Paige's 2nd Birthday

 

Happy 2nd birthday Paige!!!!!  Wow, I cannot believe our baby girl is already two years old.  She lights up our world and her personality amazes us every day.  We love witnessing those moments when we realize that she understands way more than we thought she did, and she shows us just how smart she is.  Based on her two year check up, it looks like she not only inherited her daddy's intelligence but also his height.  She came in at the 95% for height and 75% for weight, so she may end up being the tall one in the family.  

 

Paige's vocabulary has also been a surprise to us lately.  She's always spoken fairly well, but right around her birthday it just seemed to explode.  Often times she speaks in full sentences and it's so cool to be able to carry on conversations with her.  Her facial expressions during any conversation are hilarious, which makes it even more fun.  Oh my goodness does that girl have a lot of faces. Sometimes it scares me for when she's a teenager.  Her staredown and eye roll are already pretty stellar.          

 

The morning of her birthday, all ready to party with her friends at Miss Kathy's.

We had her Bubble Guppies birthday party the weekend after her actual birthday, and she had a lot of fun.  We were so thankful that all of her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and best friends were there to party with her.

The girl who made her birthday cake graciously made a separate dairy free cupcake for her so she could partake in the yummy goodness!  It was a treat that she rarely gets so she was very happy!

Some of her cousins and friends (and sister)......and if you look closely in the background behind Autumn you will see Paige making one of the faces I referred to earlier :)

Time for presents!  After all the practice she got opening Christmas presents, she was a pro for her birthday.  She loved all of her gifts, including her Bubble Guppies Molli doll that she's opening in this picture.

Christmas 2012

 

 

Christmas is always such a special time of year for our family, and this year was no exception.  What made it even more special was that this year we had two kids who were so excited to spend a bunch of time with our families, and of course excited for Santa to come.  I think Paige is all caught up with her sister on the lyrics to every Christmas song, and we loved listening to them shout out songs in the car.  Unfortunately both girls were sick for much of the week between Christmas and New Years, so that week was a little more low key than we had planned.  I must say though that both Autumn and Paige were such troopers.  Paige managed to make us laugh while she was throwing up, and Autumn still got bundled up Christmas Day to celebrate Grandpa Latta's birthday with him and the whole family at Aunt Shannon's house.  (At that point we didn't realize it was the flu.  Although Christmas is the season for giving, I don't think our family appreciated that gift as much.)

 

 

We love going to the lights at the zoo every year, and luckily we had a Saturday evening in December that felt like October, so it was the perfect time to go! 

Hmm, wonder where Autumn got those cheeks from?!

Well you can't have dirty teeth when you're all dressed up and going to a party!

Something else that made this Christmas even more special was that Autumn got to join her cousin Maddie in the Christmas play at Harlem Church ths year.  We watched Maddie perform last year and Autumn couldn't wait to turn four and be old enough to participate.  Both Nick's parents and my parents made the trip to watch the performance, and that meant the world to her.  She and Maddie were both angels, which meant matching costumes!  Autumn was in heaven.

This picture makes me smile every time I look at it.  I don't think I've ever seen her so happy.  She got to put on a pretty costume that included a tutu and make-up, stand on stage and sing a bunch of Christmas songs, and do it all with Maddie.  And to top it off, Jacob brought them flowers!  How adorable!!

Let the gift giving begin!  We went up to G&G Church's house on December 16th to celebrate Christmas with Nick's family.  The girls both received some very special gifts (like this grocery store stand, a stuffed Nala for Autumn, and Bubble Guppies toys for Paige). They were thrilled to hang out with Brady and Riley all day. 

We got a little bit of snow the week before Christmas, and luckily it was enough to do some backyard sledding, because little did we know that when the real snow came the girls would be feeling too yucky to go out and play.  Paige wasn't as into the sledding actually.  She took one round around the yard and said "mommy, Paige all done".  Her time outside was short lived :).

Autumn, on the other hand, couldn't pry herself away from her sled.   Nick built up a little hill to pull her over, and the farther she jumped and fell off her sled, the happier she was.

 

All ready for church on Christmas Eve.  

When we got home from church, Nick helped the girls scatter food for the reindeer.

 Santa jammies - check!  Cookies and egg nog for Santa - check!  Carrots ready to set outside for the reindeer - check!  All ready for Santa to come!

Christmas morning - Paige was SO happy to have her very own LeapPad!  Santa must have noticed how much she LOVED playing with her sister's!  After she opened that, she was in a zone.

 

Not the most exciting gift, but this was the biggest smile we could get out of Autumn Christmas morning.  Poor girl was so sick, she had forgotten it was Christmas when she woke up.  She was, however, very happy with Santa.  He brought her all the top things on her list - a princess castle, doctor mommy doll and a Jake and the Neverland Pirates ship.     

The weekend after Christmas we went to G&G Latta's house to celebrate with the Latta family.  Thanks to our germ sharing earlier in the week, all four grandkids had a fever by that Saturday afternoon.  Fortunately they were all in pretty good spirits when we woke up Saturday morning to open gifts, but by that evening there was a record amount of coughing and sneezing.  My parent's house was like a petri dish, but hopefully they were still happy to have us all there.  Since the kids were sick Nick and Brian stayed home from the extended Latta family gathering with them.  We were all bummed that they all missed it, but I think our aunts, uncles and cousins thanked us :).

One of Autumn's favorite gifts that day - an Ariel wedding dress!

Paige has always had a bit of a phone obsession, so she was a all smiles after opening a new phone from her cousins and one from her grandparents.  She likes to walk around with one up to each ear saying "two phones, two phones". 

 

Grandma Latta surprised all the kids by making them their own robes!  They are so comfy and the girls love putting them on after bath time to warm up. 

 

Fall 2012

 

 

  Ahh - time for cooler weather, colorful leaves, and football!!  Just a few reasons why fall is probably our favorite season.  We had a great season and were able to do all of our traditional fall and Halloween activities.  There is a wonderful pumpkin farm about 10 minutes from our house, and between Autumn's fieldtrip and our usual family trip, had a lot of fun checking out the farm animals, running through the straw maze, playing in the corn box (corn instead of sand), and picking pumpkins!

 

 Autumn trying to find her perfect pumpkin during her fieldtrip.

The girls loved running through the maze and crawling through the "chicken coop".

Paige was one happy girl running around the farm.  She loved petting the newborn calf and imitating the sheep and chicken sounds.

Making caramel apples has become a tradition for us.  It's a tough job but someone has to do it.

Paige and Nick bonding over some pumpking carving. 

The final products.....smiley pumpkin, cat pumpkin and scary pumpkin. 

Yes we realize that Paige may hate us someday for making her dress up as a gnome, but come on, it's hilarious and I have never met a cuter gnome in my life!  Even if she tries to deny it later, Paige loved the gnome costume and Autumn was thrilled to be a mermaid for a day (which as of now is what she says she wants to be when she grows up).  As you can tell, they were very ready to go trick-or-treating!!!

Trick-or-treat!!!  Time to collect our loot!

 

Summer 2012

This is a pretty long update, covering everything from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  This summer was fast and fun....and HOT!  Most of our weekends outside were spent in the water, whether it was the blow up pool or water slide in the backyard, a splash park, the city pool, a family member's pool, or a lake.  The girls are also fortunate that our sitter has a pool, and they were able to do a lot of swimming during the day.  We were excited for this summer to come since we were able to do a lot more as a family.  Last summer was a lot of divide and conquer since Paige was so little, and it was really nice to be together having so much fun.  We are loving the girls at these ages, and love watching them interact more and more with each other.  I think they are becoming pretty great friends these days. 

Autumn's first day of preschool was a clear reminder that summer is almost over, but we were able to squeeze in one more relaxing weekend at the lake over Labor Day.  We also had a great time wrapping up the summer with the Latta family at the end of August (Lattapalooza as it's now called).  We aren't quite ready for tennis shoes and jacket season.


After not making it up to G&G Church's lakehouse all last year, we were more than ready for Memorial weekend to come.  We had a great time as usual.

A typical summer day, trying to stay in the shade and in the water!

 

Another first for the girls - strawberry picking!  Paige was more interested in eating the berries rather than picking them, so we had to watch her closely :)

This was one HOT summer, so we spent a lot of time in pools and at splash parks.   The girls loved running through the water and playing with the fountains. 

Autumn got to spend a week at vacation bible school with Maddie and a whole lot of other kids.  She loved and we are still listening to the songs daily.

Happy Fourth of July!  We made it through the fireworks just before the thunderstorm rolled in.

Autumn was is heaven getting to ride in Grandpa Latta's vette! 

When it was too hot to be outside, what else is there to do except chase each other around the house with strollers!  This was an almost daily occurance for a month straight.

Autumn and Maddie in their matching horse pajama dresses.  Anytime Autumn can match with Paige or Maddie, she's in heaven. 

We spent a weekend in July visiting the Carters (college friends).  They were so nice to take us out on the boat for a few hours, and Autumn shocked us all by jumping right into the tube and going for a ride with Daddy and Mommy.  She loved it and we loved watching her be fearless about it!

 

Autumn's first day of her second year of preschool.  She was so excited and so ready to get back to school.  I have no doubt it will be another great year for her at ATC!

 

While we were in Napoleon for our Latta family gathering, we had the opportunity to visit some great friends and meet their new horses (thanks Elisa, Kate and Ava).  Maddie and Autumn couldn't wait to ride, and they both did a great job.  Jacob and Paige decided to sit it out and watch their big sisters :).

 

Paige wasn't quite ready to ride the horses, but she found someone a little more her size - Steve the goat!  It was so cute watching him follow Paige around. 

Back at the Church lakehouse, ending our summer the way it started.  After hours of playing and swimming, the girls were ready to chill out and watch a little Fox and the Hound.

Love this picture - the water was freezing and they couldn't have cared less.  I think Brady is trying to kung fu a fish or something!

Paige, on the other hand, cared a little more about the water temperature.  She found a good spot on shore playing with the sand.