Happy First Birthday Lauren!

Three days after Christmas we celebrated Lauren's first birthday. My parents came up from Virginia and the Sharps came in from New Jersey. It was a small family get together, which was perfect right after the big holiday. It also prompted us to un-decorate Christmas and decorate for a birthday party.

Here's the birthday girl in her special birthday hat

 This bouncer was a Christmas present, but she was still enjoying the heck out of it on her birthday. 

 Let her eat cake! Chocolate cake to be precise. She liked it too. 

 The birthday crew

Merry Christmas

We spent Christmas this year with the Sharps in New Jersey. It was a relaxing few days, with a lot of family on Christmas afternoon. Christmas morning was quiet with just Mom Mom, Pop Pop, me, Dave and the girls (and the dogs too of course). Sophie is very into Hello Kitty right now and got a matching pair of gloves and a hat from Lauren (what good taste at such an early age...)

Sophie's big present was a bike (without pedals, the "new" training wheels). She struggled with it a bit, so we'll need to keep practicing. 

My attempt to get a good picture of the girls together... 

Lauren in her new outfit from Nana

Sophie's favorite present was a box of dress-up clothes from the Boyles. She's a girl through and through. Here she is sporting one of the dresses, complete with gloves and clip-on earrings. 

Becky's Baby Shower

The family all came up this weekend to celebrate Becky's coming baby. I put together a shower at Figs, a restaurant just a block away from our house. Family from PA, NJ and NY all came. Despite the snowy weather, everyone came and had a great time catching up, eating and looking through all of the presents. 

Me, the mom-to-be and mom

 Becky and Yvonne, Jame's sister

 Becky and her loot

 The whole group

Snow Angels!

We've already gotten three big snow storms so far this winter. Last week school was closed early because of the snow, so Amy and I got the girls together to go sledding down a hill close to our house. However, Sophie and Claire were more interested in making snow angels than sledding. They had a blast, despite the freezing temperatures (which they didn't even seem to feel).

Santa

We took the girls to see Santa at a horse stable just outside the City. Lauren was NOT thrilled about the horses. You'll notice the very worried look on her face... she knew there was one right behind her. Not cool, Santa. Not cool.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

The weekend after Thanksgiving we got our Christmas tree and Dave's parents and Zoe came over to help us decorate it.

Lauren helped pick out the ornaments...

 And Zoe and Sophie decided where they went on the tree (the lower branches were definitely well decorated)

 The princess in front of the final product

Thanksgiving 2013

We headed down to Virginia again this year for Thanksgiving. We had a big crew at my parent's house. Dave cooked the entire dinner for 15 (well... I made a cake and Doug was the one who actually did the turkey frying). It was a great few days, filled with leaf luging, hiking, visits with friends and of course lots and lots of eating.

Our friends Carl, Amanda and their daughter Gianna came up from North Carolina. Sophie was in heaven hanging out with Gianna. Here they are getting ready to luge down the hill in front of the house. Who needs snow when you have leaves!

Doug brought the deep fryer and did the turkey in the driveway. It was cooked to perfection, of course. 

The men and the grill. 

 The whole crew (almost) at the Thanksgiving table. It was a feast! 

Early Celebrity

A few weeks ago we went to a party at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with another Greene Towne Family. They had a step and repeat where the girls had their picture taken when we first walked in, and then throughout the night they ran a slide show of the pictures. Here's Sophie on the big screen in the main hall with her friend Rachel, and Rachel's older Leah. Celebs already....

Swimming

Sophie has been in and out of swimming lessons over the last two years, and she's finally starting to get the hang of it. This is the first session where's she's in the water without a parent with her. She isn't a huge fan of it, but once she gets going she does okay. Here she is with the noodle.

Lauren Gets Baptized

At the beginning of November we headed down to Va. to get Lauren baptized at St. Paul's Episcopal, the same church where we got married and Sophie was baptized. Lauren was great. She cried for just a few seconds when the minister put water on her head, but then quieted down for the rest of the ceremony. She even let the minister walk with her up and down the isle.

The whole Coughlin-Sharp crew

Lauren in her gown and bonnet, the same one Becky and I wore, as well as Sophie. 

Happy Halloween!

We had a beautiful Halloween in Philly. Nice and warm and lots and lots of kids. Sophie of course went trick or treating with Claire, who was Ariel. They made out like bandits... now we just need to discreetly lose most of the candy.

The infamous duo

On Sunday there was a Halloween parade in the neighborhood. The kids paraded up a few of the streets, where neighbors went all out with cupcakes, candy and ice cream. It was a sugar free-for-all.

Claire (Ariel), Liora (a flapper), Sophie (purple princess), Ilan (clown), Emma (crab)

And Lauren went as a Cabbage Patch kid. She didn't love the wig, but tolerated it long enough to get a few good pictures. 

Trip to Boston

Last weekend Aleen and I went up to Boston to visit Sallie, Andy and their new baby Langston (who is 4 months now, so I guess not that new). We spent a few days just catching up and hanging out. It was excellent.

Sallie, me and Aleen

And I also got to see Sallie when we were down in Virginia (what a treat!). Here are us with the kiddos. 

Pumpkin Picking

When we were down in Virginia did some pumpkin picking and carving. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, hot even. We went to a picturesque pumpkin patch in Crozet, where we had our pick of the pumpkins.

The girls cheesing it up

Sophie's pick

Lauren and Brittany

Mom, the expert pumpkin gutter

And the final products. 

Remembering Grandma Coughlin

On Friday, October 4th my grandma died. Her health had been in decline for a several months, and one morning she just stopped living, sitting at the breakfast table. We went down to Virginia for the weekend to spend time with family and have a service. Although an emotional weekend, we got to see family that we hadn't seen for a long time. My cousin Lisa and her family came in from Illinois, and my cousins Brittany and Brandon came down from NY.

The first cousins: Lisa, Becky, Brandon, me, Brittany

The Coughlin Crew: Stephen, Lisa, Becky, Brandon, me, Lauren Dad, Brittany, Jessica, Sophie

I'm thankful Grandma got to meet Lauren before her memory was really lost. Here she is with them at the beginning of the summer. 

Grandma and me, June 2013

Standing Up, "So Big," and first words

Lauren has started to pull herself up, shuffle along just a bit, and I've even caught her standing without holding on to anything for a few seconds. We're definitely getting ready for some walking. She's also babbling a lot, and has said her first few words. So far we've hear "hi" "all done" and "dada."

Lauren pulling herself up

 Sophie & Lauren both working in the kitchen...

 Hard to believe that this was Sophie just 3 years ago. The kitchen was a first birthday present. It's certainly gotten some good use over the years. 

 She now has the "so big" down pat. That and clapping are her two tricks right now. If no one is paying attention to her, she'll pull one of them out, just to make sure we know she's fabulous...which we do.

Lauren wants to be doing whatever Sophie is doing. Wherever Sophie is, Lauren is not far behind. The charm of being followed is starting to wear a little thin for Soph. Oh, what she's in for... 

Crawling, "walking" and some new teeth

Lauren is definitely getting better at getting mobile. She's not crawling yet, but can get around pretty well, mostly backwards.

Here's how I found her the other morning. She's pretty good at backing herself around the house. 

And here's a video of her doing all of the right moves... except for the forward one: http://youtu.be/trdEosCS3eA

And who knows, she may decide to walk before she crawls. She loves to stand and "walk" around with someone holding her hands. Here she is with Dave today: http://youtu.be/D9KPPbwjxXo

And it's official, she's got four teeth! The two front teeth came in about two weeks ago, and the second bottom one came in last week. It also looks like she might have the Rainer space between the top two. The most important thing we're going to do is try to hang on to them...

You can see the top two teeth here, thanks to a little girl who's always willing to give us a smile.