Zoo Time!

On the Monday following New Years, we packed up the girls and drove a little way into Fort Worth to spend the day at the zoo. The Fort Worth Zoo is beautiful, has many exotic and interesting animals, and entertained us for hours. I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I had, but did manage to take a few interesting ones.
I love how interested Tylie is in animals. We have been to many zoos and spent many, many hours looking at the animals, and she never seems to get bored with it. Us girls sitting in front of a gigantic elephant sign....that's the leg behind us. I LOVE spending time with my girls!
This particular day, Tylie had an interest and fascination with finding the lion. It's all she could talk about for the first half of our excursion, until we finally came across the lion den. Poor guy seemed a little lonely in there all alone.

This is what Kaelisse was doing while the rest of us were pining over the animals....I think she may have had the right idea. Sleep.....or animals.....?? Maybe I should have chosen sleep, too! Although slightly nervous at first, Tylie warmed up to and really ended up enjoying the opportunity to feed the birds. By the end, she even let this one stand on her arm for quite a while to polish off the seeds on her stick. Some of the highlights of the trip included: watching a black rhino throw a huge metal barrel around, listening to the jaguar growl repeatedly and pace while he waited for his dinner, looking at the orange AND white tigers and marveling at how gorgeous their coats are, etc.
At the end of the day, stopping by the bathroom to wash up. I'd say the trip was a success!

Kae's Eating Adventures

Kaelisse is so funny when she eats. When we give her a bottle, she eats for a few minutes, then moves positions, then eats, moves, eats, moves.....it makes for some great entertainment because she twists herself into some pretty funny positions. Some of the funniest ones I haven't caught on camera yet, but these are pretty cute.
At the table, Kaelisse has invented this fun game that she expects all of us to join in on. She lifts both of her hands high into the air, smiles, and looks at us. That's our cue to follow suit, and we lift our hands in the air. She giggles and smiles, then puts her hands down. Then she does it again, and looks at us to reciprocate. She will look at every person in the room with an encouraging look, until everyone is at her beck and call. Sometimes it feels like we're doing the wave, but it gets her smiling every time.

9 Months Old

Since Kaelisse turned 9 months, we took a trip to the park to take a few pictures. Here are some of our favorites.
Our standing girl...and apparently not too happy about it...I love cry faces!

This is one of her trademark faces that makes us smile every time. She's like a cute little baby monkey. Usually when she sees us for the first time in the morning, or when we walk into a room, she looks at us and tilts her head up a little and says, "ooh." So sweet!

Tylie sitting on the wall and looking too grown up for my liking.

Sisters hanging out together. They love each other so much. And torture each other so much.

Happy nine months, Kae. We love you!

Blanket Forts

What better way to spend a chilly winter night (okay, who am I kidding? It was probably still 50-60 degrees....) than hanging out in a blanket fort! The girls LOVED crawling around inside, snuggling with piles of blankets and pillows, watching a movie, and eating popcorn and licorice bites. Then it was off to bed! Great family fun!

Christmas Morning

Thanks to wonderful family and friends, we had a great Christmas again this year! We feel so humbled to have such love and blessings!
We had church at 9:00 this year, and since Christmas was on Sunday, we decided we'd rather not get up at the crack of the crack of dawn to enjoy it. So, we celebrated everything on Saturday morning! Christmas was particularly fun this year because Tylie is at the age where she understands most of the things associated with the holiday: Christmas lights ("Look! Christmas lights! I see Baby Jesus! A snowman! Two reindeers!"), Santa Clause ("Mom, know what? Santa is coming!"), stockings ("That Tylie's stocking, Kaelisse's stocking, mommy's stocking, daddy's stocking), presents, candy canes, etc. It's so much more fun to have a child around who sees the magic of the season and reminds me why we celebrate and feel so much joy!

Anyway, we had a great morning. Here are the highlights.
The stockings set out, ready to be raided.

Kaelisse exploring her wonders.
Tylie saying "cheese" for me. It's getting harder to have a nice smiling picture of her....of course I was asking quite a lot out of her if I expected her to stop and look at the camera for me in the middle of all this excitement.

Fun memories of the day.






As a side note--One memo Brent and I must have missed somewhere down the line is this: A one-year-old is excited to open presents, tear wrapping paper, play with bows, climb in boxes, etc. At this stage, you can wrap each pair of socks separately, get them clothes and bathroom items, and anything else you want to get them because they are more excited to be opening so much stuff and they think they are having the most fun they could ever have in life. However, somewhere in the next year, all of that changes. Brent and I went ahead and got Tylie all kinds of things she needed, as well as a couple simple and quiet toys(for church and the tub). Well here's a lesson for all you first-child parents....two-year-olds aren't nearly as excited about opening the presents as they are about playing with new stuff! Tylie's excitement quickly faded as she opened more clothes.....more bath stuff....more socks..... Especially when she noticed baby sister opening toys and teethers and other bright, colorful, noisy objects. She stopped wanting to open presents because they weren't interesting enough!!! Brent and I looked at all the stuff we got her, and realized she had no regular, imaginative, exciting toys!?! Well, after wallowing in the guilt of our ignorance, and knowing she needed to have something fun, we realized that we were celebrating a day early, and all our parenting errors could be fixed!! We took back some of the stuff she didn't need much, and got her something she has been ecstatic about since then: a baby doll, car seat carrier, and pack-n-play. Phew! We had a happy kiddo, and still more than enough of the "necessities." Hope none of you ever make this mistake...learn from our errors...

By the middle of this grand production, Kaelisse pretty much looked like she needed to pass out. She was SO tired! Love this picture of her zoning out with the stuffed cow that Aunt Angie and Uncle Brennon sent.


Our annual family picture that will end up in a tree ornament for next year.

Sisters being a little silly on the couch in some of their new pajamas....they got so many cute pairs this year!


This was on ACTUAL Christmas morning. We didn't go out and get the girls new Christmas dresses...both of them had these in the closet already (hand-me-downs from generous ward members in South Carolina...love and miss you guys!). But, I thought they were perfect for our Christmas sacrament...and they looked adorable in them!

Tylie playing with her favorite Christmas gifts...and being the best "mom" ever!