3 months

It's hard to believe that these last three months could have gone by so fast! Kip is growing so well (up to 10 lbs!) and is a joy to have in our lives. Here are some favorite pictures. WARNING: There's A LOT here, but she's just so darn cute!!

Kip's wonderful personality is really starting to blossom now. She is so sweet and happy, unless something is really bothering her and then she is LOUD.

She makes the most adorable, soft cooing noises. Mostly just vowels now. It sounds a lot like "Hi, hi, hi" sometimes.

She enjoys lying under her play gym, looking up at all the animals, etc. Her favorite thing to "talk to" and watch right now is a little black and white soccer ball. Our future athlete?

She is starting the hand fascination phase and spends a lot of time sucking on her fingers. Unlike Gus, she really likes her pacifier and her swaddler. She has started taking longer naps and sleeping more at night (5-7 hours) some nights.

It's so much fun to see the way she recognizes all 3 of us. We love you SO much, Kipster!

Why it pays to live in the South

While playing outside yesterday with Gus & Kip, I saw this....

this...

and this!

You'd think after living down here for roughly 10 years now that I'd be used to the early spring, but it catches me by surprise EVERY year!

Here's something ironic though....as I post this, it's SNOWING. A lot. But I don't mind. I like snow too! Just so long as it's not cold and rainy. I'll leave those type of days for Scott. They're his favorite:)

Christmas Day

This year the Deterding side of our family came to visit for Christmas: Oma & Opa, Uncle Steve & Aunt Heather, and Cousins Grace & Leah. It was a blast!!

Steve & Leah

Grace

The cousins had so much fun! Grace & Gus spent most of the time running around, with little Leah bringing up the rear. It was so much fun to hear them talking and laughing together while they played.

All the cousins decked out for the Christmas Eve service.

The girls in their matching Christmas PJs (thanks again, Heather!!)

Christmas Day Random Pics

Gus' big prize this year was his train table (Thanks Oma & Opa!)

Thanks again for making the trip down, Deterdings! We enjoy our holidays with you:)

Christmas Preps

It was fun having Gus involved in getting ready for Christmas this year. The two activities that I remembered to take pictures of were cookie making and stringing pasta for a Christmas tree garland.

Making sugar cookies.

I love this progression.....

1.)

2.)

3.) Garland. He was pretty excited about the wagon wheel pasta that I found:)

The other day, we were talking about Christmas being over, and Gus' comment (which we hear A LOT of these days) was, "Are you sad about that?" (Translation: "I'm sad about that.") I reminded him that next year he will be 3 when Christmas comes and he seems to think that's pretty cool.

Christmas Tree

We spent this past weekend taking down all our Christmas decorations, so I decided it was high time I uploaded some pictures of our Christmas exploits. I'm not promising anything, but my goal is to have all my Christmas related blogs up by at least Easter:)

We cut our tree down at our favorite Christmas tree farm with our neighbors again this year. It has become a fun tradition for us. This time there were 2 more kids with us!Gus was fascinated with the "baby" trees, as he called them. He stopped to talk to a lot of them along the way.The boys with our conquest.The girls:)We really like this particular type of tree. It's called a Carolina Sapphire.I'm not sure what he's doing here....directing, conducting, doing magic??The men hauling our trees back up to the car.Yes, that was car, singular. We got some interesting comments from people who saw our car sporting TWO trees. I have no pictures of the tree once it was decorated, but it was lovely....even if it was just propped up in the corner of our living room. Time for a heavy duty Christmas tree stand, me thinks:)