"Techie"

Geoff's company has an annual gathering each January where they sometimes include a "Film Festival".  Geoff was invited to participate in a music video set to Pharrell Williams "Happy".  Geoff started the show, so you only have to watch the first 20 seconds to see the best part of the video!

When the film was debuted at the conference, Geoff was also awarded "Best Dancer with a Hat"!  Congrats, Geoff!

Crafting with Smiles

Hylie loves making things--especially if it also includes making a mess!  She really enjoys coloring, painting, cutting with her scissors, and drawing smiley faces.

If you look closely, you can see that Hylie drew smiley faces on each of the balloons

Hylie doesn't limit her crafting to just crayons and paper.  One day as Hylie was wrapping up her lunch I heard her exclaim, "A smiley face!" and I came over to find this...

 Even Hylie's hair is its own expression of art.  No, her hair nor this photo have been altered, this is truly how Hylie wakes up some mornings!

And where's Eliana during Hylie's busy time?  She's usually hanging out with Mom or chillin' on her blankets just as adorable as ever!

Playing in the Snow

Earlier this month we got quite a bit of snow which brought quite a bit of excitement to Hylie.  Unfortunately, the temperatures stayed well below freezing, so playing outside was not an option for this Mom.  Finally, about a week after the first snow fall, we had temps in the upper 20's so I took Hylie out while Eliana slept in her warm bed.  Hylie was thrilled and the first thing she said when we stepped foot in all the white stuff was, "Let's build a snowman!".  I bent down and gathered a huge ball of snow in my hands only to find, it was super powdery--but how do you explain to a toddler that it's not 'snowman snow'?  I was able to distract her by digging out our little sled and pulled her around our yard and then we climbed 'North Mountain' (which was the pile of snow that accumulated from shoveling our driveway).  I was running out of ideas of what to do in powdery snow, but Hylie wanted to stay outside, so finally I brought out our sand toys and let her have at it.

On top of "North Mountain"

Later that week, the temps rose above freezing which changed the consistency of the snow, so Geoff took Hylie out for the time of her life--they made all sorts of snowmen!  It was cute, because depending on the heights, Hylie would refer to the snowman as the 'Dad' snowman or the 'Eliana' snowman.  Fun times!

 Hylie working on the "Eliana" snowman

Putting together the "Daddy" snowman

One Month

Eliana's reached her one month birthday!  She weighed in at 10 lbs. 10 oz. and is growing like a weed: she now measures at 22.5 inches tall--two inches taller than her birth measurement!

She continues to be a calm and sweet baby.  Every once in a while she'll have a sleepless night, but she also has nights where she'll sleep for a 4 hour period--woo hoo!  During the day, she likes being in on the action, so much so that she rarely naps in her crib.  She'll fall asleep in my arms and I'll transfer her to her crib, only to hear her awake minutes later.  So typically, this little thing naps in the moby wrap so Mom can try to keep up with her big sister.

Her little neck is getting stronger and she's starting to track our movement, and every once in a while she'll give us one of her sweet smiles.

Happy 2015!

2014 has flown by--when I think back on all we did and experienced, I can't believe all of that happened in just one year!

This year was full of home improvement projects.  Off the top of my head, the things we did for our home include:

Painting the living room, dining room, hallway, and two bedrooms walls and ceilings, redoing the mud room (thanks, Dad!), re-doing the two hallway closets, putting up new drywall in the pantry, ripping out the huge bushes in front of our home, and of course, the kitchen renovation project.  I'm tired just thinking about all the work!  But we love how our home is coming to life and enjoy every square inch of the improvements.

Hylie's grown so much--it's crazy to think she started walking just a week before we entered 2014, she's just a constant ball of energy: playing, talking, and exploring during all waking hours!

I also can't believe that I was pregnant for the majority of 2014!  Again, I am so grateful for how smoothly everything went with bringing Eliana into our family.

I'm ashamed to admit, but our little family did not stay up until midnight to welcome in the New Year.  We haven't been getting much sleep with a new little infant and a toddler who thinks it's completely normal to rise and shine at 5:30 AM as well as have random wake-up calls in the wee hours of the night...so to celebrate the New Year, Hylie slept ALL night long and didn't wake up until 7 AM and Eliana let me sleep for a 3 hour period.  Woo Hoo!

But for the record, we did set some goals before we said good-bye to 2014.

Dad: Read the Entire New Testament
Eliana: Eat, Sleep, and Poop (we know she'll do more, we're just keeping it real)
Hylie: Get Potty Trained
Mom: Beautify the Front Yard

For kicks and giggles, here are some Hylie "out-takes":

We're looking forward to all the adventures that await in 2015!