Thankful for Front-Loaders

It's not my job any more...

123 and ABC

K. counting. She can do a better job (and include 9 and 10 without prompting), but she tends to be distracted by the camera.

K. saying the alphabet. Again, like the counting, she does a better job when not on camera (though I find it darling that she says "double" instead of "W").

Smiley Sunday

This Sunday, N. took her first trip to church. She did great during the worship portion of the service, and quietly enjoyed the special music. She started squawking not too long into the sermon, though, so she and I stepped out to have a meal.

She had fun getting all dressed up, and had friends cooing over her all morning.

But the most exciting thing is that she was smiling again this morning and we actually caught one on camera!

Daddy's Girls

Even though he doesn't get to be home during the day with them, Dad spends some nice quality time with his daughters. Here, he and N. sit on the couch and lick the envelopes for the Christmas cards. And snuggling with Dad:
Daddy's girls. Someday we'll get a picture with both of them looking pleasant, but it might take several years. Especially since K. has taken to scowling at the camera or running the other way.

Snuggling with Dad, though N. looks suspicious:

And the happiness ends.

Cheek to Cheek

Just wanted to share some pictures of how cheeky little N. is becoming. And, to make life even better, yesterday she smiled at K. and me! She was sitting on the couch and K. and I were talking to her, and she smiled! I can't wait for even more. Of course, this meant that I spent the rest of the day following her around with a camera.
Only to capture more sullen expressions.

In Your Face

Some recent pictures of the littlest one. She makes the cutest faces!

Don't you just want to kiss her sweet face?!

First Snowfall

We had our first snow here. It was a dusting, but enough to stick. I didn't know that K. was familiar with snow, but she looked out the back door of the house and said, "snow." She then asked for her coat and shoes, so I bundled her up and let her go play on the deck. She had a fun time clearing the snow off of everything that was sitting out there.

Then she came inside to warm up. I didn't bundle her sister up and set her in the snow for a photo op. I probably will at some point, but she was sleeping when K. was playing, so she missed the fun.

She's such a cute little bundle of joy when she's sleeping!

A Plaid-tastic Day

Thanks, Aunt J., for the girls' darling matching plaid outfits! We'll try for another cute photo the next time they wear them, but here's the first attempt:K's friend L. was over yesterday, and it is really fun to watch them play together. He's used to playing with other kids, and is a year older than K, but for K. this is all new. She's just now starting to be interested in actually playing with kids, not just playing near them. They played together with cars and blocks, danced in the music room, and ran laps around the kitchen island.
And I've been poor in taking pictures of N. with her visitors, so here are a couple pictures that I actually did remember to take:
Sorry N. looks so grumpy in photos. Hopefully she'll start her "social smile" in the next couple of weeks.

And I couldn't resist attempting this next photo. Without knowing the dress code for the day, S. wore a red shirt and brown pants to match the girls.

Cookin' Up Trouble

I had K. help me with some baking last night. We made homemade muffins. Well, the muffins themselves are homemade, but not exactly by me--my mom made some homemade mixes that K. and I just needed to add the wet ingredients to. K. was surprised when she helped me break the egg, but she was good at whisking and mixing."I think this egg is the right consistency. We can add the other ingredients now."
"Just mixing. Pretty proud of myself that I figured out to hold the handle of the bowl for better leverage."

"One muffin cup...two muffin cups...three..."

Now K. just has to get to the point where she can cook without my supervision, and I'm turning over dinner duty to her!

Camera Shy

And not to neglect the beautiful K, here are some pictures of her. There aren't nearly as many as of N., which at the moment is because K. runs away whenever I pull the camera out. I think she's old enough to smile on command, but has no interest and says "no" when I ask to take her picture. These candids are the best I could do:

The Many Faces of N

"Get me out of here. There's a crazy guy behind me."

"Are you my mother? You don't look like her."

"You want a piece of this?"

Introducing the Little N!

We welcomed Little N. into our family on November 2, 2009. She is simply wonderful and has been such a joy to us. Her big sister, K, seems to be adjusting fine and really loves her little sister. K. is so gentle with her and holds her often, though only for moments at a time.

"Oh, she's so sweet!"

"And I'm done now. You can take her back."

So I'm way behind on blogging and rather than uploading a month worth of cute photos here, which would take me forever, I've created a web album. You can view it by clicking here.

Catching up on cute and smart things that K. has done in the past month:

• While picking up her toys in the living room, rather than bring the toys to the basket K. realized it was faster to move the basket around to where the toys are.
• She lines up cars, toys, and people.
• She asked Dad to put a diaper on one of her baby dolls. He put the diaper on backwards. She realized it was wrong, and promptly turned the baby's head 180 degrees so it was facing the correct way.
• Before N. was born, K. took a lot of trips to the OB with me. We were playing together in her room and she asked me to lay down. She pretended to measure my belly, then used a plastic toy to listen for the heartbeat. When she was done, she wiped the pretend goo off of my belly and even extended her hand to help me up!
• Today she was playing with her Little People. She set several of them up in a circle on a table, sang "all fall down," and knocked them over. I guess she likes playing "Ring Around the Rosie" more than I knew!

Fly Away Home

K. went Trick-or-Treating again this year, and walked around the neighborhood with Mom. Her favorite thing was carrying around her bucket, and she politely said "thank you" (when prompted) after people gave her candy.

When she first put her costume on, she crawled around saying "bzzzz, bzzzz" for a while. Dad helped her fly, which was so much fun that every time he put her down she said "more?"

Here she is with Mom's big ol' belly (39 weeks today). And going through her loot to show Dad what all she aquired. We actually let her eat a piece of candy (so I'm a little bit strict with her sugar consumption and she doesn't typically get much, if any).

She didn't really ever smile while we were out trick-or-treating, but she didn't seem to have a bad time, either. I think next year she'll be more into it.

"Seriously? Has no one realized how silly people look dressed up?"

Miscellaneous Cuteness

I realized I'm a little behind on posting, so here's a barrage of recent K. photos.

At the park today--it was a beautiful fall day!

And other random cute days:

At the church bonfire this past weekend: