End of Year Posting.

Well, it's just about the end of the year so I have to clean out my pictures off the computer and hunt for new ones. I haven't blogged any funny pics in a while so I hope everyone enjoys these:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Christmas Day!

Abigail, Sarah and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and say thanks to family and friends for their gifts and generosity. Here are a few of the MANY pictures that we took today.

Abby in her new 'big girl' bed (although we're still weaning off the pacifers). She absolutely loves her bed.:


Abby in her new pj's on Christmas Eve:

The tree all set, waiting for Abigail to wake up:

A new puppy:

A John Deere drill:

My new radio/CD player which will be nice in my workshop:

Sarah with her new laptop:

I built Abby a little workbench to play with when she's out in the workshop with me:

Thanks everyone for the gifts, Abby loves them. It took us 1 1/2 hrs to get through all of the presents because she had to stop and play with each one. We had to coax and bribe her to keep opening gifts. She added two puppies, a baby horse, a baby Elmo, a shopping cart with fake food, keys, and a toy cell phone to her toy collection.

Cute Pictures

Here are some cute pictures of Abigail.

Here she is in her Christmas dress, ready for church (I don't know how we got her to stand still this time):



Here we are looking for the water filter under the frig:

Here she is taking a nap when she wasn't suppose to (can you guess which parent was watching her? Oooppss.):

Sunday Pictures

Last week we decided to take some pictures of Abigail in front of the Christmas tree before church. How hard could it be? I mean, all we wanted was ONE nice photo that we could blog and show how adorable our child is. Hmmmmm. Well here are the pictures that we took that Sunday morning:

Look at the camera Abby!


A two year old with attitude?



Come stand over by the Christmas tree!

Fine, we'll take your picture on the couch.

Well, as you can see we took several pictures but none that we would/could send in our Christmas cards. Oh yeah, what could have been a two minute project turned into a 20 minute ordeal and we were nearly late to church. Crazy kid, gotta love them.

Thanksgiving Part III

I'm not going to be able to blog all 285 pictures that were taken at Thanksgiving so this will probably be the last part. Here's Abby in her tu-tu:


This was the kitchen that Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jeff bought for Abigail that was set up for all of the kids to enjoy while there:

We told her to 'smile' for the camera (notice the chocolate on her face):

Cousin Cameron and Abby:

Thanksgiving Part II

While we were in PA Sarah had the great idea that she wanted to take Abigail to the Macy Day Parade in NY. The girls woke up at 4:15am and headed for the Big Apple. They ended up at Time Square a few rows of people from the street. Abby loved seeing the balloons, especially the ones that she recognized like the Sesame Street characters.

The poor girl fell asleep at the end of the parade. Waking up early and the whole excitement of seeing new things tuckered her out.

Thanksgiving Part I

We're back!! The McLaughlin Thanksgiving festival at Aunt Poppity-Anne and Uncle Jeff's house in PA was a HUGE success. The cousins enjoyed playing together, it was great to see Joshua and Shelby and to meet their kiddos, and of course it was nice to see everyone else and spend some time with them. We're not going to talk about the 16 hour car ride that we had to endure with a two year old. (She learned that if she said that she needed to go pee that mom would fly down the interstate to the next rest stop or fast food joint and she would be able to get out of the van). We would like to share some of the pictures that were taken over the course of the week (between the families 285 pictures were taken).

Our family picture:

Coloring with Bumpa:

Having some juice:

The little cousins stayed over night together at Amanda and Jeff's. They were treated to pancakes and sausage for breakfast:

We're very thankful that Amanda and Jeff were willing to host the gathering, we had a great time!

I'll post more pictures this week.

Playing in the Leaves

Last week we decided to rake up some of the leaves that were accumalating on our lawn. We only have about a dozen trees but they must hold at least a million leaves each. It was a beautiful day, mid 70's, so we enjoyed being outside even if we were doing labor. Abigail caught on quick that I was raking the leaves into big piles and that these piles made for good places to play in.

Here's a picture of her looking for her missing crocs:


Enjoying herself:


Laying down on the job (we used a tarp to transport the leaves to the burn pile and she would catch a ride back and forth):

Here she is all dirty and with leaves stuck in her hair:

We're blessed to have found this house. Even with its flaws the big yard for her and the dogs to play in make the difference.

Family Portraits

We had our family portrait drawn up to help Abby to start to learn about spelling. Here it is:

Happy Birthday Abigail!

Our little girl is getting big! It's amazing how much she has grown. The past couple of weeks she has started to say more words and do a few more things on her own. We haven't made friends with anyone that has small children yet so we just enjoyed a little family birthday party. We had pizza for supper, Abby's favorite, with pumpkin pie for dessert. We picked up a few gifts, nothing too fancy, but some things that she would enjoy.

Balloons! She loves balloons:


I love the expression on her face:

Now she has her own water bottle, just like mommy and daddy:

She loves to color and draw.

Which we had to do right away. Needed to test it out:

We bought her a play pen for her babies:

Here she is trying to get in with her baby:

Our sweet little baby is getting older. *sniffle, sniffle. Here comes the terrible two's.

How To Decide If You Need More Shoes...

I found this on the internet and thought that it might help any one of my sisters or sister-in-laws.

Click the pictures to enlarge them:

You're Welcome.

Halloween and Things

This was Abigail's first year to do Trick or Treating (or actually, Trunk or Treating). She just loved her flower costume. She was a little apprehensive when it was time to walk up to people and ask for candy. After her she received her first piece of candy she wanted to stop and eat it. When we approached the second person she tried to give her first piece to that guy (maybe she wanted to trade for something better?). By the fifth person she started to get the hang of it. We had a good time seeing how creative people are (which we really aren't).

Here's our little flower:
And our sleeping flower: (The ward had a chili cookoff afterwards and I had volunteered to set up before the activities started. While I was helping out, Abby was running around. We even went to the commisary afterwards which she slept through. She didn't wake up until we got home.)

Today was such a beautiful day that we decided to take Sarah's bike for a spin. Here's my biker chick on her ride:

WATCH OUT DARYL!! Wild woman coming through!:

Abby was fussing that her mother was riding around and that she wasn't. I put her on the bike and we rode around the lawn and then down the driveway. She LOVED it. I guess tomorrow we're shopping for a helmet for her.

To everyone out there; Sarah did great. We're just practicing some basic riding skills until the weather turns cold. This spring Sarah is taking the Motorcycle Safety course that is offered through the Army. Once she takes the course then she can go get her permit and start getting ready for her license.

Does anyone have a sidecar for sale??