Easter 2011

 Easter Egg hunt at Brooklyn's school.

Bonding with Bunny

Making Easter Eggs

Step 1:

Color the Eggs

Step 2:

The Dye

Step 3:

Sticker Time!

3 Brooklyn Nalley Orignals

 

Easter Egg Hunt at Church...this place was crazy, but extremely organized!

Standing in line for the bounce house...her hair would never be the same after...;)

Craft Station

Best picture we have of her super-cute bows

Then time for the hunt...almost.

We could see the eggs, but had to wait like 7 more minutes until it actually started, which is 7 minutes of torture for a very energetic 2-year-old (and her parents ;)).

We had Chandler there in her stroller and she slept through the bounce house and craft, but woke up just in time for the 7 minutes of waiting.

FINALLY, time for the hunt...

Then we got to check out the cool firetruck that they had on site!!

We went to church on Saturday night, but everything was kind-of chaotic so we weren't able to get any pictures...they just wore the dresses that they have on in these pictures from Saturday morning.

Easter morning hunt at our house

Then, after naps, the Easter bunny came 1 more time with lots of goodies!

We are so thankful to our Lord and Saviour for dying a terrible death and

for miraculously rising again to save us!!

Although these pictures don't reflect it, we DO REMEMBER that HE is the reason we celebrate Easter!

Hope yours was happy!!



 

8 Months Old!

8-Months-Old!!

Between Chandler's "grabbiness" and her constant desire to be on the move, she is no longer the perfect "photo shoot baby."  Don't get me wrong...this girl LOVES to smile, but these crib pics are starting to get a little tricky.

At 8 months of age, Chandler is sleeping from about 7:30 at night until about 6:30 in the morning and wakes up super-happy!  (I wish it was a little later, but we are getting there.)  She takes 2 regular naps and sometimes still squeezes in a 3rd one.  In the past couple of days, when she wakes up from her naps I don't hear any sound in the monitor, but walk in to find this.

She is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything, then often lets go and just stands on her own.  She has excellent balance, but has not figured out how to take a step yet.  (which is fine by me!!)  She has really started cruising, too!  She is very cautious, though.  Anytime she walks from 1 object to the next (like from her activity table to the couch or the couch to the wall), she pats and shakes it first to make sure that it is sturdy before she goes.  So smart!

Her two bottom teeth are in pretty far now...you might can see them in the picture above and she is close to getting her 2 top teeth in as well.  One of them will probably poke through in the next day or 2.  Chandler seems HUGE to me, but is still wearing 6-9 month clothes, which are age appropriate and has just moved up to size 3 diapers.  I keep putting puffs on her tray, but she grabs it with her whole hand and hasn't quite figured out how to get them in her mouth.

We have been taking Chandler to the church nursery on Sundays.  A couple of Sundays ago when we dropped her off, the teacher said, "Oh, I know this baby, she's the one that smiles all the time."  This past Sunday, when we dropped her off, we heard one of the teachers tell another teacher in the room, "Oh, that's Chandler.  She's really easy."  When I go to pick her up after church, I can tell that she recognizes me because she starts jumping and giggling.

She is really starting to develop a since of humor and thinks that Brooklyn is hilarious.  I kind-of have to agree.  B is pretty funny!  Chandler is still really laid back and is becoming a little bit of a "mama's girl."  She is fine to let other people hold her, but she keeps her eyes on me.  Whenever I walk towards her, she almost always stops whatever she is doing and holds out her arms for me to hold her.  She is an absolute delight!!

Happy 8-month birthday, Chandler!!

Uh-oh...She's Mobile!!

Chandler has been moving from a sitting position to a crawling position and rocking for nearly a month, but then would fall down and not be able to get back up.  Last week, she would move just 1 hand and maybe 1 knee while in a crawling position before falling down.  I felt like we were still a long ways off from crawling, though, because she still wasn't army crawling or moving in any way and I felt like she would do that for a while before she actually started crawling.  WRONG!!

She just, out of the blue, decided Monday was THE DAY!!!  From a sitting position, moved to all fours and crawled like 10 feet to the toy that she had her eye on.  (oh yeah...and if she fell down, was able to get herself back up to a crawling position)  What???  You can't go from 1 arm and 1 leg to crawling across the room and totally skip army crawling altogether!!  I wasn't able to video it on day 1 (which was really hilarious and uncoordinated), but this is from the day after she first crawled and as you can see, she's very slow, but she has definitely got it down.  Way to go, Chandler!!

Sisterly Love?

Well, I wouldn't go THAT far, but I HAVE seen some rare glimpses of it recently...

Chandler has been around for 7 months and this is the 1st bath they've taken together.  I have still mostly been using the baby bathtub for Chandler, but Mom gave Chandler a bath in the "real" tub once and she said it made Brooklyn really mad so I've been avoiding the drama.  Well, the other night they were both really dirty and Eddie was going to be working late, so I thought the most efficient and safest thing to do would be to bathe them together...that way one wouldn't be left unattended.

  And???  Brooklyn thought it was hilarious!!  I was really prepared for a fit, but she was totally okay with it...until Chandler picked up one of the foam letters and started chewing on it.  B snatched it away immediately.  I told her that Chandler needed a toy and handed Chandler the red foam "O".  B really wanted the "O" (its the only letter she really knows), but she agreed to let Chandler play with any of the letters or numbers she wanted.  I didn't realized that when I was rinsing B's hair she dropped the "O" and Chandler had picked it up and had it in her mouth.  Well...I didn't realize it until Brooklyn grabbed her yellow shovel (like you would use in the sand) and whacked Chandler on the head and yelled "O!!"  Surprisingly Chandler didn't cry and the rest of the bath went on without a hitch!

You have no idea how HUGE this is!!  It took a long time and lots of work to get B to even be OKAY with Chandler in the pink swing!  Now, not only is she okay with it, but is PUSHING her in it???  We've come such a long way!

And finally, the 3rd and final glimpse I've had of sisterly love...

She has started giving Chandler her bottle!!  Granted, Brooklyn has to pry Chandler's hands off the bottle to do it because Chandler is perfectly capable of holding her own bottle, but I'm going to take it as a sign of love!!

Bonding with Aunt Babs

Eddie's sister, Elisabeth (a.k.a Babs), came to visit us over the weekend!

She hadn't seen Chandler like 4 months which is an eternity in the first year of a baby's life!

They hit it off immediately!

It didn't take Brooklyn very long to warm up to her either!

The first night, they danced to American Idol out on the patio and read some books in the playroom.

Then, the next morning, the girls went in to visit her bright and early.  =)

Good Morning, Aunt Babs!!

Aunt Babs just THOUGHT she was going to be able to sleep in on her day off. =)

Sorry, Liz!!

Better than an alarm clock, though...right?

The ONLY picture we were able to get with Babs and BOTH of the girls together...

Right.  Have I mentioned the jealousy???

She is taking the foam piece from Chandler even though she has like 30!  Aunt Babs is refereeing.

Then, that night, we took her to The Harbor.  Where ELSE would we take her? 

I forgot my camera, but she got these sweet pictures...

And my favorite...

(B had soccer before we went out to eat which is why she is in the blue soccer jersey)

She flew out the next morning...such a quick trip!

And Brooklyn was so worn out from all of the weekend excitement that she fell asleep in the car on the way home from the airport!!  (which if you know B, you know that is a real rarity!!) 

Thanks for coming to visit us, Aunt Babs!!