Easter 2010

The girls in their Easter dresses--the first Milwaukee Easter that we have been able to take pictures outside! It's been summer-like weather here for a week and no snow on the ground. Peyton really doesn't sit for pictures these days, so I was lucky to get the one of her and Paige sitting and both smiling. Even with the elbow to Paige's neck!

Spontaneous Trip to Chicago

Ryan had a half day off of work this past Friday, so he suggested that we pack up and head to Chicago. I'm not really the spontaneous type, so this was a good exercise for me! We ended up having a great time. We went swimming in the hotel pool on Friday night and then headed to the Chicago Children's Museum on Saturday before heading home. Here are a few pictures of the girls from the pool. Check out those lips on Peyton--we saw those lips on ultrasound before she was born--even the ultrasound tech noticed them!

Once there was a snowman. . .

We built a snowman back in February. Paige was so excited!

Christmas 2009

My friend Kara took these cute pictures of the girls for Christmas!

Last Halloween (October 2009)

Well, Peyton wasn't too happy when we took these pictures, so we got a lot like the one of her crying. But in the end she was happy as could be (I bribed her with my keys--works every time!). Now if I could just get a good picture of the two kids together. . . this was the best I could do.

Peyton's First Birthday (October 2009)

We took Peyton to Noodles for her first birthday dinner. We then had cupcakes at home, which she wasn't as into as I thought she would be. We're considering doing a maternity test--not likely that a child of mine doesn't have a sweet tooth!

Peyton's Pinkie

Last night around 7:30pm, Paige went to her room to grab a book. Peyton began crawling after her, and for some reason Paige closed the door to her room. Ryan heard Peyton scream first, so he went over to see what was wrong. He yelled for me to come, saying that Peyton's finger was stuck in the door. On the hinge side. The door was completely shut. Ryan was trying to open the door without further smashing her finger. He got it open enough, and I got her finger unstuck from the door. What I saw next I did not know was possible--not in my wildest imagination of injuries. Imagine a cartoon character who smashes his finger with a hammer, flattening it. Now you know what Peyton's finger looked like. Flat as a pancake and bent in all the wrong directions. I started screaming to Ryan, "What do we do?! What do we do?!" It looked so bad I couldn't even look at it anymore. Ryan, thinking clearly, said we should get everyone in the car and drive to the hospital. All I could think was that I hoped she wouldn't lose her finger. By the time we got to the hospital, her finger had begun to look like a finger again, though it was incredibly swollen and purple. She had stopped crying, so I was hoping she wasn't in too much pain. At the ER, they took an X-ray and discovered that it wasn't broken. They did see a tiny piece of bone that they think might have detached, but the Dr. said that would be absorbed and wouldn't cause any issues. We were surely relieved that it wasn't broken, and lucky that it didn't sever her finger. As you can see from the pictures, it is super swollen and on the underside she has a few blood blisters and dark bruising. Nevertheless, Peyton has been doing very well, hardly phased by the injury other than being a little careful with that finger when she crawls/plays.