we tried

Kylene and Connor looked so DARLING in their Christmas attire. all we wanted to do was take a few pictures for posterity. i mean, is that too much to ask?
these were our best ones. posterity will see we were a normal family after all. :)

Holly Jolly

some friends of ours let us borrow their Santa hat for a few days after seeing how much Connor was into wearing it. the next day (Sunday) I came out from getting ready and saw the hat on Byron and each kid taking a turn sitting on his lap. the most hilarous thing though, was that Kylene wanted Byron to wear the hat always and would find it, give it to him when he came home from work, then motion for him to sit on the couch and back up into him to sit on his lap. it cracked us up!

hey, the girl knows what she wants and she knows how to communicate it. i love that about her.

Santa Train Ride

earlier this month we went on a Santa Train ride at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. Connor was sooooooooooooooo excited and Byron and I were excited too! Our train departed at 6:00 and it was packed with excited children and their parents. The train was decked out in Christmas lights and the whole route was all light up was Christmas decor. the train stopped at the North Pole were an Elf came and gave each child a candy cane and told them to keep their eye out for Rudolph and to tell him to come home! if they saw him. Santa also came and visited with each child and Connor was pretty star struck.

afterwards, we did some crafts and Connor and Byron got their faces painted like Rudolph (Connor thought it was GREAT that Byron got his face painted too).

Kylene loved all the blow-up Christmas decorations and we couldn't pry that sticky mess of a candy cane from her chubby little hands.

hooray for the Santa Train Ride!

book worm

often, when Kylene is quiet, I'll find her sitting in Connor's rocking chair flipping through a book. as soon as she's done, she'll scoot herself off the chair, go pick out another book from Connor's book shelf, and shimmy herself back up.
she's totally enthralled and doesn't ever notice me watching.

it's about the cutest darn thing I've ever seen. :)

thanksgiving 2009

this year, with Byron working the Friday after Thanksgiving, we decided to stay home and have a "relaxing" day together as a family. (if you can call any day relaxing with two small children. fun yes, relaxing no.)

i have to say, we had a super delicious feast as evidenced by our succulent bird. :)

since we live in North Carolina and this place is awesome, it was a beautiful day to go to the park. we went for 2 hours and had a great time. we went on a "bear hunt" (hike) through the woods and our rock and stick specialist (Connor) collected many special treasures along the way.

we couldn't be more thrilled with each other and come on, with these two pumpkins can we ask for anything more?

we are so blessed and try to be mindful of our blessings daily. i'm so grateful for this time of year that gives us a chance to reflect on all the wonders in our life and be happy with each other.

happy 1st birthday!

on Thursday, November 19th, our little Kylene turned 1 year old!

she had a little cold that day, but it didn't seem to keep her down and we had such a wonderful day celebrating our sweetheart.

that afternoon Byron came home early from work (Byron was our photographer for the night and this is the only picture we have to show he was there--sorry Byron!)

and Maw Maw and Paw Paw drove down from Virginia.

Mimi and Papa came up from South Carolina,

and Kylene found a new friend in Paw Paw.

Nana was there as well (she has come for the birthday week) and kept Connor entertained with a sword fight.

Connor has us all laughing as he would voluntarily bend over for a wack. :)

the time came for presents...

and Connor opened his up first! (Nana was nice enough to bring a new pair of Nike's from Grandpa and two cool swords so Connor could have some present excitement too).

Kylene also liked the swords

but seemed most fascinated by two new books.

there's big brother again, helping open

a present from Mom and Dad that both the kids got a kick out of.

Kylene was fascinated by her new baby doll

and loved on her the rest of the night.

after dinner it was time for cake!

the Birthday Girl was dainty at first.

but then decided the plate-in-the-face method worked better.

delicious!

the aftermath. the girl needs a bath!

after her bath, our neighbor and friends stopped by to give Kylene a Little People bus which she loves.

It was so wonderful having so many family members with us to celebrate this wonderful girl. Happy Birthday Kylene!