Unbelievably, Greta turned one on May 11th! We had a wonderful birthday party for her. It's a little embarrassing that it has taken me this long to update the blog, but hey, two kids keep you busy! She started walking in mid April and is all over the place now!

We had a great time celebrating Laurel's 3rd birthday today with a gymnastics party. I think the parents had more fun playing with the parachute than the kids did (wasn't that the best day of gym class!)

And as you can see, even a gymnastics princess needs her beauty sleep. Happy Birthday Sweetheart.

Someday I might post Christmas pictures, it was a great one! But right now I'm just checking in to document that in the past week Greta has:
1. Started crawling,
2. Started consistently saying "dada" to Tim, and
3. Cut her first tooth (ETA - This tooth was found by Nanny)
What a busy little multi-tasker we have!

Uh oh, we're in for it now. Greta is now pulling up to a standing position by herself. She's done it twice today at Nanny's house. I'm afraid walking won't be far behind if big sister is any indication.

UPDATE - Laurel is now saying all 26 letters of the alphabet without skipping any! For awhile she has been saying A-H and N-Z, but today (Dec. 2nd) she has been saying them from A to Z. What a big girl!

We had our family Christmas photos made yesterday and these are the pictures that didn't quite make the cut. 

You can already tell that Greta is going to have a hilarious personality. What a little ham.

 Laurel doesn't look mischievous at all, does she?

 This is Greta's "mean face."

 Greta: "I will break you."

 Braden's escaping and Eli's had enough.

 This is Laurel's yes-I'm-smiling-but-I'm-not-happy-about-it face.

 "I want that ornament, but dang, this chair is comfy."

 Apparently Greta is not a fan of Laurel's version of patty cake.

 "We're losing interest in this Mom."

 Greta's going in for the windup.

We had a a wonderful Halloween this year though it was a little colder than usual. Luckily both of the girls' costumes lent themselves well to layering so everyone stayed relatively cozy. Here are some pictures of our adorable kiddos.

Our sweet, quiet little girl has morphed into a squealing, screaming baby. Greta has discovered her voice and has been letting us all hear her loud and clear. She is also sitting up on her own and playing with her toys. She reaches for everything and we have to be super vigilant to keep her away from everything.

Laurel's language is absolutely exploding. She is finally successfully putting together sentences with more than just nouns! It is awesome to hold long conversations with her with only rarely having to resort to hand gestures and pointing. She is also learning to sing songs.

Both of the girls are at such fun stages and are really interacting with each other. Laurel loves to show off her "baby sisser, Geta May." And Greta thinks Laurel is the most hilarious thing she's ever seen (which may very well be true.)