May your Holiday be filled with Joy!

Love,

the White family

Santa Pictures

A friend of ours invited Santa to her house, so the girls and I were able to go over and enjoy pictures with Santa. As you can see, Annie had a great time! This is exactly what Natalie did when she was this age, but I just had to get a picture of it before I took her off. Mean, but I have always loved that picture of Nat. Natalie, on the other hand, loved seeing Santa. She gave him a big hug and probably would have sat on his lap the whole time if he had let her.

First "real" haircut

This is the first time I've had someone else cut Natalie's hair. It was in serious need of a trim. I told the lady shoulder length, or just below, but she did it a little shorter. I think it turned out cute though! And it's nice and healthy on the ends now.

Before:



After:

What's been keeping me busy...

*Going to Utah for Thanksgiving and visiting with James' family. His sister, Laurie, was kind enough to run in a 5K on Thanksgiving Day with me, so I did it! And I only walked for maybe 3 minutes, I completely ran the first and third mile, Laurie kept me motivated!
*Upon my return, I immediately became busy with making sure Enrichment night happened for 50 people, I had three days from when I got home, and luckily an amazing committee. So glad that's over.
*Decorating for Christmas, I love it, especially the tree. Natalie had a great time helping out with the ornaments this year. So there are about 20 ornaments on the bottom branches of our tree, I didn't move them because I thought it was so cute, and of course, just the right height for Annie to grab them off.
*Trying to get my now 14 month old to walk, she'll take a few steps, but she is convinced crawling is the best way.
*A fun sewing project to give away, I'll post pictures after I actually give them away.
*Just enjoying my girls, we have a lot of fun together. More posts to come with pictures.

Simple Boy Blanket

I love making baby blankets because they're so quick! I did this during naptime the other day. Now who's having a boy out there, because it seems like everyone I know is having a girl this time around!

Love, September Giveaway

My good friend Beth is an amazing seamstress and is having a giveaway on her blog. Check out her Etsy shop here. I am so amazed she can do all this with an active two year old and an itty bitty baby.

Isn't this cute?



You could win it! Just go to her blog and leave a comment under this post.

November Heat

Those of you who live in California know that we totally skipped Fall here, and we might skip Winter too, and just go straight to Spring/Summer. We've had 80 degree weather almost this entire month, and even 90 degree weather at times. Well, I was looking through old pictures and I found this one:



Date: November 10, 2006. I'm beginning to think it's always this hot in October and November and we just forget every year and complain that it's so hot THIS year. So note to self: just accept that we don't have Fall in southern California, it WILL be hot through Thanksgiving and no cozy sweaters will be worn (cross our fingers) until December.

P.S. I don't want any of you out-of-staters rolling your eyes, the heat can get old!

Weekend Away

Sometimes it's nice just to break up the routine and take a weekend away. It's been awhile for us, so it was fun to visit a childhood vacation spot of mine, Warner Springs Ranch. It was a low-key, nothing to do, family trip. No phones, no internet, no tv (gasp). Just good clean family fun. And then when the trip was over, it was nice to get right back into that old routine.

We took a little excursion to Julian, apple country. Went on a train ride, panned for gold, saw a real gold mine, fun stuff!

Why not?

Let's just add another craft/hobby to my ever growing list: crocheting. I'm rather enjoying it, this book I bought has some really great projects in it. Hopefully, this "phase" will last more than five minutes. I really want to learn how to do the cute wrap sweater in this book!

Halloween 2008

This is the best picture I could get of the girls together, sad, I know.



Our little bunny, still sick, but hanging in there.



Prima ballerina



The jock and the cheerleader, desperately trying at least.

Ballerina

Natalie was so excited to go with her friend Audrey to ballet class yesterday. They were allowed to wear their halloween costumes, which was perfect, since Natalie is going to be a ballerina for Halloween. I'm so proud she's following in her Mother's footsteps. =)

Poor Baby

Double ear infections. Strep throat. Infected tear ducts. It's been a rough week.

I cut my hair again.

For your Amusement

Empowerment

I just ran 20 straight minutes. I have never ran 20 straight minutes in my LIFE. I have been fearing this day all week. But I knew I had to do it. Just so I could blog that I did it.

Sorry Nat

I was just noticing I haven't posted any pictures of the Nat girl lately. It's all about Annie. Annie, Annie, Annie! So here are some cute pics of our dear girl:

Check out those eyelashes!



This is a classic Natalie face.

Annie's 1!

It's Annie's first birthday today! We love our Annie girl and are so glad she's part of our family. Happy Birthday!

My sad attempt at a birthday cake, at least the icing tastes good.

Happy 30th!

James is 30 today!



He didn't know I was taking his picture here, I kinda like it...I'm not too sure if he does or not. Oh swell! Hope you have a great day today sweetie.

Oh and just so you know, I'm still in my 20's, ha!

A Sunday BBQ

Yesterday we went to the park with some friends to have a Fall BBQ. These pictures were taken of Annie (unfortunately, not by me, but by a friend with one of those cool cameras). I just thought they were cute. It makes me want to get one of those cool cameras.





For those of you who haven't seen Ann in the past week or two, her nose is red because she did a face plant at the park. Following in the footsteps of her older sis.

Natalie's Room

So Natalie's room was looking a little blah, as you can see. So I made a goal to make some things for her walls, but with as little money as possible (aren't you proud of me, Beth?). Here's the result, and I'm happy to report I spent no money (or no FURTHER money was spent, as my financial advisor husband put it so nicely).

Before:



After:



A mirror finally hung on the wall, with two pegs: a project finally finished.



I just painted these $1 pegs and then decoupaged these butterflies on that I cut out of cute paper. Get the butterfly pattern here.



Fabric covered letters, simple. I got the idea here.



Fabrics found in my Mom's stash, thanks Mom!



I love how it turned out.



Now I will tackle the other blank wall opposite this one...more later. Let's see how much I DON'T spend.

Annie's Tantrums

This is a face I make about 80 times a day. Especially if you look at me and try to get me to smile.



And this is what I do when the world has come to an end, or if my mom walks away from me for 2.1 seconds.

I'm Feeling Exceptionally Fluffy Today