Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago I called my sweet friend and photographer, Yvonne Robles, and asked if she had time to squeeze us in for a photo shoot for our Christmas card picture. She was able to meet us within days and during my conference period. And that's why I love her. What I love most is what she captures in between the posed pictures. I had so many favorites, but had to keep it limited to a horizontal picture since I had already purchased the cards.

Here is a peek at a few of my favs...





And the Card Winner...

Our card said, "Meet me under the mistletoe". I thought us walking fit the phrase perfectly.

Christmas

Christmas week started out with a sick little girl.


Lyla woke up Wednesday morning with a fever, runny nose, and a cough. By mid afternoon her fever was up to 102.4 and by late afternoon it was up even higher. I finally put a call into the doctor's officer (after hours of course) and expected a call saying come in the following morning. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by a phone call from our doctor within the hour. (She called from home. Gotta love small towns). She told me colds with higher fevers had been going around and if Lyla's fever wasn't down by Friday morning she would meet me at the office. Well, Wednesday night was a rough one. It was the first time ever that Lyla had a hard time sleeping. She would sleep about 20-30 minutes before a painful coughing fit would wake her up. We all got about 3 hours of sleep (total) that night. We watched lots of Elmo on Netflix. I am thankful for Netflix instant play, but wish they had more than one Elmo movie. Lyla started doing better as the sun came up. She slowly improved, but was still running a fever on Christmas Eve which meant no Christmas Eve service for us. Sadly I was mostly bummed that Lyla didn't get to wear her Christmas dress again.

Christmas Eve we headed over to my parent's house for our traditional dinner and presents. My dad made a delicious dinner, as usual! Lyla was the cutest elf passing out all the presents to the correct people. It took her a while to get into the swing of opening presents. Partly because she doesn't entirely get it yet and partly because we started opening presents too close to bed time.



The Cozy Coupe was the big hit of the night.


Christmas morning we awoke to presents from Santa.


Lyla loved her baby and stroller so much that she didn't want to peek in her stocking or open any other presents for about 2 hours. Silly girl. The nice thing about that though is it makes it all last longer.



Mid morning Andy's mom, grandma, brother and sister came over for brunch and more presents. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of the family, but Lyla enjoyed her time with them. She loves her Uncle Aaron and calls him by name. So sweet.

We are all slowly recovering from Lyla's illness and hoping that Andy and I don't get it. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

20 Months

So I'm a little behind on a Lyla update. All I can tell you is she is growing and changing every day. Her personality is coming out more and more which also means she is frequenting time out more these days. Lyla definitely has her mother's personality. She is a little hard headed and a lot of "my way". She has also gotten really good at saying no and running away, as well as becoming more vocal when she has her tantrums. Makes for some interesting times, but I also know it means she will be strong, independent and driven. And for that I am thankful.

Lyla is also starting to put words together to make phrases. It totally amazes me. Some of her newest phrases are:
- no more
- hi mama, or hi dada
- the other day she said to Andy, "mama said see dada". Now of course it wasn't clear as a bell, but we knew what she was saying.
- kitty at house
- go bye-bye
- school bus
- go outside
- my baby

New words:
- keys
- yellow (and she can pick out things that are yellow)
- moon (which can also sound like more)
- apple
- Santa (and she knows Santa says Ho Ho Ho)

Lyla does this cute little thing where she tilts her head to one side and looks very intently at you when she really wants some thing. She's also gotten a taste for sweets. I have to keep hiding the M&Ms because she remembers where they are and wants, "more".

Lyla's imagination is soaring. She loves to play in the car. She "drives" and turns the lights on and off. She also LOVES her baby dolls. She carries them every where, feeds them, puts them to night-night and pushes them in the stroller. Thankfully Santa and her parents are bringing her lots of baby doll stuff.

Things we done in the past two months...

Gone Christmas tree shopping. This has been a family tradition since I was about 3 and I love passing it along to my daughter.


Helped decorate the house.



Partied with friends.


And just like her mommy, she's all about shoes.