9 months, 2 1/2, and Christmas dresses!

 

I can't believe Clara is 9 months old already. Time is flying like crazy. She is such a little cutie. Here's a few highlights about Clara:
-She's a TOTAL Mama's girl. She started saying Mama around 5 months. She's so ridiculous, my mother-in-law won't let me leave her at her house for any length of time unless there's someone there to help her. She seriously freaks out when she realizes I'm not there.
-She has a hilarious machine gun laugh that you can hear a mile away. I get comments every single Sunday from people at church.
-She has 5 teeth, with a 6th currently working its way out.
-She just learned how to wave
-She also says Dada, and she LOVES Hannah. She especially loves for someone to pick her up and help her chase Hannah around the house.
-She has been a very difficult sleeper. I never knew what sleep deprivation really felt like until this child. However, she has gotten a lot better lately!!! It's very exciting. She (usually) only wakes up once a night now, as opposed to the 2-5 times she used to wake up. Ugh.
-She is definitely a more difficult child than Hannah was, but she is still a huge blessing to us and her smile lights up the room. She brings a lot of laughter into our home and we love her!

Hannah is.... well, she's two and a half. What more needs to be said?? She went from being the most easy-going, sweet tempered baby to a crazy 2 year old in no time flat, and I'm ready for my sweet girl to come back, but I still love her. Hahaha.
-Hannah loves to sing. She loves music. Period. She knows the words to all kinds of songs- from The Sound of Music to Mary Poppins to hymns to Twinkle Twinkle. This girl knows it all. It's whether you can convince her to sing them for you that's iffy.
-Which brings us to my next point. Hannah is SUPER shy. She is NOT a fan of big crowds at all. Unless we're in our house, it takes her a long time to warm up to new people. She's even shy around people she knows well, like friends from church, and even her cousins.
-Her verbal skills continue to be off the charts, and she is constantly cracking us up and amazing us with the things that come out of her mouth.
-She's a lefty.
-Even though she's a typical "terrible two," Hannah still manages to light up our lives and our hearts. She tells us she loves us constantly and she loves to give hugs and kisses. She likes to snuggle and (sometimes) plays well with Clara. She loves for Clara to chase her. She brings lots of music and fun into our home and we love her, too!!

Christmas Decorations

Hannah is such a good helper....

Ice-ageddon

As you probably know, we had a super crazy ice storm at the beginning of December. It was insane. One day it's 80 degrees, the next day it's 30, and that night it literally rained ice all night. A ton of it. The ice was 3 inches thick in some spots. So we got to have Daddy home for a few days, which is always fun. We took Hannah outside once, but it really wasn't much fun because even though it looked like snow, it was solid ice.

It's a little hard to tell in a picture, but this was a three inch tall, solid block of ice covering our driveway and blocking our garage. There basically was no safe way to get out of our house. It was nuts.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we spent a couple of hours in the morning with Dan's family and then went over to Dallas to have dinner with my side of the family. The girls had tons of fun playing with their cousins.

This turkey was totally creepy and annoying (it plays some ridiculous song) but Hannah loved it and played it about a hundred times.

Strollers and towers

I got a double stroller for my birthday. We've needed one really badly since Clara was born, and I'm so happy to have it! We got a Sit-and-stand, which means that the back seat can come out and there is a bench seat underneath, so if you have a big kid, they can get up and down by themselves easily. I though this would be awesome for Hannah since she loves the zoo so much. But she is OBSESSED with the seat the way it is. We tried to take the seat out and she had a hissy fit. She loves to lay down in it, and then she refuses to get out. Ugh. So goofy.

My kids love to build towers. Hannah got a set of duplo blocks last year for Christmas, but it hasn't been until the last several months that she really got into it. Which is kind of unfortunate considering that Clara is now big enough to crawl over and destroy whatever it is Hannah is building.... Sigh.

Emily's Birthday

My niece turned 1 the day after Halloween. Hannah was very excited to go see her and to sing Happy Birthday to her (although I don't think she ever actually did). Emily started walking not too long ago and so it was fun to watch her toddling around and interacting with Hannah more.

                                                                Presents!!!

                                 Hannah had to try out the hoop to make sure it worked right.

                                                             Little run away!!!

                   They did the whole "cake smash" thing. It was kind of out of control.

Happy birthday, Emily!!!!