A Kitchen!

The UPS man dropped this off today during Annie's nap. It was like Christmas morning all over again. I couldn't resist putting it together really quickly before she woke up. When she came downstairs, she yelled "Whoa!"

Even the box was fun!

Thanks Gigi and Grandpa!!

Kate's Baptism

Kate is officially a member of the Catholic Church. We had Kate baptized at Our Lady of Angels this past Sunday. It was a long experience, after all the days of family parties and a long mass beforehand. But Kate was an angel, she barely cried at all. She looked so sweet in her christening gown. It was the same one Annie wore. My mom got it in Ireland when I was pregnant with Annie, and I plan on putting all our kids in it. (Matt says not if they are boys). Annie wasn 't feeling well, but was still quite well behaved herself.

The whole family
Kate, Mommy, Daddy, and her godparents Uncle Matt and Aunt Carol

Kate and Uncle Matt

Annie and Gigi. Look at poor Annie's face. She felt miserable.
Owen was a pro holding Kate. He got her to sleep every time he held her. He has perfected the baby pat, he told me. :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Kate's first Christmas was wonderful. Despite both girls being under the weather, we had a great time. The girls were way too spoiled by all their family and friends :) Here's a million pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (in no particular order). Annie, though filled with Christmas cheer, did not want to pose for any of the photos.

Annie and her adorable cousin Nicholas. We were so excited Nicholas was visiting for Christmas. These two haven't seen each other since they were tiny babies. Now they are both so big and so cute :)

Aunt Cathy and Kate.


Mommy and Kate

Mommy, Daddy and Kate (Annie was sleeping, we were not ignoring her)

Cousing Courtney and Kate. Again, Courtney was the resident baby sitter and baby holder. I think she's gonig to stop coming to Ralls family functions if we continue to have kids. So here's a shout out to Courtney for being such a wonderful and helpful cousin :)

Aunt Jackie and Kate on Christmas morning. Kate was super excited to open her gifts.

Annie and Kate on Christmas morning in matching jammies :)

Daddy and Annie opening Annie's bucket

Mommy, Kate and Annie hiding behind her hands. The girls had on really cute outfits their Aunt Jackie got them. I really wanted a picture of them, but Annie wasn't into it.

Brady and Ella

The Ralls cousins with GG and Pa Kavcar

Kate and Pa

Again trying for the pic of the cute outfits and the family. Annie not into it.

Christmas Cookies

Can you believe these oh-so-delectable looking cookies were made by Annie today? Hard to believe an almost 2-year-old could be so culinarily talented, I know.


Annie and I made Christmas cookies today. It was quite the experience. We did have a lot of fun, and we do have some cookies to show for it. :) Annie helped me roll out the dough, mostly by saying "Roll, roll, roll" as I did it. Then she used the cookie cutters to cut the shapes in the dough. She loved that part. She also loved putting sprinkles on some of the cookies before we put them into the oven. She also loved the frosting--not so much putting it on the cookies, but more putting it in her mouth. She was saying "Nummy num num" the whole time I frosted.

Cutting out the cookies.

Hard at work.

Can you blame her? Frosting is delicious.

Loving the sprinkles

She actually hated the cookies. She spit this bite out right after I took the picture.

**I would also like to say that in my "Fun with Nama Walls" post, I had a regrettable typo. I wrote "there" instead of "their." This is one of my biggest pet peeves (along with "your" vs. "you're"). So I'm quite embarrassed. I have changed the mistake, and it won't happen again.

Santa Claus

We took the girls to go see Santa last week. We talked about Santa with Annie leading up to the visit in hopes she would not cry and refuse to take a photo with him. She will tell you that Santa says "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and can point him out on t.v.

When I asked Annie what she wanted to ask Santa for, after some prompting, she said she would like some toys and a bucket. Yes, a bucket. I don't think she quite gets the whole Santa concept yet.

Regardless, the visit with Santa went surprisingly well. She lost some of her excitement when she actually saw Santa. But she didn't cry, and she agreed to smile in a picture if she didn't have to sit on his lap. (A $20 picture! What happened to just the joy of the season? Santa must need some serious repairs to his workshop.) Then she immediately jumped into Matt's arms. Kate loved Santa and sat on his lap like a champ. She didn't even ask for anything.

Fun with Nama Walls

On Friday night and Saturday, the girls had a lot of Ralls family fun. They hung out with Grandma Ralls (Nama Walls if you ask Annie) until Matt got into town. Then, Matt did what every self respecting man does when his wife goes out of town for the night and leaves him with the kids: stayed at his mom's house so she can help him out :)

Kate and Grandma Ralls. Isn't Kate just so sweet when she's sleeping?

On Saturday, we stayed there and visited with Grandpa Kavcar, Uncle Ed and Mallory. Mal and Annie had so much fun together. They were so cute running around, playing Ring Around the Rosy and various other activities. Here's some video of their fun:

After hosting us for 24 hours, feeding us and letting Annie destroy her house with toys, I think Grandma Ralls was not sad to see us go. Thanks Grandma for everything! :)

"Annie Read It"

Annie loves to have us read to her. Lately, she has also been "reading" to herself. After each book we read, she takes it out of our hands and says "Annie read it." Then she proceeds to flip the pages and mutter to herself. It's very, very cute.
She also loves to point out and name everything she sees. The mommies and daddies, the bottles, the swings. You name it, and she can name it. She's picking up words so fast! (So watch what you say around her now, she repeats!)


Her favorite books are Fancy Nancy, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, The Big Fire Engine Book, and I'm a Big Sister.

Say "Cheese"...or "Cookies"...or whatever will make you smile

The Christmas season is upon us once again. And once again I am faced with a daunting task: taking a photo of my children appropriate for a Christmas card. Matt had a brilliant idea for a card this year, but as he is slacking in preparing for his idea (and I'm not sad about it), I must do something. Last year, it was hard enough just to get Annie to smile and look Christmas cheerful. Now, we have Kate to worry about, too. I have to catch Annie in just the right mood to first sit with Kate, second look at me, and third smile. And Kate has to be propped up and not crying. This may sound easy, but I assure you it is not. It involves careful planning, as well as a number of foodstuffs and television shows.

And I've still failed so far. Here is what I'm working with so far:

We start off not terrible, but I know we can do better. And Annie looks kind of dumb.

This one might not be so bad if it weren't for the Yogos in her mouth.

Then our situation rapidly deteriorates. I believe she is saying cheese here.
Annie will not even touch Kate any longer, and Kate is not looking her best.
And, my personal favorite, which pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. I laugh hysterically every time I look at this one.

There were more, but we'll stop there. At some point, I gave up on a shot of the girls together and attempted to photograph them separately. This was also fruitless.

This could have been cute, but she leaned forward at the last second. And my laundry is in the right hand corner. Not exactly the Christmas cheer I'm going for.

She may have been simply reflecting the look I was giving her at this point. Hard to say.

I will try again later today when I can store up enough energy. Or maybe I can just send a card with a link to this blog. I think there are a few pictures around here somewhere where Annie is smiling and Kate is not crying....

*Kate was not harmed in the taking of these lovely holiday photos.

Rescue Rangers

Last Saturday, I woke up to get ready for a nice visit from Papa, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Cathy. I also woke up feeling cruddy. I was getting worse and worse as their visit progressed. Finally, after Aunt Ruthie saying I looked awful and calling my mom, I grabbed the girls and jumped in the car to ride back to Cleveland with them.
Before all my misery, however, we had a lovely visit. Aunt Cathy brought Annie handmade bows for her hair. She says she lost her touch with the bow making, but I disagree. The bows are really cute and just the kind that stay in her hair! Annie insisted on wearing them all at once, and Aunt Cathy happily obliged.


And Annie was very excited to see Papa. She ran around the house yelling "Papa! I want to play!" Papa was also happy to oblige. Annie was a little scared of the singing snowman he brought her, but other than that had a fabulous time. (She loves that snowman now, by the way. We have to listen to that thing sing "Hot!Hot!Hot!" like 100 times a day).

Annie also went out to lunch with our visitors while Kate and I napped. I heard a great time was had by all, except Papa who had a cookie smashed in his face by Annie.

Thanks for visiting guys! And for rescuing us and driving us back to Cleveland with you! :)

One Month Old

I can't believe she's already a month old! At one month, Kate doesn't have a whole lot of tricks. She does like to look at us. The doctor called her "intense" at her appointment today because she stared at him the whole time. Kate can be very sweet. We love it when she's sleeping on us. She loves to be held, and she's very cute. She is also quite a big girl. Eleven pounds already!


Kate can also cry. Boy, does this girl have a set of lungs. The doctor also said that she probably has colic. So that's no fun, but he said by Valentine's Day we'd have it all worked out. That seems pretty far away, but we still love our little Kate.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had our first Michigan Thanksgiving and Kate's first Thanksgiving here at our house. Gigi and Grampy Jeff drove up to b here with us. My mom basically cooked everything (I made the pumpkin pie) and my dad played with the girls. We had way more food than four people could, due in part to my dad's stellar turkey carving skills. Kate slept through the entire dinner, and Annie had exactly two bites of turkey and rejected all other foods before leaving the table. We did have a very nice day. Thanks to my parent for coming up and doing everything for us!

Even before the turkey got to them, Daddy and Kate took a nap together.

After resting up, Matt was ready to eat this giant turkey leg. And yes, we had Christmas Ale with our Thanksgiving dinner. :)

Don't we look lovely?
Annie looks quite a bit more enthusiastic about Thanksgiving dinner in this picture than she was about actually eating it.
Our little turkey :)
Annie's giving Grampy kisses. She already knows how to work him.