Amelia Jane!

These last couple months have been so much fun with Amelia. Her personality is really starting to show itself. She has the biggest smile ever! Her nose crinkles up when she smiles really big. She laughs at all of our jokes. She loves to be tickled. She seems to sneeze every time she eats green vegetables. Amelia adores her older sister. It is so much fun to watch them start to play together.


Once Amelia gets her sights set on something, she goes for it. She is into EVERYTHING! She crawls from thing the next. She finds our shoes, she rearranges the game cupboard daily, she has read through dad's medical books more than he has. We wish you were all here to play with her.

The other day we walked into Claire's room where the girls were. Amelia had one puzzle piece in her hand and another in her mouth. Claire was yelling, "Fetch!" and throwing puzzle pieces. Nothing like a two-year-old playing fetch with her little sister.

Not to worry. We went back into their room later that day and she was trying "Fetch!" with the pacifier. We couldn't help but laugh.

Amelia Jane has big beautiful blue eyes! They put a smile on daddy's face every time he sees them. We love our Emme Jane!

Snowed In!!!!

I am sure that most of you have heard about the storm moving through the mid-atlantic. We took a pretty good hit and right now it looks like we have about 15 inches or so on the ground. It reminds me of a good snowstorm back in Utah. I have to says that I did enjoy some some snow shoveling this morning. It was alot of snow to dig out. Charlottesville pretty much shuts down with even a couple inches, so this is a big one. Actually not even the biggest one this winter. But we have had a fun time.

Claire and I have had a great time sledding the last couple days. Claire sure is a champ. She bombed down the hill pretty fast all by herself.

Claire then decided to do some adenturing through the snow.

I have such a fun time with Claire. It makes me smile just thinking of the conversations we have. She is the sweetest!

This is some deep snow for a two year old. She did awesome!

This is her "okay dad, I'm cold and I'm ready to go inside and get a treat" look.

There was alot of digging out this morning.

I love the snow.

Of course we had to include some pictures of our little Emme Jane. I think she is going a little stir-crazy. She is doing real well.

We were holding out home that for some reason church wouldn't be cancelled. We were disappointed. This is actually the second week in a row that it has been cancelled. We miss seeinng our friends. Hopefully we'll be back next week.

It hasn't been all smiles this weekend. Emme pretty much cried through her nap this afternoon.

Yes, Emme is still in the "put everything in her mouth" stage. She looks cute doing it.

I am the luckiest dad in the world. Wish us luck on getting out of the house.

Christmas, Our Getaway, The Girls

In keeping with a theme of posting about once a month, here we go.

We had a great time this Christmas


Tough to get a good family picture these days - especially with a timer.

Emme Jane, in particular, had a great first Christmas.

We love these girls!

This year for Christmas I gave Hill a getaway to a resort in western Virginia. It was our first time away from the girls. We were a little nervous, but things worked out great! Thanks so much to our good friends with whom we could trust our girls.

We went to the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia. It was beautiful (my picture doesn't do it justice).

It sure seemed quiet without Claire and Amelia around. We got used to it real quick. We sure did miss them though.

The Homestead was founded in 1766. They had everything there - we just couldn't afford it. Hill continually asked for the Honeymoon Spa Package - that was a whopping $1200. Overall we had a great time. We can't wait to do it again.

Just some pictures from the other night so you all have the latest and greatest.

We love story time. Amelia Jane not quite as much. She just likes to eat the books. She likes to put everything in her mouth.

That book is headed straight for her mouth.

Emme Jane is very close to crawling. She can scoot all the way across the room on her bum. Should be fun when she is truly mobile.

Our sweet friend gave Claire this horse for Christmas - she of course named him Comet. Lots of fun.

Bye Bye Emme Jane! We love you.

Happy New Year!

There will be few who will be able to make it all the way to the end of this marathon post. We just wanted to get everyone up to date on the last couple months. Needless to say, they have been busy! Here goes. Have fun. I know that we have.

To the Temple/Zoo


Em loves her little bear suit. Keeps her snug as a bug in a woofy dog (that's Claire's version)

The Zoo Crew! Our trips to the temple are a real adventure. This most recent one demonstrates why we don't make it up as much as we would like.

8 am - Leave House

10:45 - Arrive at Zoo

11:15 - Meet friends at Zoo - take their kids while they go to temple

2 pm - Make the kid switch

3 pm - Arrive at temple

5 pm - Back to Zoo

6 - Finally back on road after multiple stops

7 pm - Eat dinner at Q Doba - Both Claire and Amelia with blowout poopy diapers.

8 pm - Back on Road

9:30 - Arrive at home

Time spent in temple 45 minutes. Time from door to door - 13 1/2 hours. We loved it.

Claire and mom didn't realize that the tiger was locked in. They were scared.

Some may recognize this picture. We did have a great day at the zoo and at the temple.

CLAIRE gets a big girl bed ( and aunt Alyson visits (but we have no pictures))

Claire has done great with her transition to the big girl bed. We received assurance that she would take a while to figure out how to get out of bed on her own and come find us. That wasn't the truth. The first couple nights were rough. Now we are trying to teach her not to shut the door and wake Emme. She is the cutest.

We love you aunt Alyson. Thanks for all of your visits

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Grandma and Grandpa Dahle came out to visit and Dad had some great time off. I love Thanksgiving. Definitely my favorite holiday.

This year we went to see the Blessing of the Hounds. There is a ceremony at a local church where the give a sermon, bless the hounds, and go on a fox hunt. It was so much fun to see the horses and the hounds. Claire loved it. She even got to sit on a horse named Comet (every horse she has met since she has named Comet).

I thought this was a cool photo. This lady was all decked out in the english riding garb - with a side saddle, and a face net.

The horses were beautiful.

Wake up Em! You are missing the horses.

Thanksgiving dinner was PHENOMENAL! Every dish was superb. I just love Thanksgiving and it was so good to have family out, and be with those we consider family. The highlights include:

Pomegranet/Grapefruit/Kiwi/Lime Salad, Coconut-Pecan pie, Blueberry Salad, Turkey, Pumpkin Pie, Stuffing, etc.

Grandma brought out some farm animals for Amelia. Of course Claire is sharing them with her (Claire's idea of sharing. She takes something from Amelia's hands - "Look mom, I'm sharing with Emme!"). Here she is conducting a very important lunch meeting.

Claire had a great time with Gramps! We love you guys. Thanks again for coming out.

And what visit to Charlottesville would be complete without a trip to Monticello? This is a beautiful place to live. We will miss it when we leave.

I love this family!

Dad and Claire go sledding

Our 97 year old neighbor and friend called up and invited us to come use her sled when it snowed. Claire and I had a great time.

We were all smiles

Em came down to play

Afer a fun night of sledding, Em takes a much needed bath.

Then she goes for some much needed nourishment. This was in the early stages of her eating solids. She is doing awesome now.

UTAH

We recently had a great trip out to Utah! We love seeing family and friends.

A great day sledding lead to the making of the three-headed snow monster.

That's a scary monster.

They were really buried!

It took a while for Claire to realize that this was a tough sized snowball to throw. She really wanted to get daddy.

Sam was the tubing king!

Claire wasn't too bad on the sled. I was proud that she wanted to go on the sled by herself.

Kins and Claire had a great time together.

The Nativity

With all the cousins in town, we decided that the Christmas story should be reenacted.

Kinsley played a great Mary. Mike won the award for best actor in a supporting role - he plays a mean donkey. We love you guys.

Sam was indeed sore afraid

Claire loved her role as the angel.

Hadley, not so much.

What a great crew of cousins. We can't wait to add one more in April (Ann is due in March). Amelia will lose out on her role as the baby Jesus, but it is something I think she is willing to give up. I don't think they had pacifiers and polka-dots back then.

Nice job guys! It was a memorable night. We are going to take a look at it soon on the video camera (assuming it still works after Hill dropped it in the bathtub - from what I can tell though, putting it in a bag of rice to dry it out really works).

We had a great time with the Carters. I am not sure exactly what the pose is, but I like it.

Ems, it's okay, she's your aunt and she loves you.

Every two year old girl deserves a Tinkerbell Seat. Thanks Grandma. Can't wait to get back out there and sit on it.

Looks like sleeping beauty just got a lot shorter and alot fatter! We love you Emme Jane.

We love these princesses. We had a great time out there. We even got snowed out of Charlottesville for a couple extra days and that was fun. But getting home to 2 feet of snow was also fun. Thanks to the customer service rep at Delta who finally understood why I didn't want to get stuck in Atlanta for two days with two kids.

And Finally...

Claire decided to help dad brush his teeth a couple weeks ago...

It was not a success! (This picture is not photshopped - I am waiting for my tooth implant next week. Hill won't kiss me until I get my tooth back.)

It has been fun. Making a New Year's Resolution to post more often in 2010. We love you all!