Merry Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas and hope that you did, too!

 All dressed and ready for Christmas Eve Mass:

 Christmas Eve with The Danahers:

Leah enjoyed eating her snowman cookie...black top hat and all.

Santa Came!!

Christmas Morning:

Digging into the stockings

Modeling her new backpack from Uncle Steve!

Ben slept through the opening of the presents...

...and woke up to some fun new toys!

Then we took some naps, watched some Wooster and Jeeves, and headed over to Jon and Katie's for a delicious Christmas dinner where I enjoyed myself too much to remember to take pictures.

Who's excited for Christmas?

This girl!

FIVE Months Old

I started this post when Ben was 4 months old and that was because I completely failed to post his 3 month update and photos.  Well, he is 5 months old now and I can hardly believe how the time has flown.

Our little man is now twice his birth weight and not quite as little as he once was.  He is easily amused and laughs and smiles all the time.  He is officially on the move and loves to grab and chew on anything he can get in his little hands.  He loves watching his big sister and he just got his first haircut (from daddy) two days ago.  I'm pretty sure he'll be getting a tooth or two in the next couple months, so I'm trying to enjoy his gummy smile as much as I can before those pearly whites come through.

Benjamin, you are truly a delight!

 

 

Something to Say

Today, Ben had a story to tell.
(This is just a small clip of the whole thing.)

Two Years Old

How can it be that my little Leah is two years old?!

Leah - one day old!

Happy 2nd Birthday to my beautiful, spunky, energetic little girl!  You continue to make us smile every day!

Birthday Doughnuts from Katie, Fiona and Evie!! YUM

Action shot!

 

Playing with her new toys from the Birds!

Cutting her cake with the big knife!

 

Books from Aunt Allie!! Thank you!!

Enjoying the strawberries that she requested for dessert!

Happy Halloween!!

This was the first year that Leah got to go trick-or-treating.  We met up with a couple of ninjas, a good witch, and a rockin' ballerina and hit up a few houses.  (Thank you, Birds, for having us!!)  Needless to say, Leah liked Halloween.  Too bad she had to find out that it only lasts for that one day. 

Fort Worth Zoo

During Joe's time off between jobs, we were so happy to get the chance to go to the Fort Worth Zoo all together on a nice quiet weekday. We all enjoyed the day and got to see some pretty beautiful and amazing animals. Here are a few pictures:

Leah loved the Bird House!

The animals were great, but this may have been Leah's favorite part of the Zoo.

Leah did NOT like these guys...least favorite animal to see up close!

I think my 2 favorite parts of the Zoo were the gorillas (always a favorite of mine) and watching Joe get the White Tiger to stand up and stalk him.  It had been lying down, but Joe went up to the glass and turned his back to the tiger.  Almost immediately, the tiger moved into a pouncing position and then proceeded to walk up to the glass.  Here's a little video of the tiger pacing back and forth, licking his chops for a little bit of Joe...

Untitled from Becca Bird on Vimeo.

Pumpkins at the Dallas Arboretum

This was a great trip!  The Monday after Ben's Baptism, Genny and Maggie invited Katie, Fiona, Evie, Nanny, Joe(who was off of work), Leah, Ben and me to meet at the Dallas Arboretum to see the pumpkin village.  The number of pumpkins at the Arboretum was incredible!  I had definitely never seen anything like it before.  Here are a some snapshots from the day.  Wouldn't it be nice if two-year-olds sat still long enough to get a nice picture?

See the ducks??