Growing up

My girls. They are growing up.

I know you may be laughing. I mean, my oldest is not even 3 yet (although her birthday is less than 2 months away) and my youngest is 3 months old. But still, it's just going by so fast.

Brian and I promised each other 2 kids. We would have at least 2 kids and then we'd discuss if we wanted more or we were done. Well, here we are with 2 kids and we feel done.

I feel like we have our two beautiful girls and this is our little family of 4. I love our life, I love our girls and I'm happy.

I will say I look at Reese and think, "Oh my word, this is my LAST baby. Ahhh!" It's so sad to think I won't ever hold a brand new baby in my arms that I just gave birth too. But is that a good reason to have a baby? Because you want that exciting moment where you hold them for the first time? I feel so complete with my girls, I think I'm just mourning the loss of the baby stage since this is my last time going through it.

Oh hello blue eyes!

I'm soaking it all up. The soft baby skin, the sweet coos, the innocent smiles and adorable belly laughs. Babies are magical.

Especially mine ;)

What do you think? How do you know when you are done?

I just love the Holidays

We had such a wonderful Christmas season this year. We are blessed with two beautiful healthy daughters and that's all we can really ask for. But our families spoiled us with their company and a few gifts :)

Christmas Eve was at our house and I enjoyed it so much. I had been looking forward to it so much and loved having family over. We took our time opening presents, drinking wine, and eating dinner.

Aunt Heather and little Reese

Sisters

Bria had a blast opening presents and was so nice to help Reese open hers as well.

Rocking my baby.

Bria and Grammy dancing to the new toy Aunt Sara got her

Grammy feeding her baby

Bria shared her cookie with Heather, this was a big moment because Bria tends to be a hoarder of sweets.

Making a gingerbread man

In the morning when Bria woke up we brought her downstairs to show her what Santa had left for everyone.

What Santa brought for Reese on her first Christmas :)

Santa's gift to Bria

She was pretty excited about it. Especially the candy left in her stocking.

My musical child

All ready for the Christmas day to begin

Once we had opened gifts, ate our Christmas tradition breakfast (cinnamon rolls), and got ready for the day, we headed down to my Dad's. It was a wonderful day and it was really nice to be with the family.

Jenny and Kyle

Aunt Kayla and Reese

My Dad with his 6 kids. Lance LOVES that he has 5 sisters ;)

Crazy Uncle Lance

Group photo! This is a huge task, and a few of us were sweating by the time it was all said and done.

We got home yesterday and took our tree down. I packed up all the Christmas decorations and I'm so sad the Holiday season is over. It was such a magical season and I didn't want it to end. I just love Christmas time :)

3 months

We did it, we survived the first 3 months! The newborn days can be easy at times, but overall they are hard. I'm glad Reese is 3 months, she is so much fun. It's so easy to get her to smile and she's starting to laugh more and more.

Her 'Santa Baby' onesie and tutu, courtesy of Ya-ya

Reese is incredibly ticklish. I try not to tickle her too much because she's too young to tell me to stop if she doesn't like it, but I sure like hearing her laugh and seeing her squirm.

She's lifting her head up so well when she's on her tummy, she finally likes tummy time. She is trying really hard to roll from her back to her tummy and it's super cute. But diaper changes are already challenging, isn't that way too soon?!

She's wearing 3 month clothes and size 1 diapers. I think she's about 12 pounds but that's a guess. She loves "standing" and I can't believe how strong she is, it's quite impressive. She is still not a fan of the car seat but every once and awhile she tolerates it. Reese was only waking up once at night for a little bit but now it's twice again. She takes about 3 naps a day, 2 are short and one is long. She LOVES being naked and loves her baths.

She fell asleep during the photo shoot.

Not really, that would've been awesome.

"Oh, hello there."

"Yeah, I kind of like to be the star of the picture, you understand."

"Say wha? I am too the star!"

"Are you for real?!"

"Just pretend to get along, okay."

She is liking Bria more and more and is easily entertained by her. Although she loves her mama, she is pretty good about letting other people hold her.

I'm looking forward to her very first Christmas, she's going to get spoiled!

Outside and baby laughs!!

It has been freezing here lately but it didn't rain for like 2 weeks, wahoo!! So during Reese's naps, Bria and I would bundle up and head out in the backyard. We would make mud soup, play follow the leader, kick the ball around, and walk on the little garden ledge (Bria's favorite thing to do).

I didn't take pictures of the days we made mud soup, but let's just say that I soaked her clothes in oxi clean for 2 days to get all the dirt out. But she had fun so it was worth it.

Havin' fun :)

Gotcha!

My goofy girl.

Bria has been acting out a little and I'm pretty sure it's her adjusting to having a little sister and sharing Mommy. She hasn't been playing on her own very much and requires me to be by her side all day. Which is hard to do while also taking care of a baby. So I've been trying to be super sensitive and give Bria attention and include her in taking care of Reese, it's helped a little.

Reese has been doing well and only getting up once to eat the last 6 out of 7 nights. I really like when she only gets up once :) And I do enjoy that one on one time with her, it's nice to rock her and listen to her sweet little breathing while I burp her. I smell the back of her neck and kiss her soft cheeks, I'm just soaking her up as much as I can.

My sweet Reese's pieces

Happy girl!

She is quite a happy little baby. After she eats she usually talks and smiles and coos which is so fun. Then she wants to be held and will be content in my arms, it's a wonderful feeling.

On Wednesday she laughed for the first time!!! It's amazing what a miracle that sound is, I can't get enough. When Brian got home I was able to get her to laugh again and he was so excited. I love baby laughs!!

I think I am about done with Christmas shopping, just have a few little things I want to pick up. Since we rotate families each year (we have 4 families to see which was fine before kids but it's just too hard now, so we do 2 one year and the other 2 the next) this year is with Marna and Terry on Christmas Eve and then my Dad and Anna on Christmas day. I'm so excited because Marna and Terry are coming up on Christmas Eve and we're going to have it at our house. I'm really looking forward to it, plus that means the girls get to wake up on Christmas morning at their own house and that excites me so much! After we open presents and get ready we'll head down to my Dad's. It should be an amazing Christmas, I love spending so much time with family.

I cried

So yeah. The girls were part of the Nativity play that Marna's church does every year. Bria was an adorable little sheep and Reese got to be baby Jesus. I was so excited to see the girls up there. The sheep were to come crawling in down the aisle and when I turned around and saw my sweet little Bria crawling with all the other sheep I started getting all teary eyed. Blame it on the hormones I guess. It was seriously so cute. She sat with all the other sheep and the nursery teacher throughout the whole thing (about an hour) and did AWESOME. She did better than she would've with us. What made me crack up was how much of a teacher's pet she was, she wanted to be by the teacher at all times. She does NOT get that from her Dad, just sayin'.

Love my girls!

Reese. I was a little worried about how Reese would do since she loves Mommy holding her. But the sweet little eighth grade girl that played Mary was so wonderful with her. You can tell she has younger siblings because she was just knew how to hold her and what to do. Reese didn't make a peep! Can you believe it?! I carried her up to Mary once she sat down and throughout the whole thing Reese just looked around bright eyed and enjoyed herself.

Baby Jesus and Mary :)

My little sheep!

Adorable tail

Joseph looks thrilled doesn't he? ;) Guess he's still in shock that is fiance got pregnant.

Mary and my baby Jesus :)

Bria, the sheep. The sheep came up and sang two songs with little hand motions and my heart melted. She knew Away in a Manger really well and she even waved when she saw us, LOVE IT!

I was so proud of my little sheep, she behaved so well. Oh and yeah, I didn't get the memo about dressing her in all white. I should've figured it out myself but I had Christmas dress on my mind and nothing else :)

The shepherd on the left is having a great time ;)

Joseph admiring what a great Mom Mary is :)

My purple sheep

Both my girls making their acting debut!

cuteness!

Love it!

It was terrific. I was such a proud Mommy and I think Marna was quite proud too. So happy the girls did well, it was so much fun.

After the service there were refreshments and socializing. Bria got 3 cookies and juice so yeah, she was happy. And then bouncing off the walls of course.

Proud Grammy with her son and granddaughters

Bria did great throughout the whole morning, but she was definitely ready to go by the end.

The sugar high started to go away and was replaced with crankyness so we left :)

I'm so glad the girls got to be apart of it, such a fun thing for us all.