Birthday month, continued

January was a super busy month! Besides Anneliese's birthday, Mandy and Shawn welcomed Lila into the world and I celebrated my 30th birthday!

First of all, Lila Greer Echols was born on January 7. Anneliese and I went to see baby Lila and new mommy Mandy in the hospital, but I did not get one single picture. :( We went to see them again this past week and I finally got a couple of great pictures.

Anneliese was so excited to get to hold Lila. She decided to give her a kiss!

Then she crawled up on Mandy's lap and sang her ABC's to Lila. It was so cute!

We are so happy for Mandy and Shawn and can't wait for Anneliese and Lila to play together!

After Anneliese's birthday, it was time for me to celebrate the Big 3-0! I was totally excited about it because I just love birthdays! The night before my actual birthday, I had a moment of thinking "Oh Lord, I'm 30. I don't feel old but it sure does sound old. Does this mean I need to start acting older?" Luckily, I got over the moment pretty quickly and decided 30 doesn't sound so bad. On Friday, a bunch of us went out to eat and then to Midnight Rodeo to celebrate my birthday and Jeff's birthday. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of Jeff and I on our birthday night (I'm really not good at this picture thing!), but I did get a few great pictures.

Here's the gang at Chili's:

I love this picture because it's with my 2 favorite guys!

And I love these pictures because I'm with a few of my favorite people in this whole world!

And finally, I'll leave you with a few pictures of our very fun 2-year-old!

And a picture of Anneliese with Constance and their Granddaddy!

I'll try to be better about updating more often, but I can't make any promises! ;)

Happy Birthday, finally!

Well, it's February 8 and I'm finally getting around to putting birthday pics on the computer! Ugh, I've been a little behind lately. And then this week I've seen that all of the other bloggers have very recent updates and I figured I better get to it! A little warning - this blog will probably be quite long with tons of pictures so feel free to jump around or come back later. I guess a super long post is the effect of waiting too long to make one. Sorry about that. Here we go . . .

Our sweet baby girl turned 2 on January 17. I have no idea where the last 2 years have gone. All I know is that it is really a stretch (or wishful thinking) to think of Anneliese as a baby anymore. She is turning into such a big girl. Here we go on the tons of pictures . . .

We made cupcakes the night before her birthday so that she could take them to school on her birthday to share with her teachers and friends. Anneliese enjoyed licking the spoon!


Here's what we found when we went into her room on the morning of her birthday to wake her up. I don't know if there's many things in this world sweeter than a baby sleeping with butt up in the air. (I know Mel agrees with me.)


We woke her up early so she'd have time to open a present before she left to for school. Here are the first pictures of Anneliese turning 2. Note, these pics were taken at 6:10 a.m. ;)



On the night of her birthday, we had this great plan to just pick up some chicken nuggets and stay home so she'd have time to play with her new toys and enjoy a cupcake. But then I smoked us out of the house because Jason and I started a fire and forgot to open flue - it's an amusing story if you haven't heard it. Anyway, we had to leave the house to air it out, but we still had time to enjoy a birthday cupcake.


Then on Saturday, the real partying began. We had a little party for Anneliese at Gattitown and she had a great time (and I think the other kids did too)! We all enjoyed the buffet, cupcakes and then of course, all of the games. Of course, it was next to impossible to get pictures of the kids playing games and the ones that I did take were all blurry because none of them stayed still for long in the game room. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with her!










When we got home, Granny and Grandpa had another surprise waiting for Anneliese. They gave her this really great playhouse to put out in the yard. She and Constance had quite a time playing in it!


Anneliese had a great birthday and Saturday was tons of fun. By the end of the day, we were all pooped! Here's how our Saturday night ended (by 10:00):


I've got a ton of more things to share but this is probably enough for one post. Check back very soon because I'll finish the birthday month soon.

Love to all!