Ice Storm

The night of the ice storm was pretty scary. We are still repairing the damage from the tree that fell into our house, so when the trees all around were cracking, falling, and hitting the house...it was a little nerve racking. When the sun came up and we started venturing out, everywhere we looked there were broken trees, downed power lines, and no lights on (even street lights and stores). We were lucky enough to get our power on in about 3-4 days, but many are still without power even now. We took the opportunity to go sledding one day. This was Laney's first time sledding, and she had a blast. Here are pictures of the sledding and the storm damage.

Play Time

Hadley has a new toy that she loves. Here she is sitting up and playing with it. It's fun to watch her giggle while she smacks and kicks it to make music and sticks her tounge out at the mirror. She has started to eat a lot more food now and loves a new snack she found at the William's house. They are called Mum Mums and are little surfboards made out of rice that dissolve...she loves those.

Play Dates Rule!

Habbey couldn't keep up with the other girls, we put her in a basket and she decided it was a great place to take a nap!

Syd & Laney loved Bowling at Arc

Taylor & Bayleigh enjoyed bowling too, Hadley mostly liked the sparkling lights....I think the parents all had a bit of a time keeping up with everyone, but we had a fun time.

Riley & Maddux came over to play, Riley put on her Jonas Brothers CD and ended up making a music video with Laney in dress up clothes.

Laney & Anna tucked in "togedur"

She's here!

Our very first niece/cousin is here. Caitlin Rose Alsman was born on 12/29, and is absolutley beautiful. She is healthy and strong and is doing very very well. For that matter, so are her parents (Grant & Jennie). We got to go see her in Chicago the first week end in January. We had a great visit. Laney had her first sonw day (she calls playing in the snow "snowing" and she loves it!). We didn't come prepared for the snow, so she is in a mixture of Aunt Lynette & Uncle Bill's clothes. It was too funny. She really loved making snow angels and knocking down the snow man. She also wanted to take a safari through the snow on the golf course. Caitlin seemed to like the girls, and Laney LOVED her. We can't wait to come back up in a few weeks to see her in February for Cailtin's baptism. Here are some photos of our trip...

Uh oh!

On the 27th, the weather went crazy. The temperature rose 50 degrees, winds were 65-70 mph for hours, and the rain was a torrential downpour (for a little whlie at least). Unfortunately, all this bad weather knocked down our beautiful 60 ft. pine tree. It was uprooted and fell hard on our house over the garage. It hit so hard that the neighbors felt it and came out to see if a tree his their house. The branches punched holes down through the roof, some of which went into the playroom right where Laney and Hadley were playing minutes earlier. Laney has some residual anxiety issues (like nightmares and fears of people in the house), but the important thing is that no one was hurt. Our house will be turned upside down for a few weeks, but back as good as ever when it is finished.

Christmas!

Christmas was so special this year. This was the first year that the magic of this holiday was real for Laney. She kept talking about Santa bringing her toys and was very excited for Christmas morning to arrive! Hadley is a little too young to understand what the heck was going on, but it was fun watching her play with the paper and try to eat everything she could get close to her mouth. We had family over for breakfast and gift opening, and spent the rest of the day playing with the toys.

Hadley is getting SO BIG Already!

Hadley is getting so big! She is doing so well, and is honestly one of the happiest babies we have ever met. She smiles and gigles constantly, and has started to make word sounds instead of just grunting and squealing. She has also started scooting around the floor...We found her behind the couch yesterday! She loves playing with her sister. They hold hands, talk, and look at eachother. It's really cool to see the bond they already have.

Bubble Bath

Lately, Laney has had a thing for bubble baths. She didn't used to like a whole lot of bubbles, but you can see for yourself that that has definitely changed...

Catching Up

Aunt Jennie is due to have a new baby in a couple of weeks. In November, we went up to one of her baby showers in Chicago. We all had such a good time. After being in the car for so long, Laney went crazy in the house, just running laps around the whole basement over and over. She loved playing with her Chicago family.
The following Saturday, Brooke, Sydney, Joey, and Laney went to the Sugarplum Fairy benefit breakfast at the civic center (put on by the Children's Museum of Evansville). That Sunday was a fantastic day! Sargent Art Utley (Joey's step dad) arrived in Evansville for the first time since deploying with the Army National Guard 163rd last year. He was sorely missed when he was gone, so having him back has been amazing. People lined the highway all the way from the airport to the armory. It was a really cool experience, and was amazing to see him again. Thanksgiving was great. Blake's parents had Thanksgiving dinner at their house on Thanksgiving, and Joey's parents had it on Saturday. We ate too much both times, but the food and the company were both very very good. We have been getting all of our Christmas shopping done, and decided last night to get Hadley's ears pierced. She did really well. After only a few seconds, whe was back to her smiling little self again. She is so happy all the time. Laney can pretty much say anything. She still has some funny names for things (like drip drop for the hackey sack, and slip slip for bracelets). Although she has definitely had her two-year-old moments (fits), she is one of the goofiest, funny kids. We just went to a family movie day (the girls' first movie) with Mead Johnson, and she sat through almost the whole movie without barely even twitching. She just kept saying BIIIG MOOVIE!! After about a 10 minute break to play games in the lobby, she was back to finish the movie and dance for everyone leaving the theater during the closing credits.
We are all looking forward to Christmas. On December 26th, we will be driving up to have Christmas with the Chicago family, including the brand new Alsman baby (Grant & Jennie aren't going to find the sex out until the baby is born, so we don't know the name yet).
This year has been pretty intense...Mimi & Pops move into their new house right after mom got back from the hospital with a very bad infection, the night they move in (Mother's Day) Blake blows up the grill and gets burned and gets Randy badly burnt and sent to the ER in an ambulance, Grandpa spent some time in the hospital ICU, Art spends most of the year in Iraq and finally came home safe a few weeks ago, cousin Joey gets mononucleosis in his brain stem and is admitted to the hospital, uncle Bill gets Lyme disease, Hadley was born, Grant & Jennie's baby will be born, and a few jobs have changed.
Friday night, we celebrated Joey's 29th birthday at Turonis and had some delicious (awful) cake that Laney & Blake made. Laney loved frosting the cake and blowing out the candles. You can see how much she liked the chocolate icing in the pictures below. Blake almost lit the cake on fire because he lit two big boxes of candles (he exaggerated her age more than just a little).
Here are a bunch of pictures of lots of stuff that has happened since the last update:

Trick or Treat!

Trick or Treat! This was Laney's favorite new phrase Friday night. Although she technically got candy from the neighbors last Halloween, it wasn't really trick or treating. This year, Laney came to realize how important those 3 little words were as she paraded around Brookshire getting more candy than she had ever seen in her life just handed over. She went as a witch and Hadley went as her black cat (although she ended up looking like a mouse and was eating her fur all night). Both of them were really cute. We trick-or-treated with Brooke, Sydney (and 2 geographically-named friends, Austin and Savanna), Mimi, Pops, Darla & her kids, Auntie B, Jennie & Daisy and of course our foursome. Brooke, Sydney, and Austin were all Bat Girl somehow. They looked great, and Brooke even got a pretty nice action shot. We met up with the Williams' and then partied at the Evans' house with about 50 kids, or at least it seemed like 50. We all had a very good time! Here are some pictures of the trick-or-treating.