Alaina - 15 months

Alaina is 15 months and continues to GROW!! She is so much fun and while she is typically rowdy, she has started to become much more affectionate. We are constantly rewarded with big hugs! She is a loudmouth and desperate to start talking. In the last two days, she's added 'jacket', 'apple', 'up' and 'egg' to her growing list of words. No surprise that two of those words are food - she still loves to eat. I typically keep a baby gate in the kitchen doorway but forgot to put it up one day. This is Alaina after she got into the waffle mix!

Auntie Cherith's Wedding

On January 2, 2010, Cherith Norman became Mrs. Georges Chalet. We were so happy to be their for her special day and honored that Hana got to be a flower girl. Hana loved getting all dressed up and performed her duties properly. The bridal party made up of Cherith's sisters and nieces.
I couldn't resist buying Alaina a dress that matched Hana's. She loves to dress up even more than her big sister does!
Lots of fun dancing!

The beautiful bride and her groom.

Even more dancing! It was definitely past Hana's bedtime but she was having so much fun.

Christmas Card Pictures

So I had every intention of hiring a photographer to take some real family portraits of us this year. But after looking at the prices, I wasn't too interested in spending hundreds of dollars, especially since Hana and I are not that good at posed photos anyway. We still needed a Christmas card picture. If you know me well, then you know that I love sending out Christmas cards and am kind of obsessive about sending them out before anyone else. I am obnoxiously organized and like to be ahead of things on stuff like this!

I decided to try out the self-timer function on our new SLR camera. We got all dressed up and headed outside to get this done before the sun went down. We took about 150 pictures total (10 pics were take!) and the picture we ended up choosing was the 3rd picture taken. I love the picture we ended up with and I love that it cost us nothing! Here are some of the pictures that definitely were not considered:

Golden Gate Park Hike

Last Saturday Kevin had the great idea of taking the girls for a hike in Golden Gate Park. It was a lovely, brisk fall day and we had a great time. The park is so close to our home but we rarely go. We need to come here more often!

Halloween

My October picture folder has over 300 pictures (excluding Alaina's birthday)! It's been a fun month. A couple of days before Halloween, I hosted a party for Alaina's playgroup. Us moms love lining the kids up and taking pictures. This has gotten pretty difficult now that the babies are mobile! We decided we'd have a better chance of getting all the kids in the picture if the moms held their babies and we used an automatic timer. Success! I love how green our grass is and how blue the sky is.
Hana's friend Jenna joined us for trick-or-treating.

I thought I would only take Alaina to a few houses but she really enjoyed herself and kept up with the big girls. I adore the picture below. It was taken at the last house we went to and she is so determined to get to that front door!
And the candy. I let Hana eat almost as much as she wants on Halloween. The next few days, I might give her a piece a day and then I pretend that candy no longer exists and hope she forgets about it. It's working so far!