Standing Up for Herself!

Ellie is excited about her newest accomplishment. She has started standing up all by herself...no hands! At 14 months, she's still taking her time and she's enjoying the ride. She even got herself to a standing position from the floor, but only once. It's so funny to watch her stand there and grin with pride. Then she flops down on her bottom as hard as she can, laughs and starts clapping for herself. Gotta love it.

Smile!

Just before the new year, the Graesser's took advantage of having the whole family in town and had some pictures taken. Since our last photo shoot, Ellie was born and we have two more babies on the way (Kim and Mel are both pregnant!). It'll be an exciting year.

Ellie's First Haircut

Ellie got her first haircut last week! All of a sudden, she seems like such a big girl! Who am I fooling? She's 14 months old and still showing no interest in walking...she's going to be my baby girl for a while! She's finally starting to call me "mama", but only after I ignore her first 12 attempts at calling me "Dada". All in all, she's very happy with herself!

A visitor

Joshua Rose came and stayed with us this weekend and the girls really enjoyed having a baby boy around. So, of course we had to take a couple incriminating pictures for later in life. Hannah gave baby Josh at least six dozen kisses over the course of a day and a half. He's a cutie!!
The poor guy fell victim to a house full of little girls! No neutral hooded towels to be found!

Playing the piano

Hannah got a toddler size grande piano from Blake and Kristen this year for Christmas. It's an electric keyboard and both the girls love it! I still think it's really funny to see the sit there on the stool like a big person and play the piano. I had to share a couple pictures!

As you can see, Ellie prefers to play in the nude...actually she perfers to do everything in the nude!

Christmas 2007

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. Hannah was very aware of what was coming. It started with our first trip to Walmart after Thanksgiving. She saw the Christmas decorations and said, "Christmas!! Mommy, I LOVE Christmas!!" Needless to say, it was an exciting advent! We went down to city hall for the tree lighting...we sort missed the actual lighting, but it was still fun....doesn't it look like everyone's having fun?

We stayed home for the holidays and started some new traditions. My parents and Chris and Kate joined us for a few days. It was great having them here. We ate as much as possible, watched movies, went in search of Christmas lights, went to mass on Christmas Eve and of course opened presents!

Cruising

Early in December, Andrew and I got to go on a cruise...just the two of us. Both sets of grandparents took turns babysitting so that we could go away for a few days. It was very relaxing and a lot of fun. I don't know whether or not you could really call us cruise people, but it was a freebie trip that Andrew won, so that made it even more enjoyable. We went to Cozumel and back (out of Galveston). While in Cozumel, we went to Passion Island for the day and did a lot of relaxing and eating. It's beautiful there...the scene of the Corona commercials and Corona is consequently the only beer they serve on the Island (population: 12!). We were very happy to see the girls when we got back. It was great to get away, but we missed them (even if they didn't even really notice we were gone)!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was fun to celebrate the day at our house for the first time. We had many Graesser's over plus Chris and Jess. It was a great day with lots of great food (everyone pitched in). Unfortunately, I don't think anyone thought to pull out the camera. :(

Then, the next day Andrew and I got to go to College Station for the A&M/t.u. game. It was great! We had awesome seats from friends of my parents and the weather was perfect...just cold enough to be considered football weather, but not so cold you'd rather be inside. And the icing on the cake...we won! Whoop!