Christmas pics

We had a wonderful Christmas and the girls got way too many presents from everyone! They are so spoiled. :) Here are some Christmas Eve pics.

Avery's drowning in wrapping paper! This is my very favorite Christmas pic. So funny!

Getting untangled

More presents please!

Playing with Dada

Of all Kara's presents, she preferred this box top the best

Avery's checking to see if the ribbon's edible

Very cool toy - each block plays a musical phrase using different
instruments depending on which side of the block you choose

Unwrapping presents with Mama

Getting up close & personal with the Curious George jack in the box

First baby doll

Now Kara's tasting the ribbon for edibility. Is that a word? Spellcheck says so

Oh my gosh, are there more presents?

What a mess Uncle Ben made!

The girls both got a baby doll from Gigi & Grandad. They each came
with a miniature bottle. The girls couldn't care less about the dolls,
but they LOVED the bottles. They kept sucking on them all night.

Wow I got a lot of presents!

Checking out our presents from Santa on Christmas morning

The world's most annoying car toy unwittingly purchased by me

Our Christmas stockings

Checking out what's in our stockings

You are a genius

Christmas pics coming soon...

In the meantime, I was reading a friend's blog yesterday and discovered a website that rates a blog's readability. It scans the blog and tells the education level a reader needs to understand it. According to the site, my blog rates at the GENIUS level...

So...congratulations everyone. If you are reading this blog, you are officially a genius! ;)

The obligatory Santa shot

As you can see below, the girls thoroughly enjoyed their visit with Santa. The screaming started as soon as we handed them over. Good times!

Professional One Year/Christmas pictures

The nice thing about having their birthday close to Christmas is rolling two photo sessions into one! The photographer was very talented...he actually got them to smile for him. That's a first!

Our Christmas card pic

Close up of the above picture

A picture of Avery doing her signature "pterodactyl shriek"


Looks like a little angel doesn't she...
but we know better!

Avery decided she wasn't going to pose for a picture
like this, but Kara's turned out really cute!

My little pianists

We have two blossoming composers in our house...they seem particularly influenced by the atonal style of Schoenberg...

November pictures

I know I've been bad about posting...but I've just added lots of cute pictures to make up for it! :)

Avery is finally starting to make an effort to crawl! Yah! She is such a little mama's girl. She'd prefer me to just hand everything to her. Kara, on the other hand, is usually very independent...and she is in to everything. I have to watch her like a hawk. If I'm on the computer, she'll crawl around me, stick her little finger out & turn it off. Thanks Kara! Her favorite words to say right now are "duck" and "lalala" - that one's from a Sandra Boynton book. She also likes "hatak"...I don't know where she got that...it sounds Japanese. Avery prefers to just stick with "mama." I guess she knows that'll get her whatever she wants!

See...pretty cute huh?






I wanted a good picture of them together in their birthday
dresses, but this was the best I could get...

...before Kara crawled away as usual

Kara likes to reach up & play the piano

Happy 1st Birthday!!!

Avery & Kara are 1 year old! I can't believe it. We had their party a couple days before their birthday. Everyone came over to celebrate, and it was so much fun.

Attempting to eat some cake. The girls liked it, but Avery
decided to throw a tantrum anyway just for fun.

This picture makes me laugh!








So many presents!


What are those things?

After everyone left, we had some dinner. I guess Avery
wasn't too excited about the broccoli...little surly girl

Trying on our party hats

They had fun playing with their cake after dinner





----------------------------------------------------
The next day the girls had lots of fun playing with all their new toys...
and the giftwrap & packaging

Avery drowning in a mass of tissue paper

Look at all our cool new stuff!


Gigi got the girls a little book with a finger puppet of a duck that sticks through the middle of each page. Kara is in love with the duck from the moment she saw him.

Moving in closer...

Going in for the kiss! Everytime I read it to her, she
insists on kissing the duck over & over. It's so cute.

Uh oh, here we go with the hair grabbing again!

Playing with the Little People farm