My Life

Life is hard. There are a lot of struggles, but guess what? I always have these crazy girls to keep me happy and smiling.

I haven't been able to spend much time with them lately- but the time I do have is hectic on the go. So this is why I feed Cara yogurt on the floor, without her pants on, with Ryann riding on my back and trying to get me to turn on a movie for her. Not to mention the breast pump in the background, the dirty diaper on the table and toys everywhere. And Christmas is still up. When will I find time to take that down??

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Thank goodness Rich was able to catch the moment on camera. WAIT? WHAT? Why wasn't he pulling a child off of me or feeding the other or turning on a movie or cleaning up a dirty diaper or toys??

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Oh well, at least he gave me something to blog about.

New Trick

Cara has a new trick (besides the army crawl)

Cara started CLAPPING yesterday. She loves it and thinks it is the greatest thing ever.

Spotted

So sorry. The headband was spotted once again! This is Cara holding on to my new "Teething BLING!" Smart Mom Jewelry makes these awesome necklaces that are really teething rings. Thanks so much Katie for the Christmas present!

Happy day with her new Curious George monkey.

Extended Christmas

Man, I am sure trying to extend this Christmas blogging for days and days... not to mention that BOW!
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If Cara was a celebrity she would be shunned by now for wearing the same accessory over and over and over again.From the words of my mother: "at least she is cute"

Christmas PJs

For Christmas this year we got matching Mickey Mouse PJs to get excited for our trip to Disneyland in January. All I can say is "Poor Rich"

Myself and the girls thought the PJs were FABULOUS! In fact, Nugs wouldn't take off her Minnie Mouse nightgown the entire Christmas Day.

My biggest shock is that Uncle Lee found a glow worm for Cara for Christmas! Those things were cool when I was little.

:)

Cara's Redo

Cara was so sweet and we got a lot of fun pictures of her- but with her big cheesy grin they all looked about the same.

She has a little rash around her mouth because of drool- teething. :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Ryann's Redo

SUCCESS!

We got some smiles.

We got laughs.

And there was a lot of bribery involved

And everyone was happy in the end.

Can I get a re-do?

I am going to ask the girls for a "re-do" for their Christmas dress pictures. We didn't have time before church and after church we were all just so done.

(I think Ryann is already on facebook in the above picture!)

We only have 1 more sunday of 1:00 church and then it will be 9am!! I am soooo excited.

New Christmas Decorations

I have some new Christmas Decorations to put up every year!

(or at least until they fade or get gross or replaced by new decorations)

Cute little foot and hand prints from Cara and Ryann's preschool.

Cara in Pictures

She is moving and scooting and officially started the army crawl today. She even scoots herself forward when she is sitting up. She got all the attention yesterday when Ryann was down for her nap so here she is playing with Ryann's chair. (Ryann would never let Cara touch her chair if she was awake!)

Ooops. She didn't even make a peep when this happened and good thing because I was laughing really hard.

My forever happy baby... as long as you are giving her attention... she is a little actress and acts the part... she smiles for the camera... and for anyone who looks her way.

Jingle Bells

My little Cara is scooting all over the place and here is evidence that Ryann likes my camera. Oh- and some jingle bells thrown in to show you how well Ryann is doing in her speech developement.

Say "Click"

"Take A Pic"

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Ryann likes Diego (the TV show- Dora the explorers cousin). She likes Diego because he has a camera. Click the Camera. So now obviously Ryann likes my camera.

She has finally figured out that to take a picture you face the lens at what you want to take a picture of instead of turning the lens toward your eye.

Now we just need to teach her how to take her finger off the lens.

Baby's First Christmas

Cara is fascinated with the Christmas Tree and the lights and the ornaments. All the hard work Ryann did to get the tree decorated was quickly negated when I sat Cara up for some pictures. I guess she was sort of tired and was having none of that posing for the camera like she usually does.

In fact- all she really wanted was to play.

Oh Christmas Tree

We finally got our Christmas Tree decorated. We put it up on Saturday but we didn't get it decorated until yesterday due to busy busy schedules. Here is RyRy and Daddy hanging up ornaments.

Ryann didn't quite get the hang of it- basically all of the ornaments ended up on one branch and then that branch fell down and they all fell off. A lot of "UH OHs" went on last night.

And here is a little kiss goodnight! Taken by Ryann herself.

Good Times

I might have mentioned before that Rich plays the piano for the children's primary at our church. He loves it. The kids love him. And more importantly the kids love to abuse him.

This picture is after the choir director told the kids that "All Brother Hamilton wants for Christmas is HAIR". So the kids sang their little hearts out and if they sang good then they could place some ribbon "hair" on his head.

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What a good sport.

Yummy

I had my first attempt at the amazing cake pops by BAKERELLA (the website isn't working right now so I will post a link later).

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Basically it is a cake crumbled up, mixed with frosting, put on a lollypop stick, and then dipped in chocolate candies. As you can imagine this is amazing.

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As you can also imagine. Rich was more than willing to clean up the mess-ups and broken Christmas trees that I was making.

Here are my Christmas Trees trying to dry.

And here they are all wrapped up and ready to go. I am planning to get all these out to nice homes within the next week or so... hopefully before Rich gets to them!

Are you feeling the Christmas Spirit yet?

A little short

She crawls backwards and in circles and she is trying really hard to crawl forwards. She shimmys and scoots forward, but no crawling yet. She tries to pull herself up but isn't very successful yet. So this picture was done with some help from me. :)

A little blurry- but she is kind of short still so it is funny.

Daddy did it again

Daddy got Ryann dressed for bed last night in her "pajamas"????

This morning I informed him that the shirt Ryann is wearing is actually one of Cara's little dresses that goes with leggings. I guess I should just be happy she had clothes on.

Piggie Tail

Cara's first piggie tail! Thanks to Daycare of course. Yesterday they put everyone's hair in pig tails- even the little boy who has hair like a girl. :)

All in good fun.

You see the piggie tail better in the bottom picture, but she is just so cute in the top. Oh- and last night we gave her a roll and she devoured it. Pictures will come later.

Decorations

I am hoping you all are more excited about this Christmas Season and decorations than Nugs is.

This is the picture I got when I told her to stand by the advent calendar and smile.

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In all reality she is pretty excited about the decorations. We just need to get the tree this weekend.

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Grandma Mingo bought us some lights that when you plug them in they play Christmas music. We taught Ryann how to plug and unplug them and for the first day she had it on almost all day. The second day she unplugged them when she wanted to watch TV, and yesterday she only had them on for like 30 seconds. hehe. This girl has a mind of her own.

Nativity

We put up our little people nativity set on saturday and I think the Baby Jesus has only been in the right spot for about 10 minutes. As well as every other piece of the nativity! Ryann brings them all over the house and here she is showing us how they can all watch TV with her.

And for your added pleasure here is a video of her counting. A little bit off, but cute none the less.

Gangsta

Do you think my white skinned, rosy cheeked baby can pass as a "gangsta"? Look at how she sports that beanie.

Peace

Christmas is a time for Peace. So I thought I would put up this amazing picture of some beautiful white doves which symbolize Peace.

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That and Uncle Zach. I am sure Uncle Zach is saying "Peace" when he was posing for the camera here.

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Really I just like the picture.

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Hope you have a lot of PEACE this holiday season.

I am planning on it.

Christmas Card Pictures

Welcome to the cruel world of Christmas Card Pictures- 2009

However, I think this year was not quite as bad as last year- 2008

Hopefully we got some good pictures, it only took bribing with toys, cookies, and pickles.

Swaddle Time

I don't understand how my sister Ashley can still swaddle her 4 1/2 month old. I think Cara was done with that really early on. Probably had to do with the fact that we let her sleep on her tummy..... Anyway.... this past weekend in Napa we thought it would be fun to bundle them both up.... obviously for blogging purposes!

Cara enjoyed it but I really don't think she would have lasted long if we tried to put her to sleep t his way. This girl loves her thumb way too much!

Anyway, these cute girls are 2 1/2 months different in age but basically the same size. I am also sure they love hanging out and playing with each others toys.

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I am sure they both love Ethan kisses too(ashley's 5 year old) - because I don't think that boy ever stops giving kisses. Even when he is sick and tries to spread his illness to as many people as possible. Check out Devyn's post

Decmber 1st

Today is December 1st.

How did this happen?

Only one more month until 2010.

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Time to put the turkey hat away.

Almost time for the Christmas Tree.

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Now when can I find time for a Christmas tree?

I think I forgot to mention my cute little girls got sick on our trip. Last night on the airplane the both crashed because they had fevers. We picked CK up at daycare with a fever of 103.4 and Nugs had just thrown up. Double ear infection for Ryann (she has never had one!) and just a virus for CK. My poor babies.

Last Day

Today is my last day in Napa. I haven't taken many pictures but I have spent a lot of time with family. Yesterday we took the girls to visit some long lost friends who live in the Sacramento area. It was great to see them and spend time with them like time had never passed at all.

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Don't you love those visits?

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Well now I am off to the outlets to return one of those impulse buys. Then I will probably go out to lunch to celebrate the new changes that happened at my office today.

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The past year has been tough at my job but with the removal of some, and a brand new addition of a new and excellent doctor, things are about to start over fresh and WONDERFUL!

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I am actually excited to go to work tomorrow and see what the day holds.

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Sorry to everyone for being grumpy for the past year. That is what stress can do to you. This year will be much better. Especially thanks to my sweet hubby for still standing strong by my side through all of this. I love you!

Classic Pictures

Here is the best picture of the day. This "Aunt Fifi's Jello Salad" was in the back of the garage freezer. It had been there since last thanksgiving. Yes, there is mold on there.

Oh wait, here is another classic. Erin is constantly trying to kiss the babies in the family, Zach tried to ruin pictures, I laugh at everyone, and Rich is posing of course.

Look how much fun Nugs had playing football with all the big boys at the turkey bowl.

Check it out- Here I am with CK and she has the snot bubble of the century. I am not joking. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Ryann loves her uncle Zach and all the fall leaves. These are new and exciting for her.

Oh Cara- you poor thing. You get dragged all over town whether you like it or not.

So those are the top pictures of the trip to Napa for Thanksgiving!