Happy New Year!

I honestly can't believe 2011 is over. It was a good year...although I'm glad to see it end! I'm really looking forward to all of our adventures in 2012. It was a BEAUTIFUL day today, too good to be true! We went to the zoo and then played at the park. It was over 60 degrees out when we were at the park. Hopefully we can keep this nice weather for a while! :)

Santa Showed Up!!

Christmas morning was pretty amazing this year...Lauren woke up and found that Santa had came the night before and brought a tent for the living room and lots of other goodies in her stocking! Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa Schlake's house and got so many awesome presents, including a little kitchen that Lauren just loves.

What a wonderful and magical Christmas! I have so many pictures to post...I'll just show a sampling here because there are just too many to post!

 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas has been a lot of fun so far this year! We spent the morning with Grandma Criswell and Lauren got some awesome presents! She especially loves her new table. Then we went to the Christmas Eve service with the Coens. I can't believe how quickly time is passing and how exciting it is to see her face light up!

Lots of Christmas cheer!

This was a really great weekend! We spent Saturday at the zoo, which we pretty much had to ourselves. Lauren had such a good time but was exhausted! Then Saturday night we hung out with the Coen's and Lauren loved playing with Abby and Liam.

She got to open her first Christmas present from Liam and Abby and then proceeded this morning to try and open our presents under the tree! I quickly moved all wrapped presents to my closet. :) She is going to have SO much fun Christmas morning!

Santa is a pretty scary dude...

Our visit with Santa was...interesting. Hopefully next year she won't be so scared of the "big guy!"

Christmas fun!

We had such a fun and busy weekend, spent lots of time with grandparents and enjoyed the beautiful weather!

Kansas City Christmas

We had a fun start to the week, we went this evening to Crown Center and saw all of the decorations and had dinner at the Crayola Cafe! So much fun! This is a new yearly tradition that we plan on doing. Here is a picture from this year and one from last year. :)

Naughty or Nice?

We had another busy weekend! Lauren had a great time with Grandma Dianne on Friday night and part of the day Saturday. We are very excited for next weekend - we get to visit Santa!

Here are some pictures of Lauren in her new shirt...this pretty much sums her up right now! She has been very "determined" lately to get her way! :)

Very Thankful

We just got back from spending three days in Nebraska with my family. It was so much fun and it is so good to be back! Lauren had a great time and it was such a nice Thanksgiving. We took some family photos by the "Schlake farm" sign we got for mom and dad last year. Also got some pictures of the newly engaged couple - Brent and Debi! :)

Christmas Already!

We had a really fun weekend - a quick trip to Nebraska and family Christmas pictures. The trip was a lot of fun...the pictures with an 18 month old - not that much fun!

We got a few pictures that we liked, but might have to do a "re-do" for our Christmas cards! :)

Lauren and the Red Dot

We had another nice and relaxing family weekend. We shot a couple of videos of Lauren tonight - this is one with her chasing a red dot from a laser pointer! Ha!!

Perfect Fall Day

The weather was absolutely perfect today...we enjoyed the day outside, checking out the new trail right by our house! Lauren had so much fun - I'm sure we'll be spending a lot more time on this trail in the years to come!

I'm trying to get video to share of Lauren's new obsession - her new red Christmas shoes. She had a serious tantrum the other day when she found out she couldn't wear them all day. She just said "shoe" about 50 times and pointed at the new red shoes while sobbing. She LOVES the red sparkly bows. I think we might be in trouble...

Happy Halloween!!

We had such a fun Halloween this year! Lauren LOVED trick or treating around the neighborhood, it was so cute. She held out her bucket and then waved bye-bye once she got the candy. It was so sweet. I can't wait until next year when she really gets into it!

Also - a little photo flashback - me as a mouse back around age 2!

Our little lady

Today was another beautiful fall day, we spent the morning at "boo at the zoo" and had so much fun. We also did a little fashion show this morning - Lauren tried on several dresses that used to be mine at her age. All handmade and so sweet. Mom - I'll be emailing you all of the pictures! :)

Halloween begins!

We have had another busy start to our weekend! This morning Lauren and I had so much fun with Sara and Nick at Deanna Rose. The kids had so much fun - Nick is adorable and such a little sweetie!

This evening we enjoyed some time with Grandma Criswell and practiced putting on our costume! We are very excited for Halloween on Monday.

Grandma and Grandpa Fun!

Grandma and Grandpa Schlake came and visited this weekend and what fun we had! We went to Deanna Rose Farm yesterday and then today visited the toy store and looked at possible gifts for Christmas (plus she got a special toy today - a stoller for her baby!) It was such a fun weekend!