We had a fun Christmas, last year I ended up opening all of Lilly's presents. Not this year, Lilly loved opening the presents and I think she really liked everything she got. Here is a picture of Lilly in front of our tree on Christmas eve in her new p.j's. She was so excited for Santa to come. Mike & Lilly tracked him online and it really helped Lilly go to sleep fast when she saw that Santa was getting close to our house :) Lilly loves the Dr kit she got (she likes to play Dr. with Mommy and sometimes uses Mommy's things, now she has her own) Lilly did a quick check up on her new Wonder Pet, he's healthy.Lilly also got a Swipper figure (from Dora) and thought that was the best thing ever! Lilly gave the box a great big hug.

After opening presents at home we got ready and drove to my parents house. There we had breakfast and opened more presents! Lilly got tons of fun things from her grandparents and Aunts & Uncles. She even got a new pair of pink cowgirl boots!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, this was our third Christmas as parents and probably the best Christmas ever. Even though we've had a few crazy things happen this month with our crawlspace flooding and Mike having surgery it's still been extra special because we have our Lilly bug. I am so happy to be a mom and feel blessed always because of the greatest gift I have ever recieved. Merry Christmas!

It's been very busy around here for me. Mike is recovering from surgery and I miss him SOOOOOOOOOOO much! Lilly and I have been having fun, and today we got to spend some time playing in the snow. Lilly's favorite thing to do is for me to pull her around the yard in her sled. It's fun for me too - I get a good workout and get to see my little baby girl giggle with pure delight. I've never been much of a snow person, but it's fun to play in it with Lilly. Today instead of having hot chocolate after our fun outside Lilly wanted Otter Pops! I had one too, I was hot from pulling Lilly in the sled :)

Mike had his surgery yesterday and it went really good. Lilly had a blast spending the day with Grandpa Y. and was sad that he wasn't here this morning to play with. It is nice to have family close enough (70 miles away) to count on for help when you need it.

It was also a potluck so Lilly had fun eating the chicken cupcakes :) We brought the chicken in a bisquit crackers :) :) Here are two of Mike's pieces the purple and white polka dot ones.

Lilly's newest fashion accessory is her helmet :) Mike helped her make it and she wore it for a good hour around the house on Sunday. She also sported her bicycle tire pump as her sword.

Lilly got to see Santa today! We waited for Mike to come home from work and then went as a family. I took a couple of pictures of Lilly before we left all dressed up in her Christmas dress, she is so beautiful! Unfortulately, Lilly was a little freaked out by Santa and I had to sit next to Santa while holding a very nervous little girl. She warmed up a little, but not enough for me to leave her there for a good picture. Lilly did manage to tell Santa that she wanted mega blocks and told him thank you for the candy. She also told Santa that she wasn't going to smile for the camera, or for Daddy - yup my almost three year old has an opinion :) She did look adorable and we had fun, ah the memories. Our Christmas tree is re-decorated multiple times daily :) Lilly loves to hang the candy canes and can hardly wait until Christmas when she can eat them.

Labels: Foto Friday

Today is Mike's birthday! Deffiantly a reason to celebrate, Mike is my best friend and I am soooooo happy that we are married (almost 10 years!). Mike is a kind, caring loving husband and is the BEST dad. Lilly and him and best friends and I love seeing them play together.

Lilly and I made Mike a cheese cake this morning and suprised him with it when he got home from work. He also was able to open his birthday presents an MP3 player and a Wii Zapper with the Crossbow game. Mike also has the Cabella's hunting game he can use the Zapper on too :)

My dad suprised Mike today by hand delivering a birthday present to him! Mike got a nice screw driver set and a bow saw. It was a fun suprise and Lilly thought it was awesome and Grandpa Y. played a game of fishing with her and had a fun time visiting. It was so nice to see my Dad and everyone was so suprised by the visit.

I finally updated photos for September, October and November :) You can view them in the photo section of the website. Also, don't forget you can move your mouse over the picture to view the comments I wrote about the photo.

Incase any of you would like to add our site feed to your links list, I posted in October what link to use http://mandamike.com/blog/2008/10/last-updated-on-blog-lists.html along with some instructions. Hope that helps!

One more tidbit of news, LDSFS is updating their online adoptive couples website. You can check out the beta version at www.beta.itsaboutlove.org and login as a guest. Mike & I are up on the beta site so feel free to let us know what you think. This new site will be a lot more searchable for birthparents and I think is a good move for LDSFS.

We spent our Thanksgiving in the beautiful state of Washington! Boy do I miss all of that green, every Christmas they play a song on the radio that says:
If you take away the presents
Why, they still will have a dream
For Christmas in the Northwest
Is a gift God wrapped in green
It's a pretty cheesy song, but totally true!
We had a blast visiting with family, playing the Wii and doing a little Christmas shopping. Unfortunately Mike was pretty sick with a cold and I was just a little sick so we didn't have the energy to do everything that we had planned. But we still had fun and Lilly LOVED playing with her cousin Owen and meeting the new baby Gwyneth (she's a year old now!) and is sooooo cute and has such a fun personality.
Lilly really enjoyed her time spent with her Grandma & Grandpa C. she charmed her grandparents into reading her books, playing Zoo and all sorts of shenanagans :) Who can say no to Lilly :)
The hardest part about visiting with family is having to say goodbye. I totally love my in-laws and miss them tons, it was so hard to say goodbye. Lilly and Owen gave lots of hugs and Owen almost started to cry, so of course I almost started to cry. It was sad, but we will come back to visit again and hopefully it wont be a year and half wait until the next time. I will try and post some pictures soon. We've been dealing with a plumbing issue on our house so hopefully once that is resolved I will have some time to do fun things.