Lillian Is 6 Months

My how the time flies!

Even though I thought the first four months felt like an eternity, in hindsight, it went really fast! I can't believe all that we have been through in the last 6 months. Lily was born, we moved out of state and Josh started school.

Lily has finally turned a corner. She is MUCH better now and actually enjoyable. Not to mention she is as cute as a button, and she and Vinny are BEST friends.

Lillian's Mile Stones...

She started eating rice cereal, oatmeal and green beans which is going straight to her thighs! She now weighs 18.5 pounds. GO LILY!

She has actually done well with all the food so far. She was definitely ready to start solid food. Josh and I would love to watch her watch us eat because she would watch us intently. When I put the spoon in her mouth, she started "chewing". It was adorable! She also cut her first tooth and I think two more are on the way. She cut her bottom left tooth. I didn't even know she was teething until it had already popped out. So far she hasn't been a terrible teether.

This is Lily hanging out in the movie room in the attic. She likes to be up there with her big brother.

Lillian also started sitting up by herself. She is still not perfect and needs to be watched but not bad all in all.

Josh is head over heels for Lily. She is going to have a hard time when it comes time to date:)
Lily koo's and tries to talk a lot. She will often times sit under her little gym and just babble away. I love to watch her little fingers move because they move like she is playing the piano. Notice her right hand in the picture above.

Vincent loves his little sister so much and she absolutely adores him. I can ask her "where's brother?" or "where's Vincent?" and she will look right at him.

He is also the only one who can really get her to bust a gut! Vincent can say one word and she will start laughing. Then, myself or Josh will try to say the same thing in the same inflection and she will just stare at us like we are idiots! The video below is just a small example. We try to record her more when she is laughing but when she sees the recorder she stops because she is mesmerized by the light:)

Despite the first few months that were terrible (and I mean throw me off a bridge terrible!), I have had some time to stop and appreciate that she won't be little forever, and before I know it... she will be all grown up. I love the moments when I can cuddle up with the kids on the couch and just hold them. Vincent will talk to me, give me lots of love and Lily will watch intently. Those are the moments that make it all worth it.

Winter Wonderland

I wished for snow and boy did we get it!!! This is our beautiful winter wonderland and we LOVE it!
Gotta love my husband... shorts in the snow. I guess being Arizonan doesn't have much of an effect on his blood. I told him we were going to take a family picture in winter gear and he said he wasn't putting pants on. Just to get him to put on a jacket was a challenge. Another example of his craziness is that the other night, he took out the garbage in shorts and bare feet! There was 6 inches of snow on the ground. He is nuts!
My little Lily looks like a pink tick and I love it! This snow suit was an early Christmas presesnt from grandma Mimi and grandpa Bissett. Thank you grandma and grandpa, you are the best!
It has been snowing since Saturday, Decmember 13th and has snowed almost everyday since.
I love to watch the snow fall. It falls so silent and peaceful. I am excited, my friend Nicole sent me a recipe for snow ice cream. I am going to give it a shot today. I can't wait... Thanks Nicole. I miss you!
Vincent LOVES and I mean LOVES the snow. He has played in it everyday. He favorite thing to do is to eat it. This is his friend Jacob and him in the Saturday snow and they had a blast shoveling our driveway. Josh bought him a little snow shovel and was thrilled to see him using it for something productive.
Our neighbor Cory and Josh built a fort in Cory's front yard. Cory has been working on it for a few days and Josh helped a little bit after work one day. Cory will do a layer, then let it ice over and then put another layer. The boys love it! This is a shot of them haveing a snowball fight. Cory was in on the fun as well. Did I mention... I lOVE OUR NEIGHBORS!
Yes... they were aiming at me. AHHHHHHHHH!
I love the big snow ball in mid air.
I think Vincent looks so cute in his snow suit!

We finally feel like it is Christmas. I enjoy driving around and looking at the trees and ground covered in snow. It is so beautiful. Especially the mountains. No more turning on the air-conditioner when I need to go somewhere! Oh and putting snowflake decorations on my window, drinking hot chocolate, and wearing winter clothes in the winter actually make sense.

We are so ready for Christmas and have been since the day after Thankgiving. I love the holidays and the build up of Christmas.

The Christmas elves have already come and left early Christmas presents for Vincent and the neighbor boys. Some presents you have to wait till Christmas and other you can open early. Vincent has gotten a rubics cube, a box of practical jokes, yo yo, a christmas coloring book and some light up tops. The elves are tricky little buggers and hide them in silly places like, shoes, the bean bag in the attic, in the movie drawer or cereal cupboard. Vincent has had fun waking up every morning looking around to see if they came. Even Lily got an early present.

Vincent also got a certified, real letter in the mail from the REAL Santa! That was awesome!


Lily got one too! These letters are really cool because they are not the same. They are personalized for each child.
Another fun part of Christmas is making cookies with my dad. Lucky for us, he made a special trip just for the occassion! Mimi came too.
We were in the kitchen from 9 in the morning until 6 at night. We made so many cookies it was ridiculous. My neighbors loved us though. We even gave some to Peter, the best mail man ever!
Vincent had fun helping.
His favorite part of course was frosting the sugar cookies! Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of that because I too was up to my earlobes in frosting.

While we were making cookies we were listening to Christmas music and watching the snow just pour down; it was so picture perfect. It couldn't have been any better if we ordered it that way. Mimi braved the snow and went shopping for the kids. When she got home she relaxed and watched Christmas movies with Vincent. She tried running the remote which didn't go so well. Hence, another great quote from Vincent:

"You broke it Mimi. Now I'LL have to fix it!"

Thank you dad and Mimi for coming to see us. We had a wonderful time and it wouldn't be a Chistmas without making cookies.
So far, we are enjoying a real, snowy winter. I am very much looking forward to Christmas and getting more visitors. Next to come, Aunt Lacy and Uncle Larry and then, Aunt Lindsay! We can't wait.

Merry Christmas everybody!

I'm Freezin' My Fishy Fingers Off!

My dad came to visit October 23rd thru the 27th. I called him and said,"Dad, the weather is going to be clear this weekend. Get up here so we can fish!" And so he did:)

We were on a "Fishin Mission" and no one was getting in our way. We went fishing everyday that he was here (morning and night). A BIG "Thanks" to my neighbor who watched the kids for me. She is the bomb!

Some of you may ask...Why is the title to this blog "I'm freezing my Fishy Fingers off!"
I"ll tell you...
Because we woke up at the butt crack of dawn and I mean before the sun came up so that we were ON the river at the crack of dawn. It was 30 degrees for the high that day which means it was a lot colder than that in the morning. As I was casting, I noticed that the line just didn't feel right. I told my dad what was going on and he asked me if I looked at my rod. When I did, there was ICE in the little circles on my rod. It was crazy.
First morning was a major success! This is a picture of the fish we KEPT that day. We caught a ton. After fishing that morning, my dad got inspired to make pies from the apples on our tree in the back yard.
Grandapa and Vincent watching a movie and peeling apples.
Dad slaving away at his homemade pie crust. He's a pro!
This is one of 3 pies my dad made not to mention he also made apple dumplings. YUM! We passed the pies out to my neighbors. They loved it.

Day two and three were a success as well. We caught a lot of big fish. This was one of many and might I bring to your attention the fish is as long as my dad is wide:)
This is a picture of me standing in the middle of stream. Yes it was freezing cold and my toes were numb but that is the price you pay!

This is my dad reeling in a fish. "Here Fishy Fishy."
This is poor Josh reeling in the biggest fish of the day and right when he reached for it, it snapped off the line. We were especailly sad for Josh because this was his only catch of the day. Poor josh:( Josh only got to go with us once on the weekend because he had to work).
Another beauty.
We had many beautiful mornings infact, one day we saw deer drinking from the river just 50 feet in front of us. I love to see animals in the wild.

Of course a weekend with Grandpa wouldn't be complete without a little magic...

First step is to go out and gather pixie dust that falls from the stars.


Then grandpa churns it in his fist really good...


Third step is to let grandpa put his hand over your ear...

Or your belly button (we did this twice)...


Then you jump up and down really fast and POOF...


M&M's all over the place:)


This makes for a really happy Vincent.

Magic with grandpa is the best! I remember doing this when I was a kid. My dad would make the M&M's fall from the sky. It always got me going, trying to figure out how he did it. That is just one example of the many fun things we used to do with my dad.

Thanks for coming up to take me fishing dad!

Vincent thanks you for coming too and can't wait to go fishin' with you someday. For now, he will just be happy with some more M&M's.

Holiday Pictures

I don't mean to brag but...

Are my kids adorable or what?!?
Surprisingly, picture day didn't go too badly. It started off a little shaky because Lillian refused to smile for the first 10 minutes. So I said to the lady "Lets try taking pictures of only her and let Vincent get her to smile." Of course it totally worked and she was on a roll after that! He is the only one who can get her to bust a gut.

My little boy is growing up (sniff, sniff). He looks like a little man.

I loved this dress so much that I had to buy it even though it was a 12 month size. That was the smallest they had so I tried it on her in the store and thought it fit her personality so much that I went for it. I am so glad I did!

No one would guess that my cute little Vincent who looks so handsome and well mannered would only laugh when he got to say "Cheesy Butt" or "Chicken Butt". How nice:)

We couldn't get a smile in this one because Lily HATES tummy time!
Future head shot??? I would hire him.
This is my favorite picture because if you look very closely, she has a nice string of drool hanging off her chin. Those candy canes are actually fake.
As you can see, she is starting to sit up and put everything in her mouth.
What I love most about these pictures is that it shows the close relationship they have with each other. They are happy kids (although it took Lillian a while)
Merry Christmas everyone.