February = Parties!

It's been a busy month around here in terms of parties! We celebrated Emmory's 4th birthday on the 3rd and we will (and already did) celebrate Aliya's 1st birthday on the 19th. In case we still matter it is our 9th anniversary on the 19th as well. The girls are growing before our eyes. Emmory is very into doing everyone's hair and wearing all sorts of bows it makes life interesting at times in public. Aliya is walking and into everything. She can have my kitchen destroyed in 2 minutes flat. She is also saying some words and beginning to babble a lot. It's been a fun month!

The girls at their party eating the butterfly cake. Aliya loved it!

Emmory is hoping for rain now that she has an Ariel umbrella.

The Butterfly Cake-I am quite proud of it.

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Aliya is wondering what is going on and Emmory is very excited!

Emmory's actual birthday

Her birthday dinner consisted of panpakes (pancakes)

macon (bacon), & eggs oh and a pupcake (cupcake) for dessert.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009! We had a great Christmas and a fun New Years Eve with friends. Just when we thought everything was great and I was actually ready to go back to school...the flu hit. Since Sunday we (Eric included) have been cleaning up puke, washing sheets, getting kids to drink pedialite, and watching a lot of TV with 2 sick girls. So far Eric and I haven't gotten it and I think the girls are better because Emmory has been quite naughty today and Aliya is pulling out all of the paper out of the recycling bin as I type. I'm ready to get back to a routine and back to work. I think Emmory is ready for daycare again too. I'll add some pictures later I'm having some technical difficulties.

Christmas Cards...Check

Two weekends ago we had Christmas at our house for about 30 minutes. I saw a good deal on Snapfish and decided to take advantage of it. The Christmas dresses (bought last year on sale) came out of the closet, the pre-lit garland was hung above the fireplace, and a fake little christmas tree came out of storage. Perfect setting for a christmas card. It wasn't as easy as I thought. Aliya was very interested in the "surroundings" and Emmory thought the idea was fun and that everything looked beautiful for about 5 minutes. Well, I was able to get a picture and the cards are already printed and in my hands. Last year I had the cards made when I was on christmas break. At least I'm on the ball with one task. Enjoy these pictures...you'll have to see which one made the cut.


"Over here girls"


"Emmory, cover your leg"

"Aliya, look at mommy"

"Em, pay attention"

(Am I a teacher or what?!)

Happy 9 Months Aliya!

My baby is 9 months old today. Where has the time gone? In the last month she has changed from a baby to an explorer. She is on the go! When we went to the Dr., Aliya showed her all of her tricks. She weighed in at 19#-50% and measured 29.25" tall -95% and now what I know you're all waiting for....Head circumference was a whopping 46.5 cm.-97%. Those Van Hofwegens have a lot of brains. We're dealing with her reflux still (thus the bibs in every picture), but hopefully she'll begin growing out of it with the more solids she's eating. She has 6 teeth and more are coming in. As you can see in the pictures her hair is growing like a weed as well. We've had 2 haircuts at the salon and I just trimmed her bangs again last night. We love you Aliya and couldn't imagine our lives without you.

Aliya is moving all over the place and loving it!

She loves her sister's toys. Emmory doesn't really like that.

She's pulling herself up on everything.

Aliya is an extremely content baby. She is always happy and very easy going.

The only time she cries is when it's time for bed. I guess when you're discovering everything for the first time I can see why you wouldn't want to go to bed.

Hug A Tree

Our house with our lovely willow tree. It was beginning to make us nervous with it over our house, so we thought we'd get it trimmed.

Trimming cost alot of money and had to be done every year. We were also told that it probably should come down eventually because of the CRACK in the base of the trunk. Our decision was made: bye bye tree or bye bye kitchen.

Still trimming.

Bye Bye willow tree.

This is what remained. Now that is gone as well and we did plant a new tree in its place. Not nearly as large but at least we did our part. I'm getting use to more light in my house and feeling like I live in a fish bowl-it gave us a lot of privacy. At least we won't have any leaves to pick up!

Happy Halloween!

We carved pumpkins earlier in the week. Aliya loved playing with them.

Emmory wasn't sure about the slimy insides.

I had a San Francisco 49er's cheerleader and a princess for Halloween.

The weather was awesome this year and Emmory got a ton of candy.

There were about 5 houses giving full size candy bars or boxes.

Don't worry, I confiscated those right away.

Pumpkin Patch

On Friday at 4:30 we packed up the kids and headed to "the country" according to Emmory. We went to a small pumpkin patch in Lowell. If you can go on a Friday at 5:00 you have the whole place to yourself. It was great! I would highly recommend Heidi's Farm Stand.

We had a private wagon ride through the corn, woods, and along the pumpkin patch.

City Girl meets Country

This is the pumpkin Emmory picked out.

The girls by the pumpkins. Aliya was loving it.

Emmory & Aliya

A good time had by all! We came home with apples, apple cider, and 6 pumpkins.

We are ready for Fall!