Happy New Year!

This week, we returned from our 8-day, 1450 mile trek (with a 2-year old) across the Southeast to visit family. Jenna did great on the drive (the new portable DVD player helped). We had a great time with both sides, but we're glad to be home. Here are some pictures of our fun. We wish all of you a happy and healthy 2009!

Atlanta, GA with Emilie's Family:

Jenna enjoyed distributing presents:

Here she is modeling a new skirt.

She enjoyed blowing bubbles with
her Uncle Aaron and Cousin Steven.

Jenna spent a few minutes on Christmas Day

catching up with her friend Ella.

I think Jenna decided at the beginning of the trip that she didn't want to wear socks and shoes. She was pretty much barefoot the entire time.

Baton Rouge, LA with Randy's Family:

Our tradition each time we visit Louisiana is to eat beignets.
We hoped Jenna would be more interested in eating them this time
versus last time, but her only interest was in the powdered sugar.
(click on the picture to zoom in)

We also went to the zoo, and caught
some sweet shots with Daddy & Mommy.

Christmas Baking: Part II

We're spending a few days in Atlanta before heading to Louisiana for a few days. We've had a great visit and have had some time to do more Christmas baking. Here are some of the final results:

Mom's Famous Pumpkin Pie

Gingerbread Men and Sugar Cookies (decorated by Jenna):

We had a great time with our family, and Jenna really enjoyed the Christmas experience. Here is a picture of all of us before we began the Christmas meal.

Here is a picture of Jenna grabbing the last of the presents from under the tree. She enjoyed helping to distribute all of the gifts.

Here is a picture of Jenna modeling a new skirt (over her pants, of course). She did well opening the presents, and enjoyed all of the new, fun toys to play with.

Christmas Baking: Part I

Jenna and I have been baking the past few days. So far, we've made two batches of peanut blossoms, two peanut butter pies, and batter for gingerbread cookies. We'll continue baking when we go to Mimi and Poppa's tomorrow. Here are a few pictures...

Jenna loves doing this job:

A finished peanut butter pie--YUM!

Sampling the chocolate to make sure it's good
(notice Snoopy and Max watching her in the background).

In the oven:

Jenna very seriously doing her job...

notice her creativity this time; she put all of the kisses upside down.
The finished product--YUM again!

Jenna Loves Elmo!

Last night, we had our church Christmas party. I had on black corduroys and a red shirt, so I thought Jenna would look cute in red corduroys and a black shirt. I put her pants on, and everything was fine. Then I put her shirt on, and she started saying she wanted to wear her Elmo shirt instead. At the time, it was in the dryer, but it ended up being dry enough for her to wear. So, I reluctantly allowed her to wear a pink Elmo shirt with the red pants (at least Elmo matched, right?). Next, I found some Elmo socks that I thought she might like to wear. She didn't like the fact that Elmo was on the top of her feet, she wanted him on the bottom of her feet. So after a few minutes of trying to explain Elmo was supposed to be on the top so she could see him, I gave up and let her wear him on the bottom of her feet, with the heel on the top of her ankle. I tried to get a picture, but it was difficult. Here's my best shot. I can't imagine how particular she's going to be when she's a teenager when she's like this at two!

Father-Daughter Bonding

OK, so I was trying to think of what I could blog about for the past week, and when this happened, I couldn't resist. Tonight, we were putting Jenna to bed, which has developed into quite the routine: bath (most nights), clean diaper, pajamas, brush teeth, reading a story, then getting settled for bed (which includes starting her Fisher Price Aquarium, covering up with 2 blankets, and cuddling with her favorite toy, currently Max the Dog from How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

Tonight, I had left the room to start getting ready for bed, but I noticed Randy was still in there 5 or so minutes later. Apparently, she had asked him to sit down next to her crib and shut the door, so they were having some father-daughter bonding time. Jenna began pointing to the door, and saying something that he couldn't understand. He asked her if she wanted the door shut, and she said no. He then realized she was saying "go" and asked her if she wanted him to leave. She said "yes." I guess the bonding time was over, and she was ready to go to sleep.

Lunch with Friends

Today, we had lunch with some good friends from Ohio. Karen was my best friend from elementary school (unbelievably we've been friends for over 23 years!), and she and her husband Joe were in Tennessee celebrating their 10 year wedding anniversary. We had a good visit with them, and took some pictures afterward. Jenna was very shy until it was time to leave, then she opened up. She even did some dances for them! Randy caught a great action shot when she was in midair.

December 3rd

Jenna's birthday was a fun one. She relaxed at home for a few hours at the beginning of the day, which is when she posed for this picture. She was dancing around too, so I caught a picture of that too!


She went to school for part of the day, and shared ice cream sandwiches with her friends. They had written a special message to her outside her classroom. They said every time they sang "Happy Birthday" to her, she kept saying "more, more." I guess she loved the attention.

Randy and I picked her up and took her to a playground. Although it was a little bit cold, she had a blast swinging and going down the slides.

All in all, it was a fun family day to celebrate 2 years since our little girl was born!

Jenna is 2!

It's hard to believe this was two years ago already. What a wonderful two years it has been. We've learned a lot and we love Jenna more than we ever thought possible.

Here are a few pictures from her birthday celebration this weekend. She was much more interested in the cake this year--last year Randy had to put goldfish in it (which she loved) and make her dig for them to get her to even try the cake. This year, she ate all the icing and a little bit of the cake.

Jenna did several dances for us...what a ham she is!


Jenna enjoyed riding on the same toy that me, my brother, and my cousin used to ride on when we were little. Kudos to Playskool for making such a durable fun toy to outlast all of these years and riders!

Last, but not least, here is a funny movie of Jenna "blowing out" her candle. Her look at the end is hilarious. I'll post more pictures later of her big day.

2-Year Pictures

Jenna will be 2 years old on Wednesday--amazing! We took her for her 2-year pictures this weekend, and here are some of our favorites...

A Few Cute Pictures

Here are a few cute pictures of Jenna during the past few weeks. I can't believe we'll celebrate Jenna's 2nd birthday this weekend (a few days early).

Classic Jenna smile!

Very interesting way to drink!

Jenna's taking after me when I was little--
sleeping with so many stuffed animals
the bed ends up being crowded!

A Friend's Birthday Party

Last weekend, Jenna went to a birthday party for one of her friends from school. It was at Gym Bugs, a really cool kid's place that has a bunch of indoor gym activities, mats, slides, etc. She had a blast! Here are a few of the pictures from her fun...

Fun in Mommy's Kitchen

Here are some pictures taken over the last few weeks of Jenna playing in the kitchen. She is getting quite creative these days! Enjoy the pics!

Our Smart Cookie

This week, Jenna really impressed us with things she said during dinner. First, she was eating a soft pretzel, and she started saying "nine, nine." We went over to see what she was talking about, and the pretzel was in the shape of a 9. She's really starting to identify her numbers well!

That same night and several times since then, she has started saying, "pay, pay" before eating. She's gotten used to praying before meals, so she now waits to eat until we've prayed. Here's a picture of how she closes her eyes--she peeks a little!

Jenna's First Bonfire

A few weekends ago, we were invited to a friend's bonfire. It was a perfect fall night, and Jenna really enjoyed the new experiences. This photo page had captions on it, but for some reason they're not exporting correctly. So I give up!

The two pictures on the left are of Jenna enjoying her first marshmallows. The first one took her about 10 minutes to eat; she carefully licked it until she decided whether she liked it. The second marshmallow took about 10 seconds to stuffed in her mouth--and another minute or so to chew it up and swallow it! She was amazed by the fire and was getting a little too comfortable with it by the end of the night. There's one picture of the three of us, but as you can tell, Jenna had better things to do!

More Fall Pictures

Here are some more pictures of Jenna playing outside in the beautiful fall weather. I think the leaves peaked this past weekend, so I made sure to take some pictures in our backyard before the leaves were gone. Jenna seemed to enjoy crunching around in them, but still didn't like sitting in them for a picture--maybe next year she will!

Bye, Bye Bobby!

Jenna reached a major milestone...just a few days before her 23-month birthday, we stopped giving her a pacifier. She started with one just a few days after birth, and it has immediately soothed her crying ever since. About 6 months or so ago, she'd started calling it a baba (where she got that name, I have no idea), and more recently she called it Bobby. Whenever the slightest thing would upset her, she immediately asked for the Bobby.

We wanted her to stop using one at the latest by the time she turned 2--but earlier if possible, but it seemed like every time we thought of breaking her of the habit, she was teething, sick, or it was another time of transition. So, we decided it was now or never. We stopped her cold turkey. She had one rough night of sobbing for him for quite a while, but overall she's done great. I told her teachers about it so they've stopped giving it to her as well and said she's been fine. So, it's been a week since Bobby soothed her, and we're calling it a success!

What a big girl she's becoming!

Beautiful Fall in East Tennessee

The fall colors are really showing this weekend; it's a bit late this year, but the weather has been unseasonably warm overall. Even though it's been a very dry fall, the leaves are still spectacular, as you can see from these pictures. Last year, we took Jenna to a nearby arboretum to get some pictures of her outside playing in the leaves. They turned out really well (see our very first post on this blog - October 2007), so I thought we'd do it again. No such luck...Jenna is now a toddler with her own mind. We were lucky to get the few we have in the scrapblog below. She was too busy exploring to stop for any pictures.

Cousins

We were all excited when we found out that Jenna's cousin Amanda was going to come spend a few nights with us while she was in Knoxville. We're glad for any chance to get to see our family, since we aren't able to go down to Louisiana very often. Jenna quickly warmed up to Amanda and enjoyed fun like reading books, playing chase, showing her toys, etc. She even knows how to say Amanda pretty well now too, even though she won't say it for a video (as usual, she's camera shy). Hopefully, they'll have many more fun memories together as cousins.