Here are some examples...

Brrr.

I have been busy wrapping up (pun intended) the final holiday details and chasing a very sugared up Audrey so I have not had a chance to blog this week. So sorry to my loyal follower. We've had a fun week with SNOW, Christmas parties, lots of things with glitter from preschool, and the excitement of going over the river and through the woods to Grandma and Papa's house for Christmas! I apologize though for the lack of (good) pictures. We did manage to get a few to document the week though.

Here is Audrey enjoying the first and possibly only snow of the year. It came down really hard for awhile, but kept switching between the fluffy stuff and freezing rain. She did manage to make enough snow balls to appease her, and the dogs had a blast as well.

I generally try to only post flattering pictures of our family, but there just were not any to share of this. Audrey and I went to a neighborhood Christmas party while Jeff stayed home with a feverish Ben. Audrey just looks so thrilled to be taking this picture, and I am clearly not feeling the camera's love either. The party was fun though!
And here is Ben enjoying some yogurt. I found this on my camera after Daddy at the helm.

Audrey the photog

Audrey grabbed the camera last night and decided to be the paparazzi. She was snapping pictures right and left and developing her personal photographic "style." Not bad if you ask me, but I am not that good myself. Here is some of her work.

Baby brother under the tree

The tree from a 4 year old's view
Will this pic make a believer out the the "he's not a redhead" skeptics out there?
The Santa ornament. She had to move others around just to get the right perspective for this one
Candy cane on leather ottoman, intriguing.
And she even learned to work the timer. Here is the photographer herself with straight hair and all. Ben clearly was not expecting this one. I could not find her in the play area at the mall today because I was looking for curly hair!!

Quote of the day

"Mommy, Tiger should not have driven into that tree."
-Captain Obvious, I mean, Audrey

Straight up!

After months of begging, possibly years, I finally gave in a pulled out the ole' flat iron. Here are the results:




We are this much closer to becoming Rapunzel. Why can't any of the princesses have curly hair?

Love for Lulu

Lulu came to us as a gift from Santa on Audrey's 2nd Christmas. She has been loved and hugged and mugged and used thoroughly over the years. Bailey also loves Lulu and often seeks refuge in her soft lap when life is a little too loud elsewhere in the house.

Wii be fit!

This is my Wii Fit buddy. She's a great workout partner and gives the best high fives when I "win." There's no motivation like hearing Audrey yell, go Mommy, go when you're nearing the end of the obstacle course!

This week in pictures....

It's a choice between making about 5 different posts or doing a medley of pictures, and guess what won? Here are some fun pictures from the past week...

Audrey and her friend got to have breakfast with Santa this week! What a wonderful surprise to have Santa come visit us. Even more exciting was a visit from Monkey Joe (random). We had a lot of yummy food, good company, and of course, Santa.
Name a man that is chubby, covered in drool, and still totally irresistible.....Ben!
Pulls up on everything....and yes, I lowered the crib mattress.
Ginger B. House, or I mean a ginger bread house. Audrey had so much fun building the ginger bread house with our babysitter. She aslo had a great time eating the decorations off this week.

It's a rough life

This is how I found Ben today. I gave him a bottle and went into the kitchen and realized he was awfully quiet. If only I could nap so easily.