Ella loves helping feed Lily. I love how unsure Lily looks in this one, like she's asking me what the heck I'm thinking letting Ella shove that spoon in her mouth.
But she looks a lot more comfortable here.
Ella has also decided that she needs to eat apples like "a big dirl". Never mind the fact that she doesn't even like apples. She saw a couple of the big girls eating apples like this, so now she thinks she has to. She takes about two bites and throws it away. It kind of drives me crazy, but it is really cute at the same time. 
Just a random shot of Lily enjoying her carrots.
Ella out for a walk on a nice day. 
And Miss Lily sitting in the stroller, enjoying the nice weather. 
And, finally, a random shot of Lily sitting with Sophie. It is amazing how far along her sitting abilities have come in just one short week. 
I really wish that I had have used a different background for these next couple of shots. I really love the expressions that I got, but the grey came out darker than I wanted and I am not very happy with the texture of it. Oh well, I guess that just gives me an excuse for a reshoot :)
Lily is starting to sit on her own for a few seconds, but I'm too scared to let go of her long enough to take a photo for fear that she will fall down. She is loving laying on the floor, but only if I lay with her and sing her songs. She is truly the only person who can enjoy my singing voice. Her very favorite song is ABCs. I don't know why, but she laughs at it every time. I keep encouraging her to roll over, but she is showing absolutely zero interest. Ella used to use rolling to her advantage and go wherever she wanted in the room so I guess I just expected Lily to roll too. But no, she has no interest at all. I guess that's good for me so I don't have to chase her around yet. 
I'm also convinced that she is going to be a crawler because every time she has tummy time she tries to scoot herself along the floor to get her toys. She isn't quite able to move much yet, but she really tries. 
Little Miss Ella has been in love with anything creative. She is especially loving painting and gluing. The only thing is that she HATES getting glue on her fingers. She starts crying and tells me to "get the yuckies off".
This is Lily's elephant that she is now in love with. She smiles and coos at it and tries so hard to get it in her mouth, but inevitably ends up dropping it and getting angry until someone will give it back to her again. 
And this is Ella's bed. Her teeny, tiny toddler bed. She is convinced that she needs to take five hundred animals to bed with her. Then she complains that she has nowhere to lay, but she will not let me take anyone out of her bed. She even has some of Lily's stuffies in there that she "takes care of" for Lily. Every night I try to sneak a couple out and hide them to make more room for her, but she takes inventory and always demands to have them back. It's starting to get out of control. I think maybe we should have went straight to a double bed and skipped the toddler bed altogether. 
And I couldn't resist putting this photo in because it just absolutely cracks me up. This is Ella and Lily in the ball pit. I love that Ella looks crazy and Lily looks terrified and confused. The poor little thing has no idea what's going on. Isn't it funny, though?
Step 3: Mix well.
Step 11: Add water and mix frosting well. 
Step 16. Enjoy!
Try to get four kids under the age of three to sit still and look at the camera at the same time. Just try it. Don't even think about trying to get them to smile, though, because it won't happen. Even with bribes and threats, it never works out. This was the best we could do and I thought it was pretty good, all things considered. 
My little Lily, relaxing on her pillow in front of the Christmas tree. 
Yay! I actually got a photo of both my girls in front of the tree! And yes, I know, there are a lot of presents under that tree. We all got very spoiled. 
Ella trying on her favorite present from Santa. Hopefully she'll like them just as much when she gets them on the ice. 
Another fave from Santa. I'm thinking Santa should have thought a little harder about how many thousands of times mommy would have to pick these up before he gave them to her. She does love them, though, and they are pretty cool. And hey, I get a new piece of jewelry to wear every day. 
Lily and the world's most expensive teether, Sophie the giraffe. She looks and sounds like a dog toy, but everyone I have talked to swears that she is the best. I hope she is!
Daddy and Ella trying out Ella's new drums before we left for the day. 
This is how you can tell how busy we were. Ella always wakes up the second the car turns off, but on Christmas day (after going to bed the night before at 10:30 and getting up that morning at 5:00) we drove to Alma, pulled her out of the car, threw her on her grammy's couch, and poked and prodded at her with no hopes of waking her up. 
We decided to stay home with our kids for New Year's and invited a few friends over to join us. Here is Hailey and Ella enjoying their special New Year's Eve cupcakes. 
This was taken at 1:30 a.m., just before Melissa and Kevin took their kids home for the night. Isn't it amazing how they don't even look the least bit tired? We thought for sure they would have crashed eventually, but they didn't slow down all night. 