Christmas and New Year's!

Yes, a little late on the pictures, I know.  But my sister accidentally took my camera home to Pennsylvania after Christmas and so I just got it back recently.  Without further ado, here are our Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Sledding with daddy!

What fun!!!

Beauty on Christmas Eve.  The best part was she totally gets Christmas.  You can't trick her by saying that Christmas is all about presents or Santa.  She'll tell you no, it's about Jesus being born.  Love it.

Mercy was excited to rip a few bows off and chew on them.

The girls got matching jammies from Grandma Lois.  Trouble was, despite taking about 20 pictures of them, I couldn't get a good, clear picture with them both looking at the camera and Charlotte smiling.

Sometimes Mercy likes to flail around and knock other people over.

For a Christmas gift from Uncle Charlie and Aunt Olivia, we went to the Children's Museum and out to lunch!  Charlotte had a great time!!!

She got her face painted (by daddy).

Charlotte got to pretend she was a bus driver and we were her passengers.

Fun times with Grandpa Randy, Olivia, and cousin Audrey.

Oh no, where did Charlotte go?

It was so great to spend time with these guys!

Hanging out with cousins Megan and Chelsie.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super Baby!

Stretching with Grandpa Randy!

We loved spending time with Charlie, Olivia, and Audrey.

Charlotte changed her clothes/costumes about 4 times per day, every day.

Super excited about a new toothbrushing kit!

These cousins had such fun playing together.

Love!

Mercy is getting so big!!!  She had a very eventful week around Christmas.  She slept through the night (a total fluke) on December 24, laughed on December 26, and rolled over on December 28!

There are a bunch more pictures that I can't post because they include a certain foster baby (not ours) that can't be publicly displayed.  But they're cute photos, you'll have to trust me!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Happy baby!

December 22, 2011 and 2012

 What a difference a year (exactly!) makes!  The ultrasound picture is from December 22, 2011 and the picture of Mercy sleeping in her crib was taken yesterday, the 22nd.  A year ago we were sharing the news that a new little one was going to join our family in 9 months.  It's hard to believe that that little jellybean in the ultrasound picture is the same person as our sweet baby Mercy! 

phunny photos

 Mercy's first zebra ride!  Kristi transformed an old rocking horse into this creative creation this summer.  Check it out here

 'Melinda' the snow-woman is yet another victim of global warming in our unseasonable warm weather.  Charlotte and I (Matt) rolled her up last week during our blizzard leaving us 1.5 inches of snow... looks like we rolled up a few yard scraps too!

 We're training Mercy to sleep without being swaddeled, but shes an active sleeper and we sometimes find her hiding under the covers!  Oops!

Mercy and Charlotte playing 'doctor's office' together.  Here Charlotte is deciding if Mercy needs a rabies shot!  What have we done to her!?  :)

O Christmas Tree!

Last weekend we trekked up to Northfield to get a Christmas tree and visit some friends from our college days!  We have been to this same tree farm a couple of times before, so it was fun to go back again.  The night before it snowed an inch or two which made it seem much more Christmas-y.  Charlotte had a great time running through the rows of trees and eating as much snow as she wanted.  :)  We settled on a nice one; not too big and not too small.  Then, Charlotte helped cut it down!

 Our little LumberJill!

 After all that hard work cutting down trees and visiting friends, we went to our favorite sandwich shop from our college days.  Actually, probably our favorite sandwich shop ever!  We finished off our day with a nice big sandwich, a bowl of black bean soup, and an ice cream cone as big as Mercy's head!

 Mercy is working on her "holding" skills.

 It was too late that night to put up the tree, so we didn't put it up and decorate it until the next day.  Charlotte had a great time.

 Even little Mercy "helped!"

We put Mercy in charge of getting rid of the loose needles on the tree.  :)

Life

Just need to get some pictures up!  Here are a few glimpses into life at our house recently!

East Coast Visit

After our time in North Carolina, we flew up to Maryland to spend some time with my (Kristi) family.  I haven't seen them in 3 or 4 years!  Charlotte was just a little baby the last time my grandma got to see her, so it was a visit long past due.  We also had a chance to introduce Mercy to everyone!  My grandma and two sets of aunts and uncles plus several cousins live within about 20 minutes of each other.  It was a short visit, but it was so great to spend time with everyone!

Grandma with Mercy

Mercy loved Grandma!

Little Mercy slept in a laundry basket, but she was almost too long for it--she only had a couple of inches of room to grow!

My aunt and uncle have an "endless pool," which is like a treadmill but a pool!  There is a current that comes out of the part Charlotte is holding on to, so then you can swim in the middle but not actually get anywhere.  It was fun to turn the current up and down and see how much we could swim.  Charlotte LOVED going underwater with a pair of goggles!

Aunt Sharon and Mercy

Three generations.

Grandma and the girls.  We had such a good time!