Happy New Year!

Lucy's in her party dress that Lola bought her.  She had fun on New Year's Eve, helping celebrate cousin Emilio's first birthday and ending the night at Lolo and Lola's house.  She didn't make it to midnight, but she definitely stayed up past her bedtime :)

Uncle Ken and Aunt Charly made Emilio's birthday cake (as tradition), and his 1st was Elmo!  The red icing looked good on him.

Lucy and Violet...they are exactly the same size!

Daddy's idea was to dress Lucy in the Derrick Rose Bulls jersey...#1 for Emilio's first birthday, and they both matched.  Go Bulls!

Christmas at Home

Our tree before Lucy got to see it Christmas morning.  Santa set up the train for her in advance!  Her favorites really seemed to be Buzz and Woody though, as well as a new doll bed from Aunt Melissa.

She loves this bed!  She keeps trying to lay down on it herself, and of course stand on it too.  But her dolls go "na-night" here.  It's painted to match her bedroom!  Our dear friend Debbie surprised us with a beautiful custom paint job to match some other pieces in Lucy's room.

Christmas morning shots in PJs are the best.

Christmas in Michigan

Lucy was spoiled with LOTS of presents, and Mommy was spoiled with LOTS of desserts (the culprit to my pregnancy weight gain).  But Lucy has such fun running around Nana and Papa's house, chasing the cats (Meow! she says), and getting into all the toys. She got to see cousins Henry and Miles, and much of the extended Terrill family too.  And of course Nana's iPad was a huge hit with both Lucy and Miles again.

My beautiful girl

Christmas Play Date

A trip to Michigan around Christmas time usually means we get to play with Taryn!  I have a bunch of pictures of the girls goofing around (Lucy in her PJs), but keep forgetting to get a picture of the Mama's together.  Love you Ang!

Story time with Papa.

Botanic Gardens Wonderland Express

We met up with our friend Brendan and his Mom and Dad to take the kids to Botanic Garden's Wonderland Express.  It was a gorgeous train exhibit that had miniature replicas of many of Chicago's famous buildings.  The kids seemed to really have fun watching the little trains go by and looking at all of the details.  It was just their height!

They even had bridges above for raised trains.  And every ten minutes or so it would snow...indoors!

Leave it to our babies to find a random area to play.  They stood in this doorway and played with a stool for a good 15 minutes.  Whatever entertains them I suppose.

They even had a miniature replica of the Bahai Temple, where Jay and I took our wedding photos.

At the end of the exhibit they were playing a movie on how the entire set was constructed.  Lucy and Brendan hung out together playing in the seats.  I thought it looked like they were on a date.  So cute!

The Field Museum...a little nod to our Aunt Hilary :)

Breakfast with Santa

This year Lucy dressed up in a little Christmas dress that received MANY compliments from little old ladies at Macy's Breakfast with Santa.  And Daddy even came this time!  

Lucy's balloon animal was Rudolph.  It's now unraveled in our house and she keeps trying to bite the nose.

Henry's face painting.

This year Lucy was quite leery of Santa.  I think it's a case of Stranger Danger.

We went to check out the window displays again on State Street after breakfast.  Lucy was quite intrigued this year by them.

They've since built a mall across the street (which was not there when I worked there), so we ran around inside for a bit before heading home.  The weather was gorgeous this year.  No snow and high 30s...unlike last year's rain.  Lucy was unfortunately under the weather so she was pretty sleepy.  I'm guessing next year will be the year she gets really into it...face painting and all.