Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we spent Thanksgiving day at Grandma and Grandpa's and it was lots of fun!  Abby thoroughly enjoyed playing with Uncle Eric, David, Stephen and Aunt Sarah and they all got to meet Lilly for the first time!  I forgot to take any pictures of the food this year but take my word for it, there was plenty and it was delicious as usual.  :)  We even had time to toss around a football in the backyard.  Then on Saturday we got to have another Thanksgiving feast at Bobo and Lucy's house.  Lucy's parents are here in preparation for baby time so it was great to see them and catch up as well.  Here are a few pictures from the past few days. I can't believe it's Monday already.  Back to reality!

The pumpkin cheesecake I made for Thursday.  I thought it was OK but everyone else liked it (or so they told me!).

Abby keeping up with the big kids!

Someone was being a ball hog!

Lilly hanging out with Aunt Karen in the gazebo.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect!  And just look at those chubby legs!

Father-daughter moment of playing catch.  ♥

Lilly is old enough to "ren ren" (recognize people) so she's taking a goood look at Aunt Sarah....

...and Aunt Karen.  Heehee....so cute!

Someone turned into a pouty pants on top of being a ball hog.  :)

I just like how extra chubby Lilly looks here.  ♥

Gotta keep up the calories!

Lilly looks like she's texting too.  Man, I can't get over how much her feet look like mine!

Abby's turn to crawl on Daddy!  :)

Lilly and Lao Lao soaking up the warm sun.  :)

Lilly and Jo Ma!  T-minus one month!!

The spread at Bobo and Lucy's house.  Everything was delicious!

Abby looooves when Lilly rides on her back.  We do it first thing every morning.  It makes both of them smile and laugh so much!  We love it!

Then Abby leans down to let Lilly dismount.  It's too cute!  Abby doesn't even mind one bit that Lilly is gripping onto her hair for dear life and pulling a handful of it out every time.  :)

Just a quick Lilly update:  She prefers standing instead of crawling or tummy time.  She actually started to let go of the couch or fire truck and tries to stand on her own!!!  She's really working hard on balancing!  She still doesn't have the hang of it but it's fun to watch her try on her own!  My prediction is she will walk by 10 months.  We also decorated the house today and we're in the holiday spirit already!  Bryce put up lights outside, the tree is up, mantle is decorated, stockings hung and I already started wrapping presents.  I love this time of year!

Playing together

With Abby out of school this week, she and Lilly have been able to play, play, play together and it's so cute to watch!  Abby continues to be a sweet, sweet jie jie which makes Bryce and I such happy parents.  ♥  We are really excited about Thanksgiving coming up and being able to spend time with family.  I love this time of year!

I was trying to take a picture of them playing together but Abby said "Me first!  Take a picture of me first!"

A great example of SHARING!!  Hooray!

Bryce was out raking the roof and the rest of us girls were playing in the front yard.  We busted out the PNP for mei mei to hang out in.  This is my new favorite picture of her with her cute little hat on!  ♥

Daddy's little helper!  She was trying so hard to reach the roof too!

Just noticed how odd it looks that I'm in a tank top and mei mei is all bundled up.  But she wasn't moving around like I was so she needed it!

Antlers!

Abby's first french braid!  I was a little out of practice.  I did it tighter the second time.  It brought back so many memories of doing Ruby's hair and my doll's hair.  :)

Playing together.  ♥

This little monster gets into EVERYTHING.  We'll actually have to child proof our house now.  Abby is just not a curious cat so we never had to baby proof much.

This is her pouty face.  She didn't want me to put her hair behind her ears.  Toddler problems.

Look Ma!  One hand!

French braid, take two!  Much better!

Now that Mei Mei is crawling, I was putting away the comforter on the floor but they got to it first and turned it into a sleeping bag.  Looks like fun to me!

Here is Mei Mei be-bopping down the hall.  Abby never even knew we had a hallway until she was over 1 year old.  We never had to worry about Abby crawling down the hall, into the kitchen, into our room, etc.  She was perfectly content in the living room.  They are so different - it's fun to watch!

My little explorer!

My crawler standing and my walker crawling.

Ruby: This reminds me of the pics of us on the a/c vent in the Pasadena house.  :)

We have a crawler, UT ME Reunion

Lilly has been army crawling or half crawling (up on all fours but lunges forward onto belly and repeat) for months now but last night she is officially a bonafide crawler!  She's up on all fours and getting into places like a baby on a mission!  Yay Lilly!  We are all so proud of you!

Sorry Mei Mei!  I might have been squeezing/hugging you too hard.  Get used to it!  ♥

I had a blast yesterday at Texadelphia.  For the past few years, I had been wanting to host an unofficial UT ME reunion since so many of us live in and around the Houston area and it finally came to fruition yesterday! So many of us have kids now and it's hard to get together with everyone so I thought, why not have ONE HUGE PLAY DATE?  I had grand intentions of decorating and hiring a face painter for the kids but with both girls being sick this past week and Bryce being out of town Thursday and Friday, none of that happened.  And it didn't matter anyhow!  The great company was all we needed to have a great time.  And it was SO awesome to see all of the 2nd generation future Longhorns playing so well together.  In typical Rosa fashion, I was terrible about taking pictures but luckily Mike took them for me so I'm waiting to get them from him.  I can't wait to share them with everyone!  I especially appreciate everyone that drove in to attend the event and we need to do this again!  The only picture I have is our group shot.  Look at all those future engineers!  {wink}

Hook'em!

Abby was fast asleep after our reunion so Lilly got to play with Minnie without any interruption.  :)

This is what a usual no-napper looks like when she actually naps.  She BLACKS OUT.  She slept right through a birthday party!

Monkey see, monkey do.  Abby was the horse for ONCE!  Lilly had sooo much fun!  Watching the 2 of them play together never gets old.  ♥

Abby:  "Mommy, I found my favorite seat!"

Bryce (thinking):  "Get these feet out of my face!"

When the cat's away the mice will play

...or in our case, when Abby is at school, Lilly finally gets to play with anything she wants!  She went to town and we cleaned up before Jie Jie came home.  No one was the wiser.  :)

Unfortunately both girls have been battling stuffy, runny noses that have now progressed into coughs for the past week but we still manage to have fun in between all the snot!  We also got to celebrate Bryce's 34th birthday and Abby and I got to do some fun art work one day.

I love her smile!  :)

This one is our little explorer.  She's already getting into stuff that Abby didn't discover until she was much older.  We're going to have to keep a close eye on this little girl - and she's fast too!

Bryce's mom made him a delicious chocolate cake for his birthday.  We had to improvise with the candles.  No, Bryce did not turn 5,251 years old.  It's 5-2 which =3 and 5-1 which =4, hence 34 years old.  Get it?  No, didn't think so.  :P

Abby absolutely loves this chair and now Lilly loves it too.  Just look at the joy in her face!

This is how the two of them have been playing lately.  They are in their matching "I ♥ MY DADDY' pajamas  since it was his birthday.

I was painting a quick Christmas art project and Abby wanted to paint too.  :)

This is what a stuffed up baby looks like mouth-breathing and trying to catch up on much needed sleep.  My poor babies...

And lastly, my super quick Christmas decoration.