Christmas Time

Lyla's first Christmas definitely wasn't a white one....it was a black.

Our power went out for five hours Christmas afternoon.

At least by that time, we finished opening presents and eating dinner. 

Regardless, it just felt strange!

Our morning began with a Christmas miracle...Lyla let us sleep in until 9:30. 

Lyla always starts her day by 8:00,
 so I was truly shocked by this uncommon occurrence.

Even though she is still too young to understand the Santa concept, 

Kirk and I still had fun playing the role.

Her main gift was the toy house shown below.

The toy house was inspired by Lyla's recent interest in forts. 

When the three of us are lying in bed, which is quite often,

 Kirk and I will hold the sheet in the air and over our heads.

 Lyla thinks it is the greatest thing ever.

Lyla was a bit slow opening her gifts. 

Her cousin Hali came upstairs to help her out. 

(It appears I struggled to get Hali's face in any photo)

Other than a few toys, Lyla received mostly clothes.

She didn't provide us with a wish list this year, 
so we weren't quite sure what she wanted...

 Christmas is exhausting, obviously. But overall, we had a really fun day. 

Two days afterwards Lyla and I  packed our bags, 

said 'bye bye' to dad and headed to Idaho.

Baby #2

In case you didn't hear....

Clearly, Lyla was surprised as we were.

Baby Monkey

Lyla is becoming quite the little climber. 

Our current arrangements have her crib directly behind the couch

 and she will nose dive right off the couch into her crib. 

She is fearless and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

This is another trick she has learned....

Since I'm not exactly sure the whereabouts of the hospital around here,

I figured it would be best to not allow her to learn a lesson on her own this time. 

Even though she was having a wonderful time using the walker as a climbing gym, 

I decided to prevent any potential skull fractures by collapsing the toy.

As you can see, my efforts didn't put an end to her adventures. 

I couldn't help but giggle when I looked over to find her lounging in the seat.

My Baby The Kid

My sweet little girl turned 11 months old last week. 

This was just fine and dandy until I realized this means next month she will turn ONE.

Say whaaat?

I checked on her during nap time and

also realized she no longer looks like baby....she looks like this.

When did she get so tall? When did my baby start turning into a kid?

Not only is she growing like a weed, her personality changes more each day.
Her newest trick is to "tickle" dad. Also, she has taken baby talk to a whole new level.

I've tried to capture her cuteness on camera, but it's not quite the same.

We are so blessed to have such a happy little girl. She makes us smile every. single. day. 

I recovered my camera from Idaho, so I should start blogging again more often.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of our simple adventures from the weekend...

Despite my efforts, she has never been much of a binky lover.

(Why I was insisting that my child be attached to a
 comfort mechanism, I'm not quite sure...)

However, she discovered a binky in her toybox and knew exactly what to do with it.

Still showed no sign of interest...she's an independent woman!

This weekend Kirk was determined to make my car look all spiffy.

In return, Lyla and I were determined to be a big inconvenience.

Looking all un-baby like again...
she even has one of those awkward KID faces going on in this picture. 

side note: only 2 teeth still. keep waiting for more to poke through!

Promptly after the vacuuming was complete Lyla 

thought pouring an entire bag of fish all over the seat sounded like fun.

Only one year into this gig and I'm finding it difficult to

 control my laughter during moments I should be teaching "no no"

Kirk and I recently learned we should probably quit

 laughing when she gurgles her milk...

Lyla is starting to take an interest in cartoons. 

So far, I've resisted the urge to plop her in front of the
 tube while I catch some more zzz's. 

I'm just kidding...come on people...

I will at least wait until she can walk to the kitchen to grab her own snack!

As you can see, she also likes ice-cream. But who doesn't?

 And finally, we drove by the house where Kirk lived as a young lad. 

It was exciting to listen to the memories about his old stomping grounds...