Glamour Girl!!!

Rylee is almost 16 months old now, and we FINALLY took her for her “1 year" pictures! (Oh well, size-wise she still looks like a 1-year-old!) She did much better than expected. Even through the multiple wardrobe changes and nervous giggles, she still turned on her charm like only Rylee can and we got some REALLY SWEET pictures! Thanks to our friend, neighbor, and photographer, Alisha Hatch with Lee Photography, for being so patient and taking the time to let Rylee shine!!

Christmas Morning!!!

We woke up Christmas morning to find that Santa had found our house and left presents for everyone! I guess we were all good boys and girls this year!

Rylee Morgan, the best present EVER!

Lance helping Rylee open her presents.

Rylee helping me clean out my stocking, which happened to be filled with . . . more “stockings”!

The “busy ball popper”.

Rylee’s not so sure about this thing!

Books, books, and more books!

This girl’s gonna be one fantastic reader.

OK mom, enough with the camera already.

If I look very sweet can we be done?

Christmas Eve Pictures

Rylee in her party clothes (which didn’t last very long. she soon changed into her party P.J.’s).

Playing with the wrapping paper, every 1 year-old’s favorite toy!

Uncle Austin doing his “sexy” pose for the camera (: Work it baby!!!

Our first attempt at a family photo (we’d only been there for a little while and Rylee was already sick of her dress and soooo over having her picture taken!)

Our best family photo. Rylee wouldn’t smile, but at least she wasn’t throwing a fit in this one! You’ve just gotta love her spunk!

Our 1st Christmas

(FYI: This post does not have any photos, I had to wrap it up early so I could feed the little munchkin, but I promise the next one will have plenty!)

Technically it was Rylee’s 2nd Christmas, but since none of us got to enjoy much of Christmas last year, it was really our FIRST Christmas together as a family. This Christmas was special for us for a lot of reasons, and we really enjoyed being HOME for the holidays!

We actually put up our tree this year, and even had presents underneath. Rylee spent most of the month of December stubbornly attempting to get at the gifts and tear off the tags and bows (once she figured out the crawling thing it was game-over).

Christmas Eve was spent with the “Jones” side of the family. We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and then the “boys” watched The Polar Express while the “girls” discussed amongst themselves. It was a nice relaxing evening. It wasn’t quite the same though, without my sister and her family, who spent their holidays this year in North Carolina. We can’t wait until Dave is done with school so they can move closer to home.

Christmas morning Lance, Rylee, and I opened our presents. Rylee had a hard time at first with the idea that it was now acceptable to tear open the presents and play with the bows, but she got over it and had more fun with the wrapping paper and bows than she did with the toys!

And finally, Christmas Day was spent with the “Barnes” side of the family. We at a delicious meal and opened a ridiculous amount of presents (kids and adults alike)! We always have a fun time with everyone on Christmas, but yet again, this party was missing Lance’s brother and his family, so things were again much quieter than usual. All in all though, 2010 ended much more happily than 2009, and we are expecting an even better 2011!

You’ve Had A Birthday, Shout Hooray!!!

Rylee Celebrated her 1st Birthday on Thanksgiving this year, and boy did we have reason to be thankful! She has been such a wonderful blessing in our home, and this last year, while it’s definitely had its low points, has been the BEST year ever! Rylee literally makes us smile from the moment she wakes up in the morning, until she reluctantly closes those beautiful blue eyes at night.

Since her birthday was on Thanksgiving and my whole family would already be together, we decided to open presents at grandma’s house ON her birthday, but to save the birthday cake and singing for another day later the next week. Rylee got lots of nice presents from both sets of grandparents, her Aunts Brittney and Cindy (and her cousins Marley, Bentley, and Jaycie), and of course from dear old mom and dad. Her favorite gifts were her farm set and her little stuffed puppy that sings and talks to her.

As for the cake party later the next week, she wasn’t too sure what she was supposed to do! Things started out pretty serious, until Lance showed her how to dig in and make a mess, and she checked with mommy that it was OK!