We need our papa!

Last year we were in GA for Christmas and were able to get our pictures taken with Santa -- mind you the Santa in the picture was Ryan's dad, aka Papa who is a professional Santa Claus. This year we won't be getting down to GA for Christmas :( so we had to settle for another Santa. I thought Aubrey would do just fine sitting on Santa's lap because she's used to Papa's white beard, but boy was I wrong (at least she didn't scream like the kid in front of us). I guess there's just no replacing the real thing...we love you Papa! Needless to say, Eva, our happy-go-lucky child, smiled the entire time! Aubrey is our little drama queen, but definitely keeps things interesting :)! We're excited for our trek out to BV (that's Buena Vista, VA folks), but will definitely miss getting to see Papa, GG, Aunt Kiki, and Uncle Bubba. We love you guys!


P.S. Thanks for the cute dresses GG, the girls looked adorable!

TIS THE SEASON...

FOR HOMEMADE COOKIES...
Aubrey sat on the counter and helped mommy make the dough every step of the way. I wish you could have seen her with the egg. She insisted on doing it all herself and then just squeezed the egg in her two hands until it broke. Mommy's job was to remove all the eggshells :)!


(I turned my back for 3 seconds, 3 SECONDS, and this is what I find -- teeth marks in our cookie dough. Those darn cookie dough fairies must be back ;). In case anyone was wondering, those holes were not picked out with fingers. Aubrey actually put her face up to the dough and took bites. What a goober! She gets it all from her daddy -- love you sweetie!




SPOONS ON NOSES...
Oh, come on, I know this is a Christmas tradition in most of your homes. Ok, so maybe not, and technically it isn't in our home either. However, we often worry as parents if we are teaching our kids what is important, and if they will grow up to be stalwart young men and women. It is times like these that I realize...yeah, I'm teaching them what they need to know ;). If nothing else, it was quality family time (Eva did have a little help, but Aubrey managed all on her own).





AND A CHRISTMAS TREE...
Disclaimer: The battery in our camera died as I went to take a picture of the tree up and decorated. Maybe we'll post one up later, but don't count on it the way my days have been the past week or so.

Daddy's job was to pick out the tree while mommy ran around after Aubrey through a maze of trees. Who knew there were so many different TYPES of Christmas trees! We finally settled on one (with a little help from the boy scouts selling them).


And of coarse we loaded it on top of our gas saving micro machine of a car...gotta love it! And we do, but I dream of the day when we get a bigger car!


In case we don't get the chance to post again before Christmas...MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone! We hope you enjoy your holiday season with family and friends, and don't forget the reason behind all the celebrating and the greatest gift of all! We love you!

Happy Happy Birthday Daddy Dear...

This one is just to show that our daddy did have hair once upon a time :)



And this one is to show that we think he is much more handsome without his hair!



Happy 28th birthday to our favortite guy! We love you Ryan!

Husband of the year :)

I found this on a friends blog, who had received it in an email, from a brother. So essentially, I got it from an old roomates brother (starting to sound like Ferris Bueller :)! Thought it was funny, so I "borrowed" it from her blog. Thanks Sarah!

The honorable mention goes to
The United Kingdom


...followed closely by The United States of America


and then Poland


3rd Place must go to Greece


It was very very close but the runner up prize was awarded to Serbia



But the winner of the husband/partner of the year is Ireland

Husband of the year awards
Ya gotta love the Irish.

The Irish are true romantics. Look, he's even holding her hand.


Woman has Man in it;
Mrs. has Mr . in it;
Female has Male in it;
She has He in it;
Madam has Adam in it;



I never looked at it this way before:
Ever notice how all of women's problems start with MEN?

MEN tal illness
MEN strual cramps
MEN tal breakdown
MEN opause
GUY necologist
AND ...
When we have REAL trouble, it's a
HISterectomy.

Up for debate...

There are some who think Aubrey and Eva look identical, and then there are some who think they look nothing alike. What do you think? Can you tell which baby is which?


I'm trying to find some older pictures of the girls that are comprable, and will post them when, and if, I find them!

A major posting update

Make sure you scroll down to see all the new posts (there are at least three today). I have been without a computer for almost a week now, and FINALLY found the cord to connect my camera to the computer. Now that our lives are back in order, and up and running, I am getting caught up. Which means an overdose of our lives for you! I'll start with some Halloween fun. Ryan had the day off (thanks Wachovia for giving my husband a free paid day off for mental health :) on Halloween so we started early. Cornbread, a local morning radio host, travels to different local restaurants every friday morning and gives out 100 free breakfasts to the first 100 guests. He broadcasts on site and is absolutely hilarious. It just so happened that the restaurant he was at on Halloween was literally like 3 minutes from our house, so we had to go. We figured since the girls are up early anyway, we might as well go. Plus they were doing some Halloween festivites for the kiddos. We ended up getting there at the end of the broadcast (he starts at 6 am), but had a good time and a good breakfast (that I didn't have to make :)!



The cornbread morning crew


The firefighters were there with their truck handing out candy. Aubrey was oblivous.


There was a limo that was decorated on the inside that kids got to walk through and trick-or-treat in. This just scared Aubrey.


Mommy, Aubrey, and Cornbread


We ran some errands and went home so the girls could nap before trick-or-treating. We decided that since Aubrey goes to bed around 7, we'd take her to downtown St. Charles to trick-or-treat around the shops (from 3-5) so she could get to bed on time (and so we wouldn't have to deal with a grumpy girl the next day :). It was much nicer. It wasn't dark, the shops were close together, and there were TONS of people! We stopped by Little Caesers for some dinner (love the $5 large) and went home and passed out candy! A very laid back day, but lots of fun. We were just grateful daddy got to spend it with us! Here are our little stinkers in their costumes!

Aubrey was our little witch



Eva pretty much just hung out with daddy. I know I must be the world's worst mom for not dressing her up when we went trick-or-treating, but she was so content without the costume on that we bagged it. Just to show you that we do love her, and did have a costume for her, I took some pictures at home. She was a sock monkey and a ladybug. We couldn't decide so we tried them both on and they were both so darn cute!

A little bit of KC -- not be be confused with KFC (which we did eat)

Back in October Ryan had to travel to Conneticut for work, and the girls and I get bored without Ryan here (especially for 4 days). Fortunately, Kansas City is only 3 hours away, which means Heber, Mandy and "the boys" :) are only 3 hours away. We hopped in the car and had a blast in KC! Mostly we just hung out, but I'm a homebody and was in heaven. Ethan and I played some Mario Kart, and I must say...that kid is GOOD! We watched movies and ate homemade blueberry pie and homemade mac and cheese, both courtesy of chef Mandy -- YUMM! Anyway, we had a blast, and can't wait to get together again soon. I know Mandy posted pictures of our trip, but couldn't help but do the same. And just for the record Mandy, Eva puts her hands in her mouth EVERY time she smiles, so don't think it's just you :)...she's quirky!

Eva and Aunt Mandy


Ethan and Eva (he was such a good helper with Eva)


Owen and Eva


Dallin and Eva




Owen and Eva (AKA Tarzan and Jane) had a blast together! Aubrey did quite well in keeping up with him. Thanks Mandy for letting them tear your house (or at least your couches) to shreds :)


This picture cracks me up. Has anyone else seen that Seinfeld episode? You know which one I'm talking about. With George. On the couch.

In case anyone was wondering who will appear on next seasons Dancing with the Stars, here you go. It should be an interesting season ;)!

Isn't she cute?!

Eva's been such a good baby that we have decided we're ready for #3. Ok, so that is definitely not true (the part about being ready for #3 -- Eva really is a good baby), but we thought we'd give you a preview of what our #3 might actually look like. The funny thing is that our kids are actually born with about this much hair! So here's our new addition!

Thanks Mandy for introducing us to this! Feel free to try it for yourself and then let me know how it goes! To give it a whirl, go to VW Baby Maker

Four weddings and a funeral...

Ok, so there really weren't four weddings on our trip down to Atlanta, but there were three. Ok, so only really one because you can't count the Fiyero/Glinda wedding, or the Fiyero/Elphaba wedding because they never actually took place. But Ryan's friend Kris from high school did actually get married and we got to be there to support them. Once again, I can't post my pictures because of that runaway cord, but I do have some pictures from the wedding. Aubrey stayed home (since the wedding didn't start until 7 and her bedtime is 7:30), but we brought Eva with us and she was the hit of the night. It seems everytime I turned around someone different was holding her and I didn't even know half of them! There was one woman, I don't know who she was either, who never stopped taking pictures of Eva. Which I guess ends up nicely for us because she emailed them to Ryan's mom who forwarded them onto us. So here are some pictures from the reception. And Maryn, per your request, here are more pictures of our little Eva. I swear I take pictures of her, and we do love her just as much as Aubrey, even if I do neglect to post pictures of her. She's already over three months and is getting bigger and stronger everyday!








We have no idea who these people were, other than the girl was dating one of the groomsmen or someone.


Ok, so these two ladies we know!


Know this one too!


Of course we know these two (we were at their wedding last April)!


This woman just loved Eva and held her for awhile. No idea who she is, but she sure had fun with our little munchkin!




As for the funeral...well, that would be Elphaba's funeral. Which wasn't really a funeral, but I don't want to spoil the story if you havn't had the chance to see Wicked yet. Ryan's mom and dad bought us tickets while we were down there,and Ryan and I LOVED it! We have been listening to the music from it since before we were married and it has been a big dream of ours to actually go and see it. So, thanks Terry and Georgia for making that dream a reality! We love you!