birthday festivities

warning: this is a picture heavy post. randy's mom was very sad that she could not be here for diane's birthday (we missed you, jeanie), so i promised to take lots of pictures and post them. thus, i did not weed out too many pictures. 

diane wasn't too into the whole present opening process, so madeleine and rachel helped with that. she was very excited about the resulting presents though.

her new baby doll from randy and me.

a blanket for her baby doll from randy's grandparents.

opening a book from randy and me.

diane loves books right now. she just hit the stage where she will walk up to me with a book, hand it down to me, and plop herself down on my lap. i love this stage.

okay, jeanie, i am not just saying this to make you feel better about the fact that you weren't here. the dog was a huge hit. she loves it. after she opened it, she didn't want anything to do with her other presents. she loves the light that lights up on his collar. madeleine is pretty enamored with the dog, too and it may have caused a few tiffs.

onto the cake. beth made a cake for rachel, my mom, and diane. we sang to rachel and she blew out the candles and then we stuck a candle in a piece of cake (unlit - i know my child) and sang to her.

for some reason, this upset her.

but, she got over it and ate her cake. she wasn't quite as dainty as madeleine was on her first birthday, but i have yet to have a child that really gets into the whole first birthday cake thing. maybe i'm doing something wrong. quite frankly, i'm just fine with it.

happy first

diane turned one year old today. and despite this picture, she really did have a great day. i will do a separate post of the birthday festivities, but first, i went through her pictures from the last year and picked a picture from each month of her life. a little age progression via pictures, if you will. if i were more talented or had more time in my life, i would make a collage of sorts. instead, i have posted them in order. if you scroll quickly, it looks like a moving picture.*

at birth

one month old

two months old

three months old

four months old

five months old

six months old

seven months old

eight months old

nine months old

ten months old

eleven months old

yesterday

she seems so grown up all of a sudden. it never ceases to amaze me. kids progress at such a fast rate for the first year and a half of their life. every time you turn around they are reaching some new milestone. diane is a delight and if she would just sleep a little bit better at night, she might be a perfect child.

*does not actually look like a moving picture. 

seriously? you're still here?

this january may have been the longest month of my life. the longest. and it's not even over yet.

october, november, and december flew by, but january decided to dig in its heels and take its sweet time. and it has been a cold month. so cold that the snow didn't melt for weeks and our neighborhood streets and sidewalks were one big ice skating rink. 

so when the snow finally started to melt about a week ago and the sidewalks cleared up, i decided that we were going to get out of the house to try to stem the tide of cabin fever that has washed over our house, engulfing at least madeleine and me, and i'm pretty sure diane.

my hands were frozen about 100 feet into the walk and i figured that if i was that cold and i was doing the walking, it probably wasn't great to keep the girls out in it for too long. we took the short route.

but yesterday was warmer (what is that? grass?!?) and once again, i was determined to exit the house more than twice during the week. i took the girls out in the backyard and even put shoes on diane so that she could do some wandering.

madeleine was in heaven, running around and remembering what it is like to be outdoors.

diane was less sure about the whole thing, but found some fun activities. she really hasn't been outside much since she's been mobile and it was fun to see her amble around. she did not like it when she fell on the snow, though.

it finally got pretty cold and even madeleine complained that she was freezing and needed to go in.

instead of just going in and calling it quits, we ventured back inside and got some warmer gear. this is not the first time that i have used socks for gloves. little babies tend to do better with them than mittens. and much easier to get on.

warm(ish) once again, everyone enjoyed running around some more.

until, at last, we declared the winter the winner and headed inside. madeleine requested some hot cocoa to "warm her all up inside." i told her yes, but distracted her and didn't actually make any, knowing that she would not request it again. she always asks for it after we go outside, but doesn't like it and never drinks more than two sips. i think she just likes the idea of it.

go away january. here's hoping for a faster february, and spring around the corner.

family pictures from 2010

in december, i had audrey take some pictures of us to give to randy's parents for christmas. that is why i didn't blog about them in december, although it doesn't explain why it took so long after christmas. i love the pictures. madeleine was being a little goofy in them (as you will see), but they still turned out great. the only thing that i'm sad about is that i didn't get pictures of each of the girls individually. i just forgot. 

 love this one of the girls together.

i tried to put the pictures into a header so that we could stop pretending that it was summer around this blog, but blogger is being weird and pixelating everything (even the old header, which i tried to put back on), so i've got to figure out what's going on and fix it.