Christmas Day

I failed to take many pictures on Christmas Day. Lilly got a Zhu Zhu pet (a hamster that runs around which she calls a guinea pig!) The cat wasn't a big fan of it.

We headed back to grandma and grandpa Henning's where we opened some gifts and ate Filet Mignon! (Thanks mom and dad!) As you can see, Lilly was ready for a nap by then!

Aunt Tamra and Uncle Josh got Lilly a tinkerbell fairy costume so she had to try it on.

Showing off her wings.

We spent the rest of the day watching A Christmas Story, playing Catchphrase and laying around.

We had a great Christmas. It was magical to see Lilly enjoy it so much.
Hope your day was as wonderful as ours!

Christmas Eve

Lilly in her Christmas gift. Someone in Levi's family had given Lilly this dress at one of my baby showers. It was the last thing left from a baby shower that was still hanging in Lilly's closet! And yes, grandma, the shoes you gave Lilly DID fit. She's wearing them in the photo!

We headed over to grandma and grandpa Henning's. She's obsessed with the brio trains lately (and The Polar Express and Thomas the Train.)

Aunt Kate got her some kitchen tools. A blender, mixer and coffee pot.
Lilly in her Christmas jammies from mumma and daddy.
We went home and put out cookies and milk for Santa. She decided on the way home that she wanted to leave bread for the reindeer (her idea!). We also left carrots for the reindeer.
Our house after Santa came. He left Lilly a new play kitchen!

Cookies for Santa

Lilly had a lot of fun making cookies this year. As soon as I started mixing things up she came over and asked to help. Then she went to get her step stool from the bathroom! She was really good at cutting out the cookies.

She called the flour "salt!"

We used (Uncle) Mark's rolling pin to roll out our dough. If you look closely, you can see he wrote his name on the handle. He also wrote his initials on the side of it. Only Mark would write his name on a rolling pin but boy am I thankful he did! It's a good way to remember him every year when we pull out the rolling pin. And like Mark, I hope I don't get socks for Christmas either! =)

Henning (Extended) Family Christmas

We went to the Henning Family Christmas on Sunday at Great-Grandma Henning's house. This picture was taken after we got home. Lilly slept in the car on the way home but boy was she tired! Grandpa bought her some stylin' new boots which I was trying to get a picture of.

Aunt Tamra and Lilly really had a good time. Looks like all you other aunts might have some competition....!
Great-Grandma gets all of her great-grandchildren Christmas gifts. Lilly got this princess-girly toy and some new jeans, a top and a zip-up sweatshirt. Thanks great-grandma!


Lilly's playing at great-grandma's. She also got to play with McKenna and Hannah (Levi's cousins children).
Grandma Henning makes the best pies! However, there's soo much food that they were barely touched!

Ahearn Family Christmas

On Saturday, Lilly and I went to the Ahearn Family Christmas. I like this picture with Lilly and grandpa. This girl sure loves her grandpas! Lilly got this silly santa that rolls around on the floor and laughs. She really likes it. She even slept with it last night. Thank goodness it has an off switch!

Lilly and grandma.

Almost all of the grandchildren. We're just missing Jacob because he had a hockey game. From left to right: Miranda, Ana, Joe, Billy, Kaity holding Lilly, Josh and Nick.

Craft

This is Lilly's first craft which she brought home from the babysitter's. I know there will be many more of these to come in the future so I thought I'd better make note of her very first one! It seems to me to be a classic reindeer with the antlers being her hand prints, the head being her foot print and the eyes and nose her thumb and fingerprints. I think I will frame this one and bring it out with our Christmas decor every year. Who knew a craft project could get a mumma just a teensy bit emotional?

The Sheehan's

In Mount Pleasant, there is a house that decorates for Christmas every year. We're talking extreme decorating. You are supposed to get out and walk through these paths in their yard and look at everything. We took Lilly the other night to see it. She was amazed at all the lights and blow up characters. They also have a nativity scene with a manger that is absolutely huge. Lilly's favorite part was the fake horse and carriage.



This was a cute picture of Lilly and her daddy on Levi's birthday. We went to The Brass for Matt's graduation on Saturday.

Dance Class

The dance studio downtown was having free dances classes on Saturday as part of the Dicken's Christmas weekend so I took Lilly to try out dance class. It was at 2 on Sturday which is her naptime so I'm sure that had a lot to do with her lack of participation. She started out good and followed the directions of the teacher and went out and sat in the middle like she was asked. Soon after that they all went to a tote to choose a toy to dance with. Lilly brought it over for me to see. After that, she pretty much didn't want to go back to the floor without me. At one point the teacher asked them to "show her their ballerina arms and twirl" and Lilly actually followed her. It was fun but I think we'll hold off on paying for dance classes for a little while!

(Lilly is the one in a white turtleneck with the red ribbon)

Lilly spent much of the 1/2 hour running back to me as you see in this photo!

She says that "it's funny" but I think she really means "it's fun." Or maybe she thinks it's funny that I would actually try to make her do something in an organized fashion during a two year old's naptime!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Lilly and I put up the Christmas tree yesterday. I assembled it while she took a nap. When she woke up and came downstairs to see it all lit up, she was amazed! I don't think she remembers last Christmas and we have been seeing the Christmas trees displayed in the stores since, well October. I think she was just in shock that we could put one in our own living room! She said "oooooh! It's pretty!"

I had to let her help decorate the tree. I showed her how to hang them on the branches. Apparently she thought stuffing them all IN the branches was a good idea. And all in the same place. So we ended up with a lot of ornaments near the bottom front.

She also thought the red beads reminded her of necklaces that we keep in her toy baskets. So after I had spent a lot of time stringing them on the tree, she tried to yank them off and declare them her "necklace!" Stockings go on your feet, right?These socks/stockings must be for giants!

And yes. Dozer tried to make an appearance in nearly every picture. Again.

Paparazzi!

Lilly is famous now after her video appeared on Good Morning America. I checked out TMZ.com and sure enough, the paparazzi had captured these photos of Lilly enjoying Thanksgiving at her grandma and grandpa Campbell's house.

Being famous really takes it out of you!

Still got enough energy for one more smile for the paparazzi!

Thinking, "When is this ever going to stop? Can't you people just leave me alone!? Just go back to following Jon and Kate Gosslin!"

She's trying to conceal her identity here. Not quite working!

Here she is putting on one final show for her loyal followers. It's Lilly's version of "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Good Morning America!

Lilly's thankful video was featured on Good Morning America this morning! I'm not sure how long the link will work but here it is anyway! We are so proud of her and definitely thankful for our sweet little girl!

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=9182325

What Are YOU Thankful for?

I swear I didn't train her to say this as a response! But every time I ask her this question, this is the answer she gives me. I was trying to elicit responses like "mumma and dada, or grandmas and grandpas, or Dozer, or Jesus" but I always seem to get "pizza!"

Well, we are a pizza-loving family.....

Halloween 2009

Ok, these are mostly backwards because that's how blogger loads my photos and it's too difficult to move them all around. I'll just post a caption around each photo. This first photo is at the end of the evening. Lilly stayed the night at grandma and grandpa's house so Levi and I could go to a Halloween Party. Grandma and Lilly were getting ready to make popcorn.

Grandpa made Lilly giggle about something!

See, we let her eat some candy.

Showing me some candy.

Her basket of goodies amidst her golden eggs. (She was a chicken)

Out trick-or-treating. She walked a lot of the way but Daddy or myself had to occasionally give her a lift. She walks too slow.

Frolicking around grandpa's neighborhood.

This was actually the second house Lilly went to. We went to Kathy's (the babysitters house) but Lilly thought we were going to leave her there and she grabbed onto my leg and cried! Good thing I don't drop her off at Kathy's in the morning. I don't think I could handle that every day. Levi says she has never done that for him though. I WAS gone for three days this week so she might have been missing me still.

Here we are on the porch getting ready to go. We had to try out a piece of candy we were supposed to give out before we left. Wanted to make sure it was safe for the kiddos and all.....

Our little chicken before we left. She's holding her basket of golden eggs.

After trick-or-treating sorting through her goodies. We probably only went to 10 houses. People were generous! It was pretty chilly. Notice the red cheeks. She wore her jammies under her costume and the rest of her was sweaty when we took off her costume!

We carved our pumpkins earlier in the week because I went to the MANS conference for school Wednesday through Friday. Lilly had fun pulling out the guts. She ate the seeds fresh out of the pumpkin! Here they are on our front porch. We decorated the porch this year and put a spooky red and purple light in our porch lights.
Here are my kids from school. I was Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus books/tv shows. I won't tell you my students' names but I'll tell you what their costumes were instead. They are a pretty creative group of kids! From left to right starting at me:Ms. Frizzle, an end table, vampire, May and Desaray (those are the girls middle names and thier alter egos they've created for themselves. They write stories about themselves and stuff!), her dad (Roger!), Harry Potter, a mouse trap, a swan, werewolf, robot and just a 6th grader (he was going to go as a girl but he didn't enjoy wearing tights! Can you imagine!?)
Ms. Frizzle