Thursday, December 31

Warning: Picture Overload

  • Christmas Eve at Aaron's parents house = great food, even better company, lots and lots of toys for the baby, and driving from 9:30pm until 4am to get to Clovis in time for Christmas morning.
  • Christmas day in Clovis = Santa gifts, family gifts, yummy breakfast and white elephant gift exchange at Aunt Marnee's, and a way late, but tasty Christmas dinner.
  • Day after Christmas = egg and leftover ham breakfast, family pictures at Woodward park (photographer = http://www.rcjonesphotographyblog.com/ ... He's AMAZING!), a game of Risk, and Sherlock Holmes.
  • Sunday = leaving Clovis at 11:45am, 2 hour break in Bakersfield, hitting crazy traffic in Barstow, and not getting home until after 11pm
Recap of our Christmas: We had an amazing time with our families and are so lucky that we got to see everyone. The entire weekend was a blast until the driving home part, but we survived! I just won't be doing two Christmases in Vegas and Clovis in 3 days ever again :) Now on to the pictures!

Our pretty baby in her Christmas Eve dress.
Playing with Amber and Krista.
Dinner time with her new Christmas bib.
After dinner with Grandma Wendy.
Loralye was SO happy to be free from her big poofy dress.
Uncle Jason had to convince her to take her toys out of the gift bag.
Fun toys from Cynthia and Jason!
Aunt Cynthia helped her unwrap a gift.
Crawling around with Aunt Krista.
Playing with Uncle Jason.
Christmas morning breakfast at Papa and Grams's house!
The stash from Santa. LOTS of little toys, a couple books, and a Mickey and Minnie who are almost her size :)
Playing pool with Papa. She gets better every time we visit!
Aaron's in his new Snuggie :)
Loralye in her Christmas dress.
Her "My First Christmas" bib. I couldn't get her any first Christmas jammies because they don't make them in an 18 month. Go figure.
Playing with Hank's toy. She wouldn't leave this thing along all weekend, so we went and bought her one!Aaron flying his new "Not for outdoor use" helicopter in the backyard.
That thing got WAY up there!
Bunny and Papa watching the helicopter.
Snuggling outside.
Aaron's toy landed in a tree after it got too high and lost connection with the remote control. He continued to send it way up high though and it then landed in the pool and died.
Taking pictures with Uncle Philip before dinner. Loralye had already eaten her dinner though and was ready for bed, hence the not so happy face.
In front of Grandma Veda's picture.
Being harassed a bit by her uncles while eating a little dessert. Shane, Nikki, and Hank. Such a cute little family :)
Playing Patty-Cake with Grams.
One of the only smiling pictures I got of Loralye all weekend. Christmas is a lot to take in for a baby.
Grams , Loralye, and Papa in front of the Christmas tree.
Me and my silly hunny.
Serving up some Martinelli's the classy way.
Te'a and Jesse ready for Christmas dinner. (No, the dog does not eat at the table!)
Bumming a second dinner off of her daddy. She's got him wrapped!
Surprisingly happy at 8:30pm.
The morning after Christmas. Butter knives and babies don't mix Papa!!
Enjoying the big backyard! Good heavens I miss that house!
Watching Hank very carefully as she steals his rawhide Christmas card.
On our way to have family pictures taken at the park.
Playing Peek-a-Boo with Papa. It's her favorite game! Boo!
Sunday morning... Standing in Papa's truck while everyone was saying good-bye.
Waving bye-bye!
Pit stop in Bakersfield! That is Aaron's buddy Rick's little girl. She's two weeks older than Loralye, but about half her size! They're affectionately referred to as the Giant and the Midget :)
Eating dinner in Barstow. She was happy to be out of the car. Little did we know that we still had almost 4 hours to go!
I hope you all have a very safe and fun New Year's Eve!
xoxo

Wednesday, December 30

The Green Family

During Thanksgiving, Aaron's family had pictures taken and I finally have them now! The photographer was not the most experienced or gifted, but thankfully we got some good pictures anyways.

All the Greens (and 2 Christophersons)
Top Row: Jason, Allen, Aaron
Bottom Row: Cynthia, Krista, Wendy, Me, Loralye, Amber

Our little family.

Taking a break from pictures to play on the slide :)

Monday, December 21

Friday, December 18

I missed it again!

Yet again, I forgot to take pictures on one of Loralye's month markers. She turned 11 months old on Wednesday and I had issues all day that day. For starters we were running late in the morning so I couldn't take pictures before work. Then, because we ran late, I forgot to grab the camera to take pictures at work. After work we didn't go home, but went straight to Target and the outlet mall to do some Christmas shopping and by the time I got home I was too tired to think about much other than going to bed as early as possible. So this is what I have instead:11 Month Old Stats: She's just over 23 1/2 pounds and her height will have to wait until her year check up at the doctor because she is too squirmy for me to try to measure her. She crawls all over the place and can pull herself up to stand, but has only done so a couple of times. She is quite the chatter box too. She speaks mostly baby nonsense, but she does use several words correctly: mama, dada, baby, hi, and yay. Yum went completely out the window for some reason. She also started saying papa yesterday, but won't say it today. I'm just hoping she has it down by the time she sees her papa again on Christmas day!

And this is a goofy half-blinking picture, but it does show off one of her new molars rather well! She has her 8 front teeth (4 on top and 4 on bottom), the molar pictured here on the bottom, and one more molar on the top that she won't let me photograph. 10 teeth!! Crazy!
Christmas is almost here (YAY!) and we still have a boat load of things to do before then (BOO!). I hope you are all more prepared than we are. If not, I wish you luck. I know I'm gonna need it too.
xoxo

Thursday, December 17

The Happiest Place on Earth!

For Aaron's birthday back in August I got him tickets to see Metallica in Anaheim in December. So for my birthday Aaron agreed to take Loralye and I along with him to Anaheim and let Loralye experience Disneyland for the first time! We were there for two days and had an amazing time in spite of the light rain on the first day and the crazy constant rain on the second. Needless to say, all of our pictures are from day one.

A sweet little shot from the night before the long drive. He's so sweet with her.
And we're off! It was her first time facing forward in her car seat! I know it's technically a month too early to switch her around, but she's over 23 pounds, so I think she's safe. She loved facing forward! She just doesn't look excited about it here because we're at a gas station where it took the pump 10 minutes to give us 10 gallons of gas! I got a little bored too.
Just inside the park. She didn't know quite what the think of it yet, although she did smile for the little marching band that came through the front as we walked in.
Hanging out with Papa and still kinda checking things out.
As we walked in, several characters were walking out to meet everyone, so my dad and I rushed her over for a photo op. This was not Loralye's favorite part of the vacation. She was SCREAMING at Pluto. As we were walking away from him, Goofy came skipping by us and made her scream even louder. We all laughed.
Trying on Davy Crockett hats with Uncle Philly. Once again, she didn't want the hat on and it made us all laugh. Goodness, we're mean.
This is why Aaron agreed to go to Disneyland... Turkey Legs. Well, that and frozen bananas.
Loralye is definitely Aaron's child. She ate a ton of his turkey!
And got a little irritated whenever he walked away from her.
On the Merry-Go-Round! We tried to take her on the Dumbo ride, but the kids in line with Mickey Mouse ears on made her cry. A lot. So we turned around and saw that the line for the carousel was free from any Mickey-eared children.
Smiling while sitting on her horse before we started moving. Once the ride got going, she just stared at the mirrors on the inside of the ride. Silly baby.Pointing. She was pointing and talking about EVERYTHING she saw! After the meltdowns with the characters and Mouse ears, she was happy for the rest of the trip.
Mr. Toad's in the background. We attempted to take her on it, but apparently I did a bum job of putting her diaper on that morning and she peed all over the place while we were in line.
Philip and Jesse went on it without us. This is the only picture I have that proves that Jesse was with us! Shane and Nikki aren't in any pictures either because 1. Nikki was in Florida visiting her family and 2. Shane only came on the second day when the rain wouldn't let me get my camera out.
In front of the beautiful Christmas tree on Main Street. I swear Loralye had a good time. She just looks a little irritated when she focuses on things.
Family picture in front of the castle.Grams loves Disneyland too!
All decorated for Christmas :)
Watching a parade with daddy wearing child sized gloves. I didn't think she would keep them on, but my mom suggested trying them anyways since it was so cold. Loralye thought they were hilarious! She started waving at everything and playing with them like they were puppets.


We all had such a great time. Loralye even got all excited as we strapped her into her stroller on the second day. She knew what was coming! A big thanks to my family for driving (and flying) all the way to Disneyland for the weekend and to Shane and Nikki for letting us take over their spare bedroom! We love you all and can't wait to see you next week in Clovis for Christmas!!!