Yesterday we took Savannah to Portrait Innovations to get her pictures taken. I was having troubles deciding which pictures to put on here and which ones to leave off so I made the decision to add all of them. There are a bunch on here because getting pictures of a 16 month old is nearly impossible. Savannah did not want to cooperate a majority of the time. We did, however, end up with several good pictures and even some with smiles. Again, if you have the time, take a moment enjoy the music and the show.

Happy Holidays from our home to yours. Hope all of our family and friends are having a warm and safe holiday season this year.

Our house has been decorated outside for a few weeks now. Here are the lights from the night view.

If you know us, you know the argument Ricky and I have annually about a real tree vs an artificial tree. Another year by and another year lost by me. So last night we bundled up and went searching for a good looking live tree. We found it, brought it home and started decorating it. Before even starting Savannah found some beads and had a blast playing with them.
I started out first with applying the white lights to the tree. Another argument we have white lights vs colored lights. This is our compromise. Rickys gets the real tree and I get the white lights. Anyways Savannah decided to climb the step later with mommy and help with the lights.

Placing the star on top of the tree.

Savannah is a big help with the decorating. Once we got several ornaments up, she thought it was cute and funny to take the lower ones off. I guess if you look at our tree closely, most of the ornaments are up higher and not placed on the bottom. Overall though she is pretty good and just looks from afar and doesn't mess with it too much. Now for the final project.....

Big accomplishment this week for Miss Savannah, Daddy and mommy took her to see Santa Claus at the mall. We were not too sure of how she would respond. From afar she would wave hi to him, but then was a little hesitant when walking up to Santa. Hint is the leaning back on mommy and not wanting to go any closer.......Bribing Savannah with a candy cane did the trick in getting her to sit on Santa's lap. Look at her eyeing the candy and not even paying attention to Santa.

And finally a conversation with Santa and telling him everything she wants for Christmas. No not really, she just kept staring at him, but at least she was not kicking and screaming.

Here is the official picture of Savannah and Santa, the one we had to actually pay for. We all had a great time.

If you don't know my husband, he can really be a dork sometimes. The Christmas holiday and snow make him a bit crazy. For a man who likes warm weather, you would never know that snow would make him so happy. Today was our first accumulation of snow, however, there was not too much. Just a little on the ground, but you could still see grass. While I was sleeping (b/c I worked last night) he decided to get Savannah dressed and go outside and play in the snow. I must admit he did a good job of dressing her to play. He picked out her old shoes, but he let her wear her good coat. If your husband is like mine, he did not know she had an old coat or even some snow gear. Of course being a man, he cannot move things to look either. Anyways here are some pictures of them having a blast outside on the chilly day.

My little girl and wonderful hubby!

I guess Savannah was a little iffy about the snow in the beginning, but after a few minutes she warmed right up. Here she is trying to make a snow angel I think. We cannot wait until there is more accumulation to go out and play in. Until then......

This year was our very first Thanksgiving to host in our home. My sister, her husband, their kids, my mom, and Ricky's mom and dad traveled the distance and came to Terre Haute to test my very own Tommy turkey. Well I guess I did not do it completely on my own, Ricky and my sister pitched in and helped, especially with the turkey. What a good lookin turkey, don't you think? It sure was delicious.

Savannah, the not so big of an eater, actually chowed down for some turkey, mashed potatoes and absolutely loved the green beans.

Afer lunch, we all settled down and relaxed. A few of us even took naps, along with looking at the Black Friday Ads. Here is Chloe, Dave, and Savannah watching tv before settling down into bed. They both love their Brown Bear's.

I think everyone ate all day. Here are the girls later that night eating a little snack. That night we even had some extra visitors. Alayna and her dad, Dave came over. Libby and Laynie loved playing together. What energy the two of them have together, it was crazy in the house that night. Marcy, Savannah's favorite babysitter, also stopped by to see all the children. To say the least, the house was a mess after the day ended, but we all had a great time.

We are forever grateful for our family and friends. We hope you all had as great of a Thanksgiving Day as we did.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.....

We also are getting a new addition to the family. My sister has announced that she is expecting her 3rd little Miller baby. Cannot wait to meet this one, but I guess I will have to wait until June 2009 before this opportunity comes. We are so excited!

Don't ever make an appointment to get pictures taken the day after Thanksgiving. Who would have thought there would be millions of people at a picture place instead of shopping? Not us I guess. We had planned to get the girls pictures taken to give out as Christmas gifts but that idea failed. However, it was not the wait that was much of a problem but more the rude people that were getting their pictures done ahead of us. We ended up leaving and going back to the house for pictures, but that idea was also unsuccessful. It is too hard to get 2 one year olds and 1 three year old to all cooperate at the same time. That is unless you want one going one way while the other is crying. Even bribing them with cookies did not work. Oh well, better luck next time.
Who knows what Libby was doing here?

Today, November 22, 2008 is Bear Dog's birthday. He turned 10 today in dog years. Can you tell he is excited? I think I know what Bear is wishing for his birthday by the way he is looking at us. His #1 wish would be to get away from this pesky little girl and have peace and quiet again.

Savannah's new game to play with Bear is to run him over intentionally with the grocery cart or her push toy.

Well I guess Savannah is what you classify as a big, little girl. Let me explain. Today we went and saw Dr. Lily for Savannah's 15 month check up. My girl only weighs 19.5 pounds. OMG, that only falls in the 5th percentile. The poor girl does not eat. She needs to pork up. She was 2 feet 7 inches tall, which is in the 75th percentile. She has not gained or grown any since her 1 year check up. The Dr is not too concerned at this point but she needs to eat and grow or she will have to be tested if she does neither of these. She did say she was still slightly anemic, most likely due to her not getting enough nutrition in her diet. I guess that means more iron supplments and multivitamins for her eveyday. That explains the little part of my girl, now for the big girl part. Savannah has never really liked her crib since being older. I mean she would sleep in it but wake up several times throughout the night screaming and would not lay back down until asleep in mommy or daddy's arms or in their bed. This was taking a toll on mommy and daddy not getting much sleep. We decided in the past few weeks to trial turning her crib into a toddler bed. It actually did the trick. It is truly a miracle. I guess she did not like feeling like a caged up animal or something. Now she will go to bed on her own, most of the time and sleep ALL night for the most part. In the mornings, she now will wake up and play in her bed instead of crying until someone came to get her. Once in awhile you will find her wondering down the hallway looking for you, but most of the time she does pretty well. Here she is the first night in her big girl bed.

Last week Savannah had a play date with Alana. Amy and Alana drove all the way to Terre Haute from Avon to visit and play. Alana and Savannah enjoyed playing around the house for a bit. We then went to lunch. Wow, what a difference between what the 2 eat. Savannah is quite the non eater and Alana just likes to eat. Then after eating we went shopping. Our little girls are quite the little shoppers, I guess they learn from the best, right Amy? Here are the two of them on the teeter totter together.

Here are just a few of the costumes that were at the party.

Saturday night my aunt Sarah had a cookout. You were supposed to dress up, so mommy got creative for this one. Mommy made Savannah a mouse costume all on her own and then mommy dressed up as a cat. Here we are posing for the camera. Poor daddy did not get to enjoy any of this fun because he was stuck at work. We missed daddy:(

Friday night Savannah and I traveled to Muncie to go trick or treating with her cousins. Chloe was a ladybug and Libby was Ariel from the Little Mermaid. I guess Libby was too busy collecting candy because I did not get a picture of her dressed up.

I will just help myself to this candy bowl of yours.

Thanks Norma and David.

Larry, let me in I need your candy.

Thursday night Savannah went buzzing around to a few of the nieghbors houses.

In Terre Haute you can trick or treat on Thursday and Friday night this year for halloween. Thursday evening we took Savannah to a few local places to see some of our good friends. The WTWO family wanted to put her on TV so here she is, the little broadcaster to "bee."

There's this place in Paris, Illinois called Pumpkin works and that was our adventure for the day. This place has a huge pumpkin patch, tons of corn mazes to choose from, playlands for kids, and much much more. We really had the time of our lives and cannot wait to go back next year. Not only did we have fun participating in the adventures, but today was a perfect day to go. The weather was great, not too cold but almost too warm.

Ever seen a bat with legs and shoes?

Here is Savannah playing in the toddler corn room. After eating a few pieces of corn, she would throw them in the air like it was raining.

This was just a little toddler maze, but here we are later in the actual corn mazes. We made a lot of wrong turns, but we eventually made our way out.

Now that Savannah is finally walking out in public even made for a better day of fun!!

One of the last mazes we went on was a hay maze in the barn. The thing was that is was completely dark. It was so dark that you had to purchase a glow stick that made it so you could somewhat see, but not much. This picture is priceless. Mommy did not realize how fast you went down this slide so mommy was trying to slow down us down. It looks like Savannah was a little scared and holding on tight here.

Again, we had a great day and at the end Savannah found her a perfect pumpkin or shall I say "ball" like Savannah calls every pumpkin she sees.

This past weekend we carved a pumpkin with Savannah. She was not very fond of pulling out all of the pumpkin guts. Once she put her hand all the way in, she would not put it back in until it was completely empty. Thats my girl. She did however find the pumpkin seeds very tasty. She would put them in her mouth right after we pulled them out, not cooked or anything. It would only take her a second though to realize these were not very good. What a smart cookie.

MMM, pumpkin guts!Look at my final project. Isn't it scary?

Stay tuned later this week for an update. Either Wednesday or Thursday we are taking Savannah to Pumpkin Works to do some fun things. Come back soon!