Sleep Talking

This is really how Hayden fell asleep in the car this afternoon! She is talking on her cell phone. What is she going to be like as a teenager!?

Here's what Layne looked like when we arrived home....very different picture!

New Year's Hats

The girls just had to have fashionable hats for the New Years Eve party tonight. So, I got busy brainstorming and gathering some supplies I had. I just covered some card stock with pink fabric, glued ribbon and accents on, cut out the 2009 from stiff felt, stuck some decorations on top, sprayed it all with glitter glue and that's about it! It took me a while, but it was tons of fun to do.

The first time that I put it on Hayden's head I accidentally snapped her chin with the elastic. She then told me that she didn't want to wear it. I told her that she was going to wear it because I spent an hour and a half making it! Not really, I actually told her that Layne had one too and she was going to wear hers. Hayden put hers back on! I will take a picture of both girls with their hats on tomorrow. Layne wasn't in the mood before we left for the party tonight.

The Comptois New Year's Eve Party!

The Comptois' invited us over for New Year's Eve. All together there were three families there-7 kids. It was a lot of fun for everybody...even though nobody stayed until midnight since we all have children. Here is Hayden with Heather.

Daddy hanging out with Layne. She was very happy the entire night-even though she was tired.

Scott, Aaron, and Abby wrestling.

Hayden had to get in on the action. She just loves Aaron!

Aaron sprayed Abby with Ax so Abby got him back with silly string. What a fun mess!

Here is everyone cleaning up the fun mess. I was talking to Jeremy on the way home about how nice it is to have family friendly friends. It's great to be able to go somewhere and be able to bring the girls. Not only that, but to have other children around for Hayden to play with. We can still have a life even though we have children. What a blessing!

Homemade Christmas

This year money was very tight, so I decided to make just about every gift that we gave. Here are some of them. If you see something that you'd like to try just click on the name of it and it will take you to the website where I got the idea and the much needed instructions. I made plastic bag holders, felt crowns, fabric headbands, reversible fleece hats, and hand print canvases. I did not put a link for the reversible fleece hat because I couldn't find a good website-Jeremy read a few websites and combine the ideas in order to walk me through how to make those bad boys. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone liked their gifts.

Nastiness

Viewers Beware!

I am being 100% serious when I say some of you may not want to scroll down enough to see the picture below. Tonight, Jeremy unwrapped and cleaned his arm pins for the first time since the surgery last Wednesday. I really wanted to "be there for him" through this painful and disgusting experience. But that is about all I did-I froze and just couldn't help much because I was just so overwhelmed by how bad it all was. I can't even believe that Jeremy was able to look at it so close, let alone clean it! This picture was taken after Jeremy had removed the ace bandage, gauze wrap, nasty gauze pads, and cleaned all of the "holes". It was much worse uncleaned but that doesn't make this a pretty picture by any stretch of the imagination. We are hoping for only a week and a half more of this wretched device then it's on to a camo cast!

*For those of you that are brave enough to look at the picture below-you can get an even bigger and better look at it if you click on the picture! Enjoy!

Second Christmas

Today Matt and Jamie came over to celebrate Christmas. We had dinner and hung out for a while. Jamie crocheted this hat and scarf for Hayden! They are the cutest things I have ever seen! I am in love with them.

Look at the little flower on the side! How creative.

Layne was napping most of the time Matt and Jamie were over. But, Hayden made sure to give Layne her gift when she woke up.

Layne loved her hat. Matt and Jamie made soaps and crocheted wash cloths for us. We were just so touched and impressed. We had a wonderful time catching up with them today.

Christmas in Pittsburgh

Here is Johnny playing "Santa" this morning.

Jeremy had surgery on his arm on Christmas Eve. They ended up putting the external device on his arm that has 4 pins that go into his bone! It's a pretty heavy duty piece of bling. Bernie was calling him FrankenRoss. He's in pain but doing well. He's trying to figure out how to do things one handed.

Here is little Miss Layne opening one of her gifts with Grandma this morning.

As soon as Hayden saw the Hello Kitty undies in her stocking she just had to have them on. So, here she is opening one of her presents, a Smart Cycle, from Grandma and Pap.

Aunt Tember and Hayden after opening all of the gifts.

Oh the madness. There were 11 of us sleeping under the same roof this week!!

Merry Christmas! We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did!

The Accident!

Today, Jeremy and Johnny went up to Seven Springs to go snowboarding. Well, Jeremy had a skiing accident while they were up there-as you can see. This is an X-ray of Jerm's wrist. He broke one of the bones pretty bad.

This is what the outside looked like! They ended up putting it in a temporary cast for the night and he will go back tomorrow. Tomorrow they will knock him out and try to set the bone. If they are not able to then they will have to put pins in the bone which requires surgery. Then they will cast him up. He's on Vicodin and doing pretty well. He is hoping for a camo cast tomorrow.

Visit with Santa

So sorry for the delay in posting! I'm back though and ready to fill you in on all of our Pittsburgh adventures so far. Last night we went to the mall to see Santa. We all weren't too sure if Hayden would be alright with sitting on St. Nick's lap, but other than the deer in headlights look she had the entire time, she was fine. Layne, who we thought would cry for sure, was great and even smiled some! Hayden told Santa that she wanted a Dora doll and movie and Layne wanted a purple binki.

Picking out a Christmas Tree

On Friday night grandma, pap, Hayden, and I went to get a Christmas tree. We ended up getting a 9 foot tree! It's beautiful and smells great. Last night it fell over though-luckily nobody was in the room when it happened! It is now back up in the corner tied to the wall so that won't happen again.
Checking out the Artificials

Last Friday we went to a store that sells artificial trees. They have a section of the store that has a ton of decorated trees-all different themes. Here are Layne and daddy hanging out in the store.

They even had deer that you could feed. Here is Hayden feeding the little deer.

Here is Hayden standing with some of the trees in the store.

5 Months Old!

Now that Layne is 5 months old she can eat rice cereal. She's not too sure what to think about it yet.

As you can see, Layne's eyes are still really blue. We'll have to wait and see if they change or not.

Yes, This Really Happened

This is what I found this afternoon when I went to make sure that Hayden was asleep. She slept this way for her entire nap!

Holiday Baking

Over the past two days I have been working on these bad boys. They have been a little time consuming but fun to do. I was even able to get Jeremy to join in on the fun last night. He helped me fill them in with the blue at about 11:00pm.

We are giving these cookies to Hayden's teachers at preschool and some neighbors.

Breakfast on the Floor...

This morning Hayden wanted to eat her breakfast on the floor so that she could be near Layne. I thought it was pretty cute.

Hayden used Layne's seat as a drink holder. Layne didn't mind at all. When I went to get Layne out of her bouncy seat I noticed a little chocolate stain on her collar (Hayden was drinking chocolate milk!). So, I asked Hayden if she gave Layne some of her chocolate milk. She looked at me and said, "Noooooo.". Then I showed her the stain and asked the question again. She then said, "Sorry mommy." Busted!

The Holy Family

well....only sort of

This year we were asked to be the "Holy Family" for the Christmas musical at Heritage Hills. It really didn't involve too much, but it was fun to be involved in such an important story.

As you can see, we sat up in the baptistery for the drama. There was a large wooden platform that was placed across the tub. We sat on covered benches. There were wise men and shepards involved in the drama too.

We had a dress rehearsal on Friday night, and performances on Saturday and Sunday nights. Layne was wonderful for all of the practices and the performance on Saturday night......

So, are you wondering about Sunday. Well, she cried and screamed pretty much the whole 10 minutes that we were up in the baptistery. Jeremy and I were both shocked because she just doesn't scream and cry much at all anymore, and if she does she is very easy to soothe. Well, not Sunday night! I know it's not a big deal, but I am her mother-I am supposed to have the magic soothing tough....right!? Those 10 minutes could not have gone any slower in my world. I think I may have been breaking a sweat by then end when she was really belting it out. As I could feel the tiny beads of sweat forming on my head I was thinking, "Man, my forehead is probably reflecting pretty bad under this spot light. Everyone is going to see that I am sweating...did Mary sweat? I sure hope so."

And of course, once we were done Layne was the perfect little girl. Here is a picture taken after everything was over on Sunday night.

Following in Big Sister's Footsteps

This is a picture of little baby Hayden when she played baby Jesus 2 years ago. She was only 2 months old when she played the part. I was the Angel of the Lord in that drama.

Christmas is Almost Here!

I'm sorry that I haven't updated in a few days, things have just been crazy around here between sewing, baking, cleaning, acting (you'll see what I'm talking about later tonight) and packing. We are just trying to get everything taken care of before we head to Pittsburgh for a week.

Here is a picture of Hayden yesterday. I think it was 4 or 5 in the afternoon....yes, she is still in her pj's! She wanted to sit outside and throw stones off of the steps.

I put Hayden in her Christmas dress today for church since we aren't going to be here next Sunday. Everyone thought she was just the cutest little thing. I am surprised that nobody pulled me aside to inform me that I was a week early with the attire.

Layne's Christmas dress is a little big, so she just wore pink to church today....surprise surprise!

Roll Over Footage!

Jeremy was finally able to witness little Layne rolling over! Better yet, he was able to catch it on tape. Hayden and I missed out on if because it was bath time for us. It only took us about 3 or 4 weeks to witness something she's been doing in her crib every night!!

Pittsburgh Outfit

Layne and I went to Target today before we picked Hayden up at preschool. We bought this nice warm fleece outfit for our trip to Pittsburgh.

I opted for the blue because some people think that our girls have too much pink.... Can you HAVE too much pink!? Check out the cute little bear ears on the hood.

I posted this picture because I love the look on Layne's face. She adores her sister and her sister adores her too. They just love each other so much. By the way, Hayden has started saying that, "I love you SO Much Layne."

Here is Hayden pretending to sleep on Layne's tummy. Layne thought it was so funny.

This is what Hayden's room looks like after she wakes up from her nap. She climbs out of her bed and reads books. She does clean up the mess though. While she cleans up if the books slide off of the shelf she yells at them and tells them to sit on the Do Better Mat. It's pretty funny.

Hayden has a little pet name for mommy and daddy. Sometimes she calls us "MeMaw". She's been doing it for a couple months now. I have tried and tried to figure out what she is saying and we finally decided that it's just something she calls us...whatever it is. And it isn't grandma because I asked her, she said "Noooo" and laughed and said that is "NeMaw".