At The Harbor

Marc wanted to take some pictures this morning, so we loaded up the girls and headed down to the Annapolis Harbor. The girls loved running (and crawling) around, and T loved looking at the "lovely water". Every thing is 'lovely' with her lately.

The wind made it a little chilly, but lucky for us Nora loves the wind, she gets so excited when she feels the wind on her face, it's cute.

T with "the best cat ever". She talks about getting that cat for Christmas all the time. "Mom, remember, I open up my kitty and I'm so excited" etc. The other day she kept saying "Mom, is this the best cat ever?". She can't settle on a name for him though, she goes back and forth among Ozzy, Black and White, and 'my cat just like Brigit's'.

Getting chased...

Both girls were surprisingly patient and obedient, so we got them some ice cream.

T said "Mom, did that man give me some ice cream". I said yes, so she said "Oh, that was so sweet of him!".

And then this random group of older people stopped to take pictures with us. T completely ignored this man the whole time he was sitting by her, it was kind of funny. I guess there's no coming between a two-year-old and her ice cream.

If you want to check out some of Marc's street photography you can go to marcmilligan.com

He used to be pretty good with those old school film cameras, and he's just now really getting in to digital photography, but I think he's gotten some great shots ;). He also has some cute pictures of the girls there too.

The one with the bath tub coloring

Our girls got totally spoiled by all the aunts and uncles and grandparents at Christmas time, and one of the fun little gifts they brought back was a pack of tub crayons. We opened them up last night and let them go to town with them, and they just had the best time. Teresa didn't want to get out of the tub, and it kept her from splashing most of the water out on us, so it was pretty win-win all around. Marc was able to get some cute shots of the girls.

Teresa very generously let Nora use only the green crayon.

She didn't seem to mind too much...

Nora has only recently started coloring (and by coloring, I mean making marks on paper with her crayons), so I wasn't sure if she would be able to figure out the tub crayons, but she didn't have any trouble.

She did all the green. She seems to be using her left hand quite a bit more than her right, and Marc is getting his hopes up that he will get a little lefty like himself. She was even able to give herself a green eye!

Teresa was really great about putting each color back when she was done using them. She's surprisingly organized for a two-year-old with our genes.

And then I just love Nora's little shifty-eyed look in this picture:

Enchanted Springs

A few days after Christmas we went to Enchanted Springs Ranch, a cute little tourist-y spot a few miles outside of Boerne. It's a little cowboy type village, with gun shows and exotic animals and the like, and it's also a movie set. We dressed T up in her brand new cowboy boots (from Santa) for the occasion. (Also, here's where I tell you there are going to be A LOT of pictures in this post. What can I say, there were just too many cute little nieces and nephews there for me to narrow it down anymore than this.)

Nora was pretty excited!

The kids all played on this cute little playground while we waited for the puppet show to start.

Nora the cowgirl (with some help from Aine)

Locked up!

Declan was able to escape, though.

I love these horse tire swings. One day I'll have somewhere to hang one.

They had a cute little puppet show talking about the history of longhorns and cowboys and stuff in Texas, Nora thought it was pretty exciting.

So did the Smiths.

And poor T, she loved the puppet show, and the subsequent tractor ride to see all the animals, but the gun show was just absolutely awful for her. She hates loud knocking sounds, and I guess the blank gun shots also qualified. I took her out to walk around after she freaked out at the beginning of the show. I made the mistake of taking her back in for the bull whip demonstrations - turns out the crack of a whip is even louder than fake gun shots and she was off my lap and scrambling for the door faster than I'd ever seen her move before. Poor little thing, she was so upset by it, she asked to go back in to the little church, and then fell asleep in my arms - I guess she really was quite traumatized by it all.

She did wake up in time to sit on the real live longhorn they brought out.

Too bad they put him in such terrible lighting!

The one about Christmas

Teresa was so into Christmas this year. She still didn't quite get everything about it, of course, but she thought all the preparations and Santa stuff, etc, were so great. She was actually really excited about Santa each time we went to see him, although she still got really timid once she was actually near him. It was so cute the way she would barely whisper what she wanted to him. (She asked for a baby doll each time, but, sadly, he didn't come through this year).

The children all got to pick one gift to open on Christmas Eve. T opened a little stuffed cat. Brigit brought a cute little stuffed kitty with her from home, and Teresa just thought it was the best thing she had ever seen. She was always begging to hold Brigit's kitty, and B was always so generous with letting her. But as soon as T had to give her back, she would ask to hold it again, she just really, really loved it. So I hopped on Amazon and was able to find the same exact cat - and it just happened to arrive on Christmas Eve, just a few minutes before present time!

Opening it up...

I think she liked it ;)

The girls with their kitties - not T's best picture :)

Oh, she was so thrilled about it. Ironically, the tag of the kitty says its name is Pepper, just like our poor kitty we recently re-homed!

Nora's first Christmas reactions were kind of a bummer, she wasn't really that interested in opening presents, or the wrapping paper, or even what was inside, at first.

She would pretty much just tear off one little strip of paper, like in the picture below, and then would just not be that interested in finishing it off.

She did really love Aoife's ball pit though!

She did come around eventually, and really got into her stocking - I think it helped that it was mostly full of baby snacks.

Nora helped T open her very own laptop:

T enjoying some of her presents:

Strutting her stuff...

And some more Christmas randoms:

The ball pit really was such a huge hit with all the kids. It's definitely in the running for one of Nora's first birthday presents.

Teresa was also so interested in all the Cars toys that Colin got. I'm super mad that my little camera went missing while we were there because I had some awesome videos of the car racing action. Colin got an awesome race track with some Cars cars that you can charge up, and T just thought it was awesome. When they would start racing she would say "Oh my goodness! What's happening" over and over, and it was really funny. The Smith kids were so good to let T play with all their awesome Christmas presents too. Too bad those pictures will never be seen :(.

After all the present festivities we got to go to church and enjoy a beautiful Christmas program. Afterwards we had a little cousins/Granny photo shoot. (Nora was barely able to stay awake through church, so she went straight to bed as soon as we got home and missed all the pictures).

Aoife, Brigit, Liam, Colin, Teresa, and Granny:

And then some of Granny and the T:

And, sadly, all the rest of the Christmas pictures were on my camera. Marc did make a delicious turkey, and Rob made some delicious potatoes, and my Dad made his delicious stuffing-that-I- always-thought-was-a-special-family-recipe-but-really-turned-out-to-be-from-Better-Homes-and-Gardens. (Don't think I wasn't crushed when I found that one out). We all did our best to enjoy Christmas dinner despite the fact that half of us were barely over the stomach flu and the other half would soon be enjoying that particular Christmas blessing...

In more recent news, Nora turns ELEVEN months old tomorrow!

Do you know what that means?!?!?

It means I really can't use the 'I just had a baby' excuse for why my house is a mess/I'm so tired all the time/none of my clothes fit/etc anymore. Bummer.