Christmas Cookies

Abriella loves to help in the kitchen. At work we were all bringing in something homemade for our bosses Christmas present and I decided that I would bring in Spritz cookies because I have to make them every year. Of course Abriella had to help. She insisted upon doing the sprinkles all on her own. Here's how that went...

she looks like she's going to attack me with those sprinkles...




it's obviously broken because they just aren't coming out fast enough...







p.s. don't worry my boss got another non Abriella batch for Christmas :)

ABC's

I thought I would share a little video of Abriella singing her ABC's. I need to remember to not cover up the microphone on my camera so you can actually hear things, but she was being so silly and cute that I had to share my smart little girl!!



So that was broken up ABC's and a little diddy of Tinkle Kinkle Little Star... hope you enjoyed :)

My Little Artist

Abriella loves art. All kinds... crayons, colored pencils, play-doh, stickers... but her favorites are the most permanent... glue, markers, pens and PAINT! She loves paint. It's so fun to see her get so excited to be able to paint because to be honest it doesn't happen very often because it's too messy... but to her that's her the best part.

Last weekend I had a terrible headache and needed something to keep Abriella occupied for more than 2 minutes so I broke out the paint... see for yourself just how much she loved it (oh and it would have been so much better with pretty paint but we had accidentally left it outside from painting pumpkins and are now stuck with the yucky colors)...






and here's where the real fun started...










She even looks like an artist!! :)

Sweet Baby Elizabeth

I had so much fun at this session and have also had so much fun editing this session. That's usually a bit more of a challenge since baby skin can be quite difficult, but this little stinker was just so photogenic that I didn't have to do too much and I haven't been able to stop editing them. I also have been having a hard time narrowing down which ones to share so I figured people wouldn't mind a bit of over-sharing...






Look at that little stinker :)




This picture just makes me smile!!



and these were my favorite favorites!!
we decided she looked like a little garden gnome




Well, I'm afraid that mom and dad aren't going to have much of a surprise now. I do still have quite a few to edit and if you can believe it, a few I didn't share. I hope you like the ones you see. Thanks so much for choosing me to photograph you precious baby girl!!

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

Last night was Abriella's first big performance. She had all her parts memorized and was ready for her big night. Her school they had Santa coming to visit and a song/performance by each class. Last year they did jingle bells (Abriella just chewed on her jingle bell the whole time) and this year was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

I didn't know that they were doing this song for school and had been singing the song to Abriella a week or so ago and was completely shocked to hear her say "Like a Lightbulb" and "Whoopee". I thought my child was a genius until Eric informed me that they had been practicing the song for weeks :)

Before the big performance Abriella was dancing around all excited and all the kids were "practicing" they're parts (and doing quite well) and then it was showtime...


(before watching turn off the music at the top.. sorry the player is so small, the other one stopped working but you should be able to press the bottom middle of it... and also turn down your sound a bit, it is quite loud~ password is Abriella) ENJOY!

here are a few pictures of the big night too...

The grumpiest Rudolph ever...


saying hi to a friend (she knows all of the names of the kids in her class)


getting ready to start...


A wonderful visit with Santa. She was so excited because she gave him a high-five in the hallway. Now she walks around saying, "Clause high-five, yeah". It's too bad, that she's wearing this outfit, her belly sticking out, and paying much more interest in the candy then to her me taking her picture. At least she didn't scream in fear like most of the other kids!



And the biggest news of the night... she did the whole outing in big girl undies with no accidents :) whoo hoo!!

Our Christmas Tree

I was excited to get our tree this year. For the past several years we have just gotten a pre-cut tree from the local Boy Scouts. But this year we thought it would be fun to take Abriella and cut down our own. So we found a tree plantation and in the few spare minutes that we have together set out to claim our tree. It was getting dark but they said they were open till 7pm so I figured they would have lights and I was looking forward to taking some nice pictures of our first family tree cutting. Well... we get off the wagon ride and they driver says we're his last ride and to be careful because it's dark and they're are no lights... great!!

I managed to get this one shot before the sun completely set...


and here are some other pictures of our adventure


Abriella loved riding in the big tree sled, she didn't want to give it up to the tree


timber...


I even managed to get in a pic


This was the tree Abrie wanted. It was just her size.


We had to follow the star to get back.


Abriella could have stood there and watched that train go around in circles for hours!!


Once we got the tree home Abriella was so excited to have it in the house. It was hard to get her to stop touching it and flinging needles everywhere. It was even worse when it came to the ornaments.
She got some practice putting ornaments on since she got one to make at church that morning.
We didn't get to decorate the tree till the next evening and I wish you all could have seen the look on Abriella's face when I got all the goodies to put on the tree out. Her favorite was the gold beads as you can see... they didn't make their way onto the tree



You have to be really careful what you say to toddlers. I told her to stop touching the lights and to look with her eyes not with her hands...


she was so big putting her ornaments on (and then taking them off... and then putting them random places around the room)


I just thought she looked cute here...


And you have to have some hot chocolate in a sippy cup while decorating the tree (she had her first taste the night before when getting the tree... one sip turned into screaming of "MORE CHOCOLATE")...


She got to put the star ontop...

And you can see it's perfect :)


and that's our tree this year!!