11 months.

The girls turned 11 months old a couple weeks ago.  

We are closing in fast on that one year mark. 

Someone hold me.  

Clara Beth.

New obsessions include books, peekaboo, carrying around random objects, and guacamole.  Also loves to be chased, has started dancing to certain songs (hello, hot dog dance), and loves on her baby doll.  Her 3rd tooth broke through last week and she has taken to rubbing her hair with leftover food at each meal. 

 Elise. 

New obsessions include climbing on everything, turning the water on in our tub, emptying the cabinets,  and pancakes.  She is my good eater, my giggle box, and smiles so big she closes her eyes.  She also loves to wear her food and takes off her socks as soon as I put them on.  Her top two teeth broke through last week and she is on the verge of running.  

that's right, walking is for amateurs. 

never a dull moment with these chicas.

I spy

Cole has been loving playing I spy on walks.  So I saw an idea on pinterest about making an I Spy bottle and I thought it would be a great activity to do one day while the girls took their morning nap. 

Here are the things that we hid in our bottle.

We took a large, unmarked mason jar and filled it with our little treasures (buttons, beads and other little knick knacks I found at Hobby Lobby).  Then we filled it up with rice and screwed on the lid!

How easy was that!

Then Cole went to work finding all the objects.  

After about 2 minutes, he turned to me and said, that was fun mommy, now what?" 

 I thought the novelty would last a little longer.  

This week....

Cole has been sportin' spiky hair...

Elise finally caught on to peek a boo...

and Clara has been rockin' the bed head.  

funny sleeper.

i snapped this picture during our travels of clara sleeping.  

she just fell forward and was out!

christmas morning.

when does it stop being acceptable to talk about christmas?  

february?  

good, im glad we agreed.  

so here is my final post about christmas.  

we spent christmas day in abilene with brenner's  family.  we had a really wonderful time; it was a fun and relaxing day!  

here are a few pictures of our time opening presents.  i, of course, did not get quite as many as i wanted but it was kind of WILD with everyone opening gifts at once, the girls trying to eat all their gifts as soon as they opened them, cole trying to play with every gift he opened, me trying to write down who was getting what and the dog sniffing all of our stockings full of yummies. 

but it was great and we were blessed by our family! 

(by the way, i think that the kids' christmas jammies are so cute!  i got each one for $1.30 at goodwill!!!)

our trip.

Here are some pictures from our trip over Christmas that I captured on my phone!

Our first stop was in Brownwood where we got to spend time with Brenner's grandfather, Paw Paw.

Bedtime sillies.

Playing a little Settler's of Cattan 

Clara playing blocks with Nana.

My dad got some new hair courtesy of an awesome airline magazine product.

construction man Cole.

Cole and Leslie snuggling by the fire at our wagon ride and hot dog cookout.

Tim and Elise checking each other out.

Playing in the snow in his jammies.

baby it's cole outside!!!

we had to bundle the girls up every time we walked down to my parents house and Brenner started taking the shortcut way of keeping them warm.

We drank A LOT of hot cocoa on this trip!

Story time. 

Windmill park!  The obsession continues.

Mickey and Elmo kept us sane on the 10 hour drive home. 

The girls tried 3 new foods on this trip: whipped cream, french fries and ice cream.