Genetics

Catch up

We have had so much fun getting ready for Christmas at our house! Today, we had some of our adopted college students over to decorate cookies that Evelyn helped to roll out, cut out and then ice! She did a great job!
Enjoying her pink gingerbread man (sugar cookie)

We put up our Christmas tree the evening of Thanksgiving, after we had a wonderful meal at another family's home from church. As you can see in the background, Evelyn helped hang these ball ornaments, and managed to put most of them on the same 2 branches. We decided to leave them there for the effect.

Granny Burns sent the girls these matching dresses. Evelyn was so excited, saying, "Its so fancy!" This dress definitely meets the "twirling" qualification.




We went to the LA zoo the day before Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful day, and not very crowded at the zoon.

Peek -A-Boo, Princess Forts, Portraits, Feasts and Curlers

Marianne loves to play peek - a- boo! Here she is "hiding." She started doing this around her 9 month day and I finally got a picture!


Brian and Evelyn in the "princess fort," so named because they read princess books inside of it.


Evelyn at her Thanksgiving Feast at preschool, saying their prayer, "For food, friends and loving care, we give You thanks, O God, Amen."

Evelyn's family portrait. I am on the left, with brown curly hair, Brian is on the right with green eyes, and where is Evelyn? She says she is in my tummy.


One of the girls at preschool has curly hair, and Evelyn has been wanting to make her hair curlier. So, here we are in sponge rollers. But they were too uncomfortable to sleep in :)

Marianne is 9 Months Old!

Wow! These 9 months have flown by...Marianne is quite grown up! At her check up, she weighed in at 17lbs 14oz and was 28" long. She has 2 teeth, is sleeping through the night again, crawls very quickly, pulls up, pushes her toy piano across the floor, says mamama, dadada, nananana, bababa...She will wave at us and will occasionally clap (or miss her hands altogether, which is very cute!)

She likes to sit on top of the car watching Evelyn ride her tricycle.



We set her down and she took off across the pavement - without any concern for how rough it was - she was so happy to be "free."




This piano is one of her favorite toys right now.

She was quite busy this morning cooking. Evelyn, meanwhile, was pretending Marianne was getting a pretend (thankfully) haircut and promised Marianne "candy" if she sat still while Evelyn cut her hair. There was a lot of "come on sweetie, be brave, sit still now, do you want some candy?" and of course "Come back sweetie!" It was pretty cute.

Happy Halloween!

We have had a full week of Halloween!

Here is the finale, trick or treating in the carriage with a wand glow stick she got for her birthday! Marianne was all finished by this point...

At the neighborhood potluck before trick or treating...

A family photo at the potluck - a princess, a fairy princess, a kitty cat and Steve from Blues Clues.

I love this picture of my girls...Marianne did not like to keep her ears on, though.

The three girls...



We continued our pumpkin carving tradition - 13 times since our first date! This year, Brian carved Maleficent (Evelyn likes not liking this character - she talked about how much she did not like her and then chose her for Brian's pumpkin). I carved the coach in keeping with our cardboard coach.

Evelyn used a Cinderella stencil to paint a Cinderella pumpkin.



Marianne watched the carving and painting from the coach!

Here is Marianne at the CarniFall on Pepperdine's campus - it was a fun evening!



Granny and Grandpa went with us to CarniFall.



Here the girls are ready to trick or treat at Brian's classes. We visited all 3 of his classes and both of my labs to hand out candy.

Evelyn is Three!

Evelyn had a full day of celebration! She brought cupcakes for her group, the sea stars, at her preschool to share at snack time. They gave her a crown! She wore a new outfit from Titi Esti and Uncle Scott (we opened those on Sunday - thank you Titi Esti!)

Here she is as we sing Happy Birthday with Granny, Great Granny, Grandpa, Daddy, and of course Marianne...

How old are you?


Here she is enjoying some of her presents. Marianne gave her a wand for her fairy princess costume, a tiny princess flash light, and some chapstick (a huge hit - good choice Marianne!)




Great Granny gave Evelyn some accessories for Baby Betty - including this doll carrier. Evelyn was thrilled - she loves the tiny pack n play and little high chair. She has already played with them for hours! Thank you Great Granny!


Granny and Grandpa gave Evelyn some new clothes for Betty and Sissy - she is excited about that!


Watching the dancing babies on Grandpa's iphone...


And, we made Evelyn help make her own birthday cupcakes. She did a great job!

We so enjoyed having my cousin Melissa with us. Evelyn had so much fun with her - Melissa - we think of you when we read Fancy Nancy (every night...)

Marianne loved having company all week - this is her new cute face! She makes this face often and likes the giggle reaction it is sure to get!