one

in honor of her very first birthday...

laney and i took some pictures this morning.

 actually, we took 350 pictures.

 and i'm only posting 56.

 peruse if you dare.

 she's not the easiest subject to photog.

especially when you're on your own.

 it's a good thing she's cute.

and, i'm done.

then we tried to get some cute cake pics.

"hmmm, that looks interesting."

"squishy."

"what if i do this?"

 i experimented a little bit with my flash, can ya tell?

 also, i made her cake on her birthday, exactly a week ago.

so it was a liiiiittle bit harder than it should have been.

 monkey girl.

finally got a taste.

 not too shabby.

so proud of herself.

 ok, just one more prop.

 "laney, out."

and washing her hair...

 

 so goofy. :)

franks was helping make her smile.

helping a little too much. ;)

 "mom, i'm doooone!"

 "no, really addie! 300 pictures is too many!"

 she's a really good fit thrower.

 really good.

and this ends picture overload - 1-year-old edition.

go ravens!

christian went snowboarding with the scouts over the weekend. they traveled on some crazy icy roads as they drove and bro henderson, who has many many years experience driving in snow, hit ice and went into a ditch. our scouts helped push their van out, and then helped push several other cars that also slid into the ditch as well. then on the way home they went through stretches where they had to drive as slow as 5mph. it took them a loooong time to get home, but they finally rolled up at exactly 1am. he had a good time and thankfully they were all safe. i'm so thankful for all the good experiences chris has.

 

i got to take little miss addie to gymnastics on saturday morning.

she's been going to this gym off and on for almost 4 years and is in kinder gym 2.

she loves it!

skinning the cat like a pro!

after gymnastics we hit the hershey store for donuts.

we had a fun talk all about punxsutawney phil, who did not see his shadow, bytheway, and how ready we all are for spring. she's getting to be such a big girl and she's so fun to spend time with.

after our donuts we hit the exchange and the commissary. we're really trying to trim the fat from our budget so i've just been having matt stop by to pick up fresh foods about once a week, but we have several events coming up this week so i really needed to shop.

road rage addie!

i tried really hard not to go too crazy and i still managed to spend $340. i saved $60 in coupons and about 30% overall, so that's pretty good, right?

everyone was laughing at addie's static hair.

she's so goofy.

after church on sunday we went to pick up peter and on the way it started snowing.

it didn't stick, but it's still pretty. :)

mccombs came over at 4 for subs and yummy's.

i thought it was funny that when i said to say cheese, the boys went together and lex was on her own.

haha. :)

josh tried the teen photo dodge on me, but i'm too quick.

yummmmm.

cheese!

lexi took this gorgeous pic of the adult crowd.

at 6 we went to jeffrey's baptism and then came back home for some superbowl fun.

the streeters met us at our house too and darlaina made these cute football rice crispy treats.

if she wasn't so sweet, i'd really hate her. ;)

mccomb couch.

the game started at 6:30 and went along pretty good. and then, the power went out at the stadium. for like, a long time. it was so strange! the game was good, but it didn't end till after 11! we were tired!

christian's version of the teen photo dodge.

climbing on daddy is always a favorite.

darlaina and i.

because we're always the photogs.

not sure why she was grumpy, i think it was just for the cameras benefit.

she's silly.

it was a late game but the ravens won, so it's all good.

and yes, i only cheered for them because they're kind of a local team. :)

pretty cool.

 

and a bonus pic:

addie is such a little artist!

check out the faces she made on her "hat" homework.

she was just supposed to count and color them, but she made these really cute faces on all of them, all by herself. i just think she's awesome!

sealed

we had the opportunity to go to the temple on friday.

christina sent out an email to see if anyone was interested in a kid swap up there and we were!

turns out alecia and sarah (and their crews) were all going that day too. :)

 

if you have never driven to the dc temple, it is quite an experience.

here you are driving on the beltway,

(or most likely sitting in traffic of the beltway)

you turn a corner and, boom!

there it is, gorgeous.

as usually happens whenever we try to do... anything, we had some kinks in our plan.

about halfway to our destination (takes about 2 hours) little miss franks threw up all over herself.

so since we were the first ones to arrive, i took the 3 girls into the visitors center while matt ran to target to get a change of cloths.

matt and i went in to the temple first.

we were able to seal my grandparents to their parents and it was a very sweet experience.

i really love going to the temple.

and not that i'm counting, but that's 3 months in a row for us.

holla.

 

the kids loved the visitor's center.

not sure the visitor center loved the kids, but whateva.

they hung out there for almost 5 hours and, in my opinion, were really good.

after we got done, rob and christina, and then sarah and alecia went in.

so we got to hang out with r & c's 3 boys (same ages as our girls) and tony and his 2 girls.

delaney shocked all by falling and staying asleep.

and then she woke up and played like a good big girl.

the kids, who i didn't get a picture of, were all really good.

i made them stay on this "gold" carpet and we did art and played with dinosaurs and princesses, we're very versatile that way. then when they got restless matt would put all their coats on and take them outside, or tony would gather them all for a hike around the visitor center. it was super cold outside anyway, but with the windchill it was like -80°. but the kids had fun jumping and running.

it was a good day.

on the way home matt needed to stop at the scout shop for his blue and gold on saturday and i got to stay in the car with laney and this sleeping beauty. i love how she's holding on to her little handles.



the girls did really well, but friday afternoon traffic and our ride home took forever, seriously, like 3+ hours.

so we stopped at bert's 50's diner to use a pizza coupon i bought from a pta fundraiser.

the girls, who haven't had much restaurant experience, liked the atmosphere but weren't interested in the food. that's the way it goes.

all but this little jack-o-lantern toothed cutie.

she was all like "feed me!"

love this happy 1-year-old!

we left at 9am and got home at 9pm.

as soon as we walked in the door, frankie threw up again.

at least she waited till we were out of the car, small favors.

it was a loooooong day but oh so worth it.