It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We got our Christmas tree decorated last night, Cara loved to "help" by taking the ornaments off the tree after we put them on

Cara and Santa 2007

We think the little boy that was in line right before us, who totally freaked out and screamed bloody murder when he saw Santa scared Cara, and there were no smiles to be had. She clung onto Daddy so tight and didn't even want to sit on Santa's lap, which is not our child at all. She usually doesn't know a stranger. We may try to take her again sometime, but since we were there and she was dressed up and ready we went ahead and bought this picture.

Here is her picture from 2006! Same Santa at the mall, just apparently different printer, as the newer picture is much brighter in color!

Counting our Blessings

We had a lovely Thanksgiving day celebration! Grandma and Grandpa F hosted the festivites again this year. The whole family, including Lisa's parents, Scott's parents, my aunt and uncle, and Great Grandma E attended! Cara and her cousins had a great time playing together. It is always fun to see them interact! The food was absolutely fabulous! Dessert was yummy! It was fun to watch Cara feast on her first turkey day meal (last year she wasn't eating solids yet).

Cara taking a bite of turkey, yum!

All 5 grandkids gathered around the table for the feast

Cara and Grandma A sharing some pumpkin pie. Cara got mad when Grandma acted like she was going to eat the bite instead of feed it to Cara!

Our happy family of 3 posing for a picture, Cara was not really into it :)


Thank you to my parents for hosting a wonderful meal! It is a lot of work to plan and cook for 20 people and you made it look so easy! Thank you!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family! We have so much to be grateful for this year!! We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving day! Especially Great Grandma A and Uncle Cyndi and Danilo, we wish we could celebrate this day with all of you as well!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Is it really almost thanksgiving??

Big cheese for the camera

Running around outside on this balmy November day

Sitting on the porch watching Mommy and Daddy untangle the Christmas lights

Supervising Daddy hanging the lights on the porch

Playing in the leaves in the backyard

Helping Daddy water our new tree that we got last week

What a day! Who knew it would be this warm two days before Thanksgiving. We took every advantage of the warm weather and spent the afternoon and evening outside. We got out the Christmas lights and got them hung up. We played in the leaves in the backyard, although Cara kept wanting to eat them. Cara helped Daddy water our new tree. Cara also went on a long afternoon walk with Grandpa this afternoon while Mommy was sleeping. It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow and then turn COLD by Thursday with snow flurries, so good thing we got in outside time today!!

It's been a while...

Cara doing what she does best...exploring

Cara talking on the phone with grandma (it's on speaker phone)

I just realized today that it has been over a week since I last posted, not sure I have ever gone so long before. We have had nothing exciting going on. Last week Daddy had to be at school late on 3 different nights, plus had band events all weekend. So lots of Mommy and Cara time. Daddy went 3 days without seeing his girl (she was always asleep by the time he got home). On Saturday morning I got Cara up and she was walking around the house calling out for Dad. It was so sweet and sad at the same time. It had been since Wednesday night that she had seen him. So lots of Daddy and Cara hugs on Saturday night when they finally saw each other.

So nothing real exciting for us, but sometimes boring is good!

Pretty in Pink

Just thought I would post a couple of new pictures. We haven't done anything fun this week, with Mommy working the first part of the week, then playing catch up on cleaning and laundry the past two days. We went to visit Great Grandma E yesterday though. She had to have surgery earlier in the week but is doing really well. Daddy is very busy all weekend and left very early this morning, his school is a host school for the IBA Honor band concert tomorrow, with rehearsals all day today and then rehearsals tomorrow morning with a concert in the afternoon. He has been very busy all week with the preparations for the weekend, we know he will be glad when it is all done tomorrow.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy 15 months

Cara turned 15 months old last week. We thought we would share these pictures taken in honor of her 15 months of life. For the first year we took her for professional pictures almost every month, now that she is changing less we have decided every 3 months is probably sufficient. Especially since posing at a studio is not priority for her. We had trouble getting her to sit/stand for a pose because she kept wanting to grab the camera. Definitely made our decision on which ones to buy easier because we only had a few options :)

Cara fun facts at 15 months: has 12 teeth, walks/runs everywhere, gets into everything, is defnitely a big "helper", has to do whatever we are doing, has a vocabulary of at least 28 words (we counted them up the other day), loves to give kisses and hugs, and sleeps all night (usually)