The Best Present Ever!

We spent this holiday season in California with Melissa's family, which was a first for us. It was a special time this year and very bittersweet, with both the loss of Melissa's wonderful dad and Ainslee's first Christmas. We spent the majority of our time there just hanging out with family. Of course there was copious amounts of food and lots of presents to spoil us all as well!


Grandma Shonna officially takes the cake with the best present ever though! We used our Christmas cash to buy a digital camcorder - something we'd been drooling over for the last couple of months but just couldn't afford yet. We've been playing with it the past couple of days and having a ball and I thought I'd share with you yesterday's video. We're still learning how to do this - you'll notice half of it is upside down, ha! - but it's easy to see how this is going to become a serious addiction.


You rock Grandma!

Guess who is 2 months now ..

AINSLEE GRACE!!! And can we just say, my how she's grown. It seems everyday she just keeps growing and growing and growing. Last night we were having dinner with friends, when a little girl probably about 1 year was running and laughing through the restuarant. We both turned to each other and said "Not it". Meaning one of us is going to be chasing our little one around the restuarant here shortly ...

Who would have thought ...

That in Portland, yes I said Portland, that we would have over 6" of snow in our driveway today. That's just since this morning. That beats last weekends total of 4". The weather is suppose to continue all throughout the night and into tomorrow, dropping more snow (up to 4" more) and freezing rain. Hopefully if the airport stops cancelling flights today and tomorrow, we can get out of this crazy weather, and over to California where there is no snowflakes in sight!!!!

Picking Out a Tree

Soooooooo on Saturday, my moms decided we needed to get our Chrismas tree. WOW my first ever Christmas tree! I was so excited, that I fell asleep. Shocker, I know. But on top of all the excitment, my mom put me in a bear suit! A BEAR SUIT! I must say I was not impressed, but I did manage to be the hit of the tree farm. Everyone wanted to look at me in the suit. Okay, I'll give that point to the moms.

So we walked, well they walked, I snuggled up in the coat, until we found our tree. Uncle Chris and John came over and cut it down for us, and off we went. I must say, it was really fun looking at all the trees, that next year when I'm big enough, I'll bring my boots and run around everywhere! YEAH!

I don't believe in gas!

Ainslee learned to smile yesterday!

We were both talking to her and the biggest toothless grin spread over her face. Melissa immediately ran upstairs to get the camera and although we made her smile again we just couldn't get it on camera. This is the closest we got... It's not a smile but even so, she's awfully doggone cute.

I read yet another baby article last night that claimed babies couldn't really smile til they are three months old and that anything prior to that can be attributed to overeager parents or simple gas. I say pshaw! I may not know much about babies, but I know a gas bubble couldn't melt my heart the way Annie's smile does!

Do I LOOK impressed??

Dearest Friends and Family,

I am writing to ask - no, to plead with you - to save me from my mothers. Look at the ridiculous things they force me to wear! And then they take pictures to document it - how am I going to explain that to my future boyfriends? This is so unfair.

I'm currently working on one heck of a messy diaper for some payback, but somehow it doesn't feel like enough. These people are in serious trouble when I can use my hands properly. You just wait!

Help! Send Prada!

Ainslee

Happy Birthday to both my girls!

Yesterday was Melissa's 34th birthday as well as Ainslee's 1 month old birthday. We had a great day - I made breakfast and we spent the day relaxing and shopping and then went to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings with our friends and family here before going to a late night session of cosmic bowling. Melissa skunked everyone, of course. Is there a sport in existence that she isn't good at? I think not!

Our little girl is getting so big! She is learning to respond in new ways every day. We've discovered her love for music - last night at the bowling alley she was kicking her feet in time to the beat and the lullabye setting on her basinette has saved us many a time at 2am. The ringtone on my phone is a piano song called Bella's Lullabye and every time Ainslee hears it, she simply stops moving and just listens. I definitely think her moms need to get off the stick and make her some classical music CDs for her fussy times.

After all the chaos and heartache of the last few weeks, it was great just to spend some time together as a family making good memories. I understand now in a whole new way just how special those memories are and what a treasure they should be. Happy Birthday to both my girls and may the coming year be full of blessings and joy. I love you!