Reese Rene Turns One Year Old!

December 21!  We got to celebrate the special one year old on her actual birthday!  Yeah for weekend birthdays!!!

She is the sweetest, happiest baby.  What a great day celebrating her.  She was too tuckered out at the end to do her cake smash, but the rest of us enjoyed her yummy cake!

Christmas with Jim's Family

We celebrated Christmas with Jim's family on Sunday.  The girls always have fun hanging out with Teddy and getting lots of cuddles with the rest of the family!

Aunt Adrien and Uncle Mike bought them Monster High dolls.  Sydney kept asking for one doll in particular. She was thrilled to open her gift and find the one she really wanted!

Thanks to our family for giving the girls and us a very nice Christmas!

Grandma and Sawyer!

 Cousin Teddy opening up his new sneakers.

 The girls opening up their gifts.

 Hugs and cuddles with Papa!

Sawyer the Dentist

The girls had their 6 month dental visit on Friday.  They love love love going to the dentist (even moreso now that we go to the dental office that Nana works at)! It is hysterical to watch them getting their teeth cleaned and chatting up the staff.  Dr. B gave them each gloves and a mask to take home so they could play dentist.

Sawyer got home and immiately got her doll out, donned her mask and gloves and played dentist!  Too sweet.

Blogging and Camera Misery

Blogging took a backseat over the last few months for several reasons.  The biggest reason is that I am so exhausted by the end of the day that the last thing I feel like doing is picking up my computer.  Crazy school schedule, crazy (although very good) puppy, husband's crazy schedule, etc.  The other big reason is my camera.  Over the last few months I have noticed issues with soft focus.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  After the issue became even more apparent, after I had to fine tune adjust focus, I decided to send my camera to Nikon for repairs. $250 later and the issue doesn't appear to be fixed.  I called service and gave them a piece of my mind.  The report indicated a few standard repairs/service and a few test shots were taken. It appears that the tech tested my camera in Auto and used the pop up flash to test my focus issues.  Freakin ridiculous.  I never shoot Auto and I never use pop up flash.  I was so upset that the issue wasn't resolved.  Needless to say, camera is going back to Nikon.  At their expense this time.  I have to wait until after the holiday so that I am not left without a camera for Christmas.  I am so bummed and disheartened.  Hopefully it will come back to me functioning the way it used to and the way it is supposed too!

So my mom blog will be quiet again after the holiday for a few weeks.  For now, I enjoyed getting some updated photos posted for the family and friends to see.

Dress Up

My girls were huge dress up fans.  As they get older, they rarely dress up anymore.  I hesitate to get rid of the dress up clothes because once in a while, Sawyer will dig through the stuff and find an outfit.  Cute girl.

Snow Storm

We got about 6-8 inches of snow over the weekend.  It was nice searching for a tree in the snow!

I'm not a fan of winter, I'm not a fan of the snow, but I guess a white Christmas is nice!

The girls and puppy loved the snow!

Tree Farm

We have a pitched ceiling in our family room that goes from 9 ft to about 18 or 19 ft.  This year we decided to put the tree into the breakfast nook area so we needed a tall one to fill the space.  After Jim got back from his business trip and I finally got my camera back (still not fixed) back from Nikon, we took a trip to the tree farm in search of an 11 ft tree.  Found one quickly and cut it down.  The girls were so excited!  Jim and I love it too.  I had to go out and buy more ornaments to fill it up!  Luckily my friend suggested Kohl's.  Who knew that store had so many ornaments!

Old Fashioned

I have a love hate relationship with technology.  I love it for myself but sort of fight to let the girls get too obsessed with it.  I love old fashioned letter games and reading/writing/math workbooks.  But the girls like to use our iphones for games and I have noticed a huge difference in their learning curve.

So I decided to stop fighting technology and we splurged on iPad Minis for the girls this Christmas.  They are going to freak out!  I plan to set time limits and as is our other rule, no devices during family time (including while out to dinner).  I hope we continue to see great education skill building with the new devices.  Letters and numbers for Sawyer and reading and math for Sydney!

The other day Sawyer and I were playing with her popsicle letters.  Again, the old fashion way of learning letters.  She loves them, but kept asking if she could play on Daddy's kindle fire.  I said a few more minutes.
She was content for a few minutes after she recited all the letters (all but 5).  Then she gave me the most frustrated sigh.  Then I let her get the kindle.  Hehehehe.

 "I just want Daddy's kindle!!!"

Lunch Antics

Sawyer is a piece of work.  Enough said : )

Thanksgiving

We had an awesome Thanksgiving meal at my parents' house. Shortly after dinner and dessert, Sawyer comes to me and says she doesn't feel well. This is after I discover that she at a large number of desserts after I fed her a reasonable amount. So I quickly ask if she is going to puke and I quickly rush her outside saying that a quick walk will make her feel better. She didn't want to go outside, but soon discovered that our quick walk was fun. We got back inside and she was fine. Later I asked my mom how much dessert she had and who gave her all the treats. Sawyer overheard me and said...

" it was Aunt Jessica, it was all Aunt Jessica."  My mom and I couldn't stop laughing ! The way she said it was so hysterical. Needless to say, Aunt Jess got a talk in' to! I threatened to wake her in the middle of the night if Sawyer puked! She said she was innocent! Hmmmm.

I'm Still Here

I've been busy and busy and busy.  There are a ton of pictures to share, but I am so tired at night that blogging has taken a back seat for the last few weeks!

Here is attempt at holiday card photos.  Tonight the girls did pretty well.  They got Sweet Frog as a reward for giving two good images!

I think this will be the holiday card photo! Not the most perfect, but close enough.

I'll get back to blogging on a regular basis as soon as the camera gets back form Nikon.  Sending my camera in tomorrow for repairs.  Feeling pretty sad about that!  Yikes.

Is it Fall or Summer?!

I'm not complaining about this weather!  It has been so perfect.  Playing outside everynight makes me happy.

Sydney was singing a tune and dancing around the yard while Sawyer played tug of war and fetch with Mia. I'd consider this a perfect fall (feels like Summer) evening!

The Fur Girls

I caught them both at the top of the front porch just hanging out.  Too sweet.

Izzy is now starting to wrestle a little with Mia!  Normally she is just content to cuddle at nap time with the pup, but now seems to be enjoying a bit of barking and chasing with her!

a few more

Costumes and Leaves

Beautiful Weather

We have been outside all the time enjoying this mild fall weather!  Every single minute that we can spare!

 Look what we found!  The Little Mermaid finally came back out on DVD!  I picked a copy up for the girls the day it was released!  They love it as much as I do!

The puppy

I post far too many pictures of Mia, but she really is just too cute not to photograph.

Tree nuts

Our yard is covered in walnut.  Annoyingly big tree nuts!  The girls helped Daddy collect them in big bags for the garbage!  Well, they kind of helped, mostly they just played while Daddy worked!

Apples in September

Apple picking in NY was one of my favorite traditions.  We took the girls apple picking every year.  Apple picking in PA just isn't quite the same.  We have a beautiful farm not far from us but they haven't allowed people to pick their own apples for the last few years.  I miss having the girls pick their own apples from the trees, but we have learned to love our local farm too.  We took the girls two weeks ago and they got to choose apples from the bins inside the beautiful shop.  They also enjoyed a cider donut and apple cider!  We did walk through the orchard to look at the last few apples on the tree and to take pictures.  Of course it was a miserably overcast day with nasty glare, so the pictures aren't my favorite (sad).