Tyndell's First Birthday!

Talk about a group family effort to gear up for Tyndell's birthday! I have to first of all thank our families for helping us this whole past week before the big day - we were doing house improvements, trying to decorate the house for Christmas, clean, and get ready for a party - so much going on but we couldn't have done it without the help of many hands - so thanks to Mom A, Dad A, Mom T, Dad T, PT, AT, and special thanks to Jeff because he worked so hard to get the house all nice looking and took a lot of time off of work to do it. Regardless, we had a great time celebrating our new ONE-YEAR OLD! Wow - I can't believe how fast this year went by. The first picture is actually from her birthday and the rest are from her party the following Saturday. We just had all our close friends over to hang out and it was a great time! We are really looking forward to the next year - Tyndell is getting more independent and into everything, exploring, etc. and it's so fun. She is just a joy to our lives. Happy Birthday to my little wonderful love!

First Santa Visit

When we were at SeaWorld this past weekend, they had turned the entire Arctic exhibit (where the polar bears and whales are) into the North Pole and Santa's world and I have to say that it was awesome. This was definitely the best Santa I have ever seen! We never buy pictures at parks but this Santa was so impressive that we had to. Tyndell just sort of stared at him all confused while he tried to predict what she wanted for Christmas.

Thanksgiving 2009

I'm just getting around to posting a few Thanksgiving pics...it was such a nice relaxing day. Jeff, Tyndell, and our "sister," Lauren, went over to my parent's house for the afternoon. Tyndell was still getting over a fever so she mostly played on the floor a little and slept. The rest of us played games, watched movies, and ate WAY too much (it was a yummy group effort of foods! Check out the MEAT-LESS plate of heaven goodness!!). I especially love the picture I took of the table scene that my Mom stuck the wine bottle into the shot at the last minute...haha. And we had one more guest...yes...our very own Ewok came to dinner. No - just kidding - that's our friends, Lynn & Glenn's, dog, Sasha, that we were watching - we love her. Sasha is the dog that made Tyndell first like/notice dogs....even before our own dogs! I didn't get a good picture of Giles but he was pretty much hanging out under the table waiting for a morsel to drop. Ah - I LOVE Thanksgiving - it is the best holiday of the year by far, in my opinion. It's like Christmas in that it's about family and realizing all the blessings in life except people don't get all distracted and caught up by the gift-getting/giving pressures. I love it. Hope everyone had a chance to reflect their own blessings!

Going Rogue!

Some people have asked us if Tyndell ever cries because she's usually a pretty happy camper, but I can assure you that she does! Here is the proof (these are the kind of pictures that Tyndell will most likely kill me for taking when she is 15)! Tyndell stayed home from school all last week because she had fevers and she was a good patient but ever since she got better on Thanksgiving, she has been going rogue on us at night. All I was trying to do in these pictures is to show everyone how Tyndell now knows how to stand up in her crib (side story: Jeff woke up one night to find Tyndell standing up in her crib so we just lowered her mattress this past Friday!) which we thought was pretty awesome/scary....walking is on its way maybe. But when I tried to take the picture all she did was do what she has been doing to me every night since she got better....standing up in her crib and screaming! She could be fast asleep when I put her in her crib now at night but she flips right over and stands up, throws her pacifer across the room and screams just like this!!! I guess she just hates her crib and doesn't want to sleep now. I have to give it to her too - she's pretty persistent - I think she screamed for about 1 1/2 hours last night before passing out, so this is a whole new game for us. I mean, I get it...if I were her age and knew that her parents were still up potentially doing fun things, I wouldn't want to go to bed either. I think it's just hyper-awareness of the world. What Tyndell doesn't realize about her parents, though, is that our first experience being around babies was in Africa and they screamed all the time so we are pretty used to it and it doesn't really bother us too badly.