Trees and Cheese

mommom brought this tree and all its decorations for gianna when she was here last weekend. roman had a little tree in his room when he was a baby, so g had to have one too.   isn't it pretty and girly?  roman calls the peacock that is down bottom in front a turkey.  hey, it kinda does look a little bit like a turkey!

roman got a new tree for his room too, with some really fun colored lights.  he loves it.  oh, and the santa hat he is wearing...he made me sew a jingle ball on the end of it so he would sound all jingly when he moved.  what can i say?  my boy loves Christmas!

this little lady will eat almost anything.  she probably had as much pizza as roman on sunday night.  then, to keep her quiet, i gave her my crust.  she gnawed on that for a while. 

 

 girl loves some cheese! 

 

our tree is up and lit!  we decorated it on monday night because we didn't have enough time on sunday night, so i owe you a picture of that soon.  say it with me now....ooooohhhh, aaaaaahhhhhh, twinkly....

roman is getting ready to start decorating our tree. 

after we had finished decorating our tree, roman stood back and said "come here guys, come look at our tree, it looks AWESOME!" i love that he loves to decorate at Christmas. next up...outside lights and inflatables. poppa's turn!

 

Just for Fun

trying out her new rocking ladybug

waiting on the doctor for her 12 month checkup

 

having some fun in the exam room

such a happy girl

ahhh, kisses!

Party for our Princess

with our family in town, we had to have a party to celebrate the little lady, right? not that i need that as an excuse, but it sounded like the perfect one!

 in addition to some cupcakes, we had candy covered oreos and marshmallows...yum!

...and a banner with all of her monthly pictures on it.

poppa got his little sweetie a few balloons.  she loved them!

time to open some presents.  g was tired and not really into it, but she did good.  she loved the tissue paper anyway!

all the kids loved helping her open her gifts.  that's the best part. 

rose colored glasses.  may you always see life through these, my dear. 

checking out her new ladybug rocker

time for cake!

what is this, momma? she wasn't so sure and didn't want to touch it, but once i cut it and fed it to her, she liked it.  if she's anything like her momma, she could skip the icing and just eat the cake.  yummo!

the other girls were anxiously waiting for some sweets too!

momma and the 2 best things she's ever done. 

a blurry, but sweet family shot.

happy birthday sweetness!

 

Family is Fun!

how lucky are we that our family was able to come down to celebrate our gianna's first birthday? i feel so blessed! josh, colleen, lilah and cj arrived on thursday afternoon and it was so fun to see how much lilah has grown!  last time we saw her, she was just 3 weeks old!

roman just loved little miss lilah grace

please excuse the potty shot, but this was the only doorway we could put the jumper in...she's like "what is this thing, ya'll?"

the girls played well side by side

lilah is so happy all the time...

lucky roman got a fun gift from nana.  madagascar 3 and it came with the circus afro wig.  sweet!

this makes me happy.  a couch full'o'family

lilah loves mommom

gianna got all tuckered out from her walk with mommom, but she sure wasn't going to let go of her zebra's foot.

here's the girls, playing together again

i love these sweet little cheeks

g and her godpappy :)

she really loved chillin' with cj

look at these expressions.  she's got quite a few happy faces....

Happy Birthday BabaLoo!!!

oh gosh, where do i start? 

i'm overwhelmed with joy when i think about this little sweetheart.  i cry with gratitude quite often, thinking of how long we waited for her.  what we went through before God gave us this gift.  how that was the plan all along and that she was the perfect one for our family and that is why we had to experience loss in order to gain such indescribable joy.  

my sweetest babaloo...you complete our family and we love you to the ends of the earth and beyond.  

here's what you are doing when you turned one!!!

• you weigh 19lbs, 7 oz. (24th percentile), you are 28 inches (17th percentile), and your head measures 17 3/4 inches (51st percentile).  so, you may be a petite little thing, but your melon is full.  you sure are smart.  
• you just got another tooth, so that makes 7 now.  
• speaking of teeth, you eat like a champ!  you will eat almost anything momma puts in front of you.  right now, you love turkey, chicken, lasagna, cheese, cheerios, bananas, yogurt and crackers.  
• you are not walking yet, but you have a toy walker and you push it all over.  you hate it when you run into something and can't go any further.  you "cruise" all around the furniture.  
• you still sleep really good, but have been waking up kinda early.  i attribute that to the time change and teething.  let's work on sleeping about an hour later, mkay?
• you can say a couple words.  mostly momma and bottle (which comes out like da-dool) and this weekend when lilah was here, you really were saying her name the whole time.  sweet.  
• you are starting to have a little "stranger danger" sometimes, but really seem to attach quickly to men (cj, uncle josh and poppop wayne got a lot of love this weekend).  
• you love to rock.  sometimes if momma is rocking you and i stop, you will sit up and grab my shirt and rock back and forth, like "momma, keep rocking me!"  cute.  
• you like toys, but are easily entertained with just something simple like momma's keys or some tupperware.  

 

punkin pie...we love you so much, happy birthday!

First School Mass

friday was roman's first school mass with the rest of his school. since toby and i were both off, we were able to go. it was really sweet. i've never been to a school mass before, but i really liked it. hearing little voices sing to God is just the best ever. 

using their praying hands, waiting to go into the church.

last ones to leave, so cute in their little full dress uniforms

since i was already off work, i stayed to help out for a few hours.  it was school picture day, so after the boys (17 in the class) got their pics taken, they lined up to get some help getting their ties off.  that's a lot of boys!

then there was music class.  it's almost time to start practicing for the Christmas program and they were learning what their parts would be. i think roman is going to be a Christmas tree!

they were so good at mass, so they earned time on the "big" playground.  but, before they could play, they had to get the new rules on what they could and couldn't do.

and then they were off!

Our Littlest Joy

gianna is getting so big, so fast. and part of me loves it, part of me is sad about it. i mean, how did this happen so fast? she's almost walking, starting to talk, and forming habits. she provides toby, roman and i so much joy every day. 

a quick sidenote: roman was upset last night and he was crying and saying "i want gianna to make me feel better!", but she was sleeping. so, we went in to her room and i was instructed to move her hand to her mouth so she could blow him a kiss to make him feel better. such a sweet boy. and, guess what? he magically felt better. 

here's a couple videos of her from our evenings this week.  

she loves pushing her walker all over, but gets mad when she runs into something and can't keep going.  

she has started to say bottle, but really it comes out as da-dool

she loves to hold her dolly by the foot. if you give it to her another way, she flips it around to grab the foot.