Abby the Artist, Holly the Canvas...

So it has happened. Abby's art project... No, not in a coloring book or even on paper. This time she decided to go all out and color everything in sight!...including and especially her little sister.

We had just gotten home from the store and Paul put both girls in Abby's room to play while we unloaded groceries. Normally Abby's room is the safest place for unsupervised play time, but apparently Paul let Abby color with markers this morning and she hid them in one of her toy cupboards for later. So the two of them had a ball coloring each other, the table, the chairs, the toys and worst of all...both of their brand new Halloween costumes! The worst part is that the costumes are a size too big for both of them but I can't exchange them now because they have red marker on them. And, of course, they are hand wash only. So I have spent my afternoon giving unexpected baths, scrubbing toys, and trying to figure out how to get marker off of a costume.

This last picture was taken after Holly's bath. It took some scrubbing but I am so thankful the marker came off. For awhile she looked like a poor little battered and bruised baby. I was worried CPS was going to haul me off. :-)

Purple Holly and Pink Holly...

Abby and I were looking at family pictures the other day. Right after we looked at Abby's hospital pictures from just after she was born, Abby started poking her tummy out and rubbing it affectionately. Then she pointed to her tummy and said that it was baby Holly. I laughed and pointed to Holly standing right next to her and said, "But isn't that baby Holly?" So she thought for a minute and said, "No, that's purple baby Holly (Holly was wearing a purple shirt). And this is pink baby Holly (Abby was wearing a pink shirt). "

She's been acting pregnant every now and then and it totally cracks me up! For awhile just after my sister had her baby, Abby walked around saying that she had Kaelyn in her tummy (that's the name of my sister's baby). It's so fun to watch her get older and start to figure out some of these concepts.



And just so Holly doesn't get left out, here is a random fact about her cuteness... She has started saying "cheese" and then posing for the camera. It's especially hilarious because she really doesn't say any other words yet, aside from Ma Ma and Da Da. But ever since her birthday last week when we took a lot of pictures of her, she will just crawl up on Abby's little princess couch, give me the biggest smile, and say cheese.

Holly's First Birthday

Happy Birthday, Holly!

We celebrated Holly's first birthday this week. I can't believe it has already been a year! It has been so much fun to give her extra love and attention this week. We decided to have a couple of smaller family parties instead of one huge party... (lessons learned from Abby's birthday parties). So she is getting to have a week long celebration. Here are some pictures from the party at my Mom's house... I had no idea that she would love cup cakes so much! So fun!

Our main gift to her was a "ball pit". We just bought a big blow up pool on clearance at Walmart and filled it with her favorite toy... Balls! 1,000 of them to be exact. We'd love to fill it even more but those balls are not cheap. The pool is big enough for all four of us to fit in at the same time... Of course Paul and I wanted to get in on the fun! We've had a great time!