Happy Holidays!

This year, I decided to do the annual photo for our Christmas card, although we were a little dubious at how well the photo would turn out with two active kids as the subject matter. We were pleasantly surprised by our photo shoot, in which Kyle very much played up to the camera, and even used his own creative ideas when he decided to pick up Hannah (sitting on the brick steps, uhoh!) which turned out to be the best photos after all.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Looking forward to seeing everyone in 2009!

Merry Christmas

It's hard to believe that after all of the preparations, the big day is finally here. Kyle's been looking forward to the day all month, despite breaking in to tears at the sight of Santa Claus!

Kyle loved the kitchen that Santa left for him and Hannah, and promptly whipped up some breakfast (carrots) for us,

while Hannah was crawling around on the floor chasing after the salt and pepper shakers.

More of Kyle's favorites were all of the PlanCity toys that he received


and Hannah now has her own baby doll, courtesy of Kyle, so she doesn't to take his all of the time!And of course, the gifts Dave and I enjoyed most were the special moments with both Kyle and Hannah.We were also very lucky to be able to share Christmas Day with Auntie Laura and Uncle Scott who drove down from Washington, as well as Maemo & Granpa, Noni & Papa, Uncle Mike, and Great-Uncle Charlie & Great-Aunt Doni. It was a full table again at our house!

Visiting with Gabby

Our visits with Gabby (Hannah's closest friend age-wise) have unfortunately been too infrequent, so we had to make sure to see her along with Kim and Robert for the holidays. Who would have thought that getting 3 kids together who live an hour apart would be so difficult??

Gabby has super fashion sense, and is always eager to match with Hannah, but unfortunately, trying to get them to look at the camera, smile and NOT hold something in front of their shirts proved too much for our beauties to handle, so this was the best shot of our coordinating girls.

Kyle was very excited by his gift from Gabby, a set of three PlanCity construction trucks, and was far too distracted to sit still for a photo with the girls.


It was so much fun to see Hannah and Gabby interacting, and hopefully it won't be too long before we can get them together again. They are both growing so quickly, and before we know it we will be celebrating their first birthdays!

Train time

We gave Kyle his first BRIO train set for Christmas last year, and the collection has been steadily growing since then. We're not sure it would be wise to get a train table for him, as he wouldn't be able to fit his large track set ups on the small tables, instead they ramble across the entire living room floor. He's great at composing these elaborate tracks himself, which shouldn't be so surprising as he is super with jigsaw puzzles as well.

Unfortunately, Hannah always wants to playing with whatever her brother is playing with, so she tends to turn into Hannah-zilla, tearing apart the long trains or tracks and bridges that Kyle has created! We've had to resort to playing trains while Hannah is napping so there isn't as much controversy, although Kyle does now create a small train for Hannah so that she has her own...

Happy 7 months!

Our little girl is on the move, pulling up all of the time and cruising everywhere. She also seems to be thinking about crawling, and we would be surprised if she isn't crawling by Christmas! It's amazing how much she has accomplished in these past seven months, which have flown by ever so quickly.