Uncle Allen, Rockn' Around the Christmas Tree and a Walker...

The past few weeks have been wonderfully busy celebrating Thanksgiving and the Christmas season. We're especially thankful this holiday season! After being stationed for several years in Germany and deployed for a year in Afghanistan, Uncle Allen is back state-side for several years and is able to come home for the holidays.

Home for Thanksgiving! Piper's been crying around people, even family, she doesn't see often, but not for Uncle Allen (Grandma/Irene says it might be because he looks like me :-).

Uncle Allen always makes a good playmate.

The past few years we've made a tradition to go downtown and see the Christmas tree lighting (at the square in Lancaster city). The girls had fun dancing and singing to the Christmas carols being song by the band, and were excited to see St. Nick coming to the square in a fire truck. Lane was the unsung hero of the night. He not only had Piper in the backpack carrier but held up both girls so they could see the tree being lit. His neck and shoulder massage was well deserved :-)

Girls listening and dancing to the band.

Piper was getting a little squirmy in the backpack carrier :-)

Last year we started a tradition with our good friends, the Landis Family, to go Christmas tree shopping together as families at a local tree farm. This year we all came back to our place for lunch, and Maddie (the oldest Landis child and a very close playmate and friend to Mya and Abby) stayed the rest of the afternoon for a playdate while the rest of the Landis clan went home for a quiet afternoon of naps... needless to say, it was not quiet in our household but filled with much laughter and squeals :-)

The girls loved running around the tree farm.

 Maddie and Mya.

Emma, Abby, Maddie and Mya 

(Piper and baby Finn enjoyed being carried in baby carriers -- hard life ;-)

We found our tree!

Decorating the tree capped a fun day of tree shopping!

Update: Piper has successfully pulled off half of the ornaments 

and sucked a bunch of glitter off of them... ha, ha!

Piper is now a walking machine! She rarely crawls and is almost always trying to get into something. Piper was busy before but now she's off-the-charts busy with her whole new world of seeing things at two feet high! Although she's making me one tired mama, I'm so thankful she's still a happy baby :-)

Birthday Cupcakes, Fall Hike & a Soon-to-be-Walker Explorer...

Abby's 4th birthday was this past Tuesday, and we celebrated her birthday with a pasta dinner, birthday hats, cupcakes and presents. I made pesto pasta (Mya kept on calling it presto :-) with chicken. Abby loves pasta. And, at dinner, Lane suggested we all take turns telling Abby what we like about her. During the day, Abby got to spend special time with Grandma and Grandpa at their house. While Abby was gone, I took Mya (and Piper too, of course :-) to go present shopping at the Dollar Tree with her money that she's been saving for Abby's birthday presents. It was so fun to see how excited Mya was to  pick out presents to bless Abby. Mya decided on a horn for Abby's scooter, a pink ribbon, a pony and a helium princess balloon. Then, Mya and I decorated Abby's cupcakes.

Abby's birthday dinner.

Abby requested chocolate cupcakes with pink flowers.

On Saturday, Lane and I decided to enjoy the beautiful fall weather by going for a "hike" at Lancaster County Park.

This massive tree must have been uprooted in the recent storms. Lane thought it would be fun for the girls to walk across to explore. So glad the girls have an adventurous daddy (because I'm a complete "stick in the mud" when it comes to "going out on a limb" :-)

Piper is growing up too fast! This past week she spoke her first word -- night, night. When I put her down for a nap or bedtime, I say "night, night" to her, and she says it back -- so sweet :-) She's also walking a foot or two at a time without assistance. My life is about to get way busier! Along with her growing walking ability, so is her "exploring" abilities. Her recent "discovery"...

The cocoa powder in the lazy susan!

Creatures, Pumpkin Goo and Cake, Too!

October... vacation, birthday cake, pumpkins and costumes. 

Lane had off for three weeks. Yes, THREE weeks! We had so much fun; surprising Mya and Abby with an afternoon at Dutch Wonderland, many trips to the local parks, ice cream cones for lunch, a week in the OBX with Lula and a campout at Grandpa's and Grandma's (well, Piper and I slept inside :-) We also celebrated Piper's 1st Birthday with cake and ice cream when we "camped out" at Grandpa's and Grandma's. To complete our fun-filled October, we went "pumpkin hunting" (which consisted of driving around Lancaster for an hour trying to find the mega pumpkin outlet Lane saw on one of his bike rides... never found it, but we did find pumpkins to buy :-), made jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treated with the Landis'.

Piper enjoyed loved her birthday cake. She is the best baby. I'm not a "baby" person, but she turns my  heart into a pile of mush.

Lane told them to make "eeewwwhhh" faces :-)

This lion and ladybug are the best of friends.

The tail on Piper's costume kept me laughing. It would stick straight out (or up) no matter what, especially when she crawled.

Our little dinosaurs. (Look at the those chunky feet -- love it!)

Our sweet ladybug.

Our spunky lion.

Love this picture of Abs (It's so hard to get a natural smile from her when I'm trying to take her picture.)