9 months old!

Elizabeth turned 9 months old last Thursday. She has been busy with so many new things in the past month. She now has 5 teeth, she loves to eat table food with us, she's on the move with her new crawling skills, and she is communicating with us all the time. Besides saying, "mama" and "dada" we hear a lot of "lala" "vava" and "baba." I do think she is connecting the sound "baba" with sheep as she says it a lot while staring up at her sheep mobile above her changing table. She also does a lot of head shaking to communicate with us. It is usually a "no" shake, but it rarely means "no." When she gets up from a nap I usually ask her, "did you have a good rest?" A "no" shake in that situation means, "I hear my sisters playing and I'm ready to party!"

The other day I was making a little stuffed bunny hop around in front of her and saying, "hop, hop, hop." I gave her the bunny and said, "you do it." She held the bunny in one hand, grabbed my hand with her other hand, and shoved the bunny back in my hand. I think the message was clear, "No Mommy, you do it more!"

Here she is on the move:

First crawl!

According the definition of crawling Matt & I devised in November of 2008, Elizabeth had her first crawl today!

January visitors

Thanks for a great visit, Grandma & Grandpa!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas pictures - finally! We had a great Christmas season and great Christmas this year. The girls loved helping to decorate the house, helping to wrap presents, making gingerbread houses, making Christmas cookies, singing Christmas songs, and driving around to look at Christmas lights in our neighborhood. The weekend before Christmas Grandma and Grandpa came to our house to celebrate Christmas in Vienna. Then we had a wonderful trip to Albany to celebrate Christmas with our whole family, spend time with everyone, and celebrate with Briella on her 1st birthday. We are very blessed!

 Abby's Christmas concert - she just spotted us!

Christmas Eve :)

 Christmas morning - waiting for Abby to wake up!

Somebody is thrilled by their Belle jewelry set!

Posing in front of her newly constructed "Dolphin Cruiser"

(Yesterday I asked Anna a question about her "ship" and she said, "It's a Dolphin Cruiser, Mom")

 Lunch at Chipotle to celebrate Briella's 1st birthday!

Eagerly awaiting her first cupcake!

Nana and all the cousins!

Congratulations Dan & Bridget!

We had a great weekend celebrating Dan & Bridget's wedding in Cooperstown, NY. The ceremony was beautiful (and funny - Uncle Dan, did you write a script for the priest?), the reception was fantastic, and the whole weekend was filled with joy. Congrats Dan & Bridget!

Cox Farms 2013!

Throughout our busy fall we kept wondering, "Will we ever get to Cox Farms this season?" We woke up Sunday morning to find out that Sunday School was canceled and the weather was going to be sunny. All this when Nana was in town and the Giants had a bi-week. The stars finally aligned just 2 days before Cox Farms closed for the season. We had a perfect day at the farm visiting all our favorite activities: slides, corn maze, hay ride, and animals. We enjoyed delicious cider, apples, and kettle corn and since Halloween had passed, we witnessed a new activity: pumpkin smashing!

 super bundled!

the rope swing was a new favorite activity

 running back for another swing on the rope swing

ready for a hay ride!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween. On Wednesday we carver our pumpkins:

"Face"

designed by Abby

carved by Mommy

"Snow White"

design chosen by Anna

carved by Daddy

Then on Thursday Nana arrived! After dinner we quickly got into our costumes:

The Beauty and the Beast crew

The cowgirl crew

And Mini Mouse too:

And then we hit the streets for some trick-or-treating! The weather was perfect and the rain held off until the girls' pumpkins were too heavy to carry and they were ready to go home anyway. A great night!