Christmas Day 2014

Can't believe another Christmas has come and gone! This one was definitely more slow paced and quiet than others have been. This year it as just Adam and I and the girls that came up to my parents house. A few days before we left Lydia got really sick and I didn't even know if we were going to be able to make it up to Idaho Falls. It really broke my heart to think she wouldn't be able to enjoy Christmas.

Thankfully, the day we were supposed to leave she woke up looking better than she had the few days before so we got to drive up to grandma's house for Christmas. Claire ended up coming down with something while we were there so between the two of them we dealt with fevers, colds, throwing up, or teething the whole time we were up there. I felt bad for the girls, but they love being at grandma's house so they did still have a good time regardless.

As usual I tried to take some photos!

One other photo tradition that I want to keep doing every year is to get a picture of both of them on Christmas morning in front of the tree with their jammies on! Since the girls were sick (Claire really wasn't feeling well) I did the best I could.

Here was my photo from last year... I can't believe how big they've both gotten. *tear*

And here is what I tried to get this year... Poor girls just didn't feel good!

The rest of the day was just spent playing with toys, watching movies, and just trying to help these two feel better. Hearing dad play the piano seemed to help lift Claire's mood!

That's all for this year! I don't even want to think about how big they are going to be at Christmas time this year... my girls are growing up WAY too fast!

Christmas "Photos"

The photographer in me always has perfect pictures in mind to get around that time of year, but it gets busy or things just don't work out. That's okay though.. because these photos show how life really is and they're perfect anyways!

One reason I really wanted these photos was because I took similar ones last year and they are my FAVORITE photos ever. The lighting and the bokeh from the Christmas tree was perfect.

Like this one.

This one.

And THIS one most of all.

SO I wanted to try and duplicate it this year again, but we moved and the lighting was different and the girls are bigger so it didn't exactly work as planned. Neither of the girls were really in the picture taking mood.  I am still glad I took them though :)

These are also could technically be Claire's one year photos as well!

Claire's 1st Birthday AKA "Cake Smash Fail"

Okay SERIOUSLY?! How in the world is she already one. I thought it went by fast with Lydia, but I feel like we moved to warp speed. Even thought it has gone fast, I also can't imagine our home without her. She lights up our house and she is Lydia's little sister. We just love her to pieces.

Because her birthday is in December I didn't take one year photos. I take a lot of photos anyways and we had just gotten family pictures taken not too long ago. I will be getting some new "posed" and traditional photos in the spring/summer!

I REALLY wanted to do a cake smash on the floor with her. She LOVES food and I thought she would be totally game. I made her a cute little cake with some yummy whipped cream frosting and bought a few accessories for her to wear! WELL, that's not what happened. I got everything set up on the floor and she just was NOT having it. Oh well... at least my effort was documented :)

It quickly went from THIS

to THIS in a matter of seconds.

So we tried taking off the hat and got her to take a little taste.

That helped a little, but it wasn't long before she had just had enough!

So we decided this was going to be a no go and cleaned her up and gave it a rest for a bit. Then we decided to just put her in her high chair with ONE piece and then we gave her the whole cake. Not what I had in mind, but she did enjoy this better :)

AND that was Claire's birthday party that she won't even remember haha. I'm glad she came around and at least enjoyed her cake because it was REALLY good.

Her are also her stats from her 12 month check up!

Weight: 18.2 lbs (22%)
Height: 29.5" (58%)

She has 8 teeth and LOVES food, but only if she can feed it to herself.
She pulls herself up to things, but isn't walking quite yet.
She crawls and rolls everywhere.
She is a needy momma's girl!

Love you Claire Bear! Life wouldn't be the same without you.

AND then one last thing that happened that same weekend was Lydia had her very FIRST dance recital! Most of the pictures/videos were taken on my phone ( I need a better zoom ) so I just have the one photo. She looked so grown up and was the CUTEST one on stage for sure (not biased).

They did a tap dance to the Fixer Upper song from Frozen. She even got to wear a full face of makeup for the very first time and needless to say she LOVED that.

Fall Happenings

I cannot believe how fast time is flying by. The girls have grown SO much and I know I am going to thank myself one day for keeping up a blog and taking photos (even if I am several months behind)

No we are into Fall of 2014! First up is Lydia started her second year of preschool in September! We found a friend in the new ward when we first moved in during the early spring and got her registered. She got to pick out her very own backpack and I'm not too surprised to chose the Sophia Princess School one. :)  Like the year before, she was very EAGER to go to school and had no reservations about going.

At the beginning of October Daniele (Adam's sister) and her husband, Steve, were about to have their first baby boy so we drove up to Orem and while I took some maternity photos Adam took the girls for a walk around the park! They sure love their daddy :)

The girls love playing in the tub so I needed to catch a few memories in there :)

AND  I'm wrapping up this post with Halloween with just ONE photo. That's not my most favorite holiday in the world so I wasn't very good at taking photos. I took a few with my phone, but my blog is just for my photos with my big girl camera! Lydia dressed up as Rapunzel this year and Devin and Brittney came with Savannah and Carter so we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. The one photo I got was Claire in her Zebra costume!