being silly

just a sunday afternoon... being silly.

selfies, family selfie portraits, and brady teething.

another christmas party

i have been really sucking at taking pictures of my kids lately.  i feel like i just haven't really been present this week.  chris has been absent pretty much every night this week with something going on.  and tonight he's staying at his parents' house with his brothers so he can take them skiing tomorrow.  so i've seen my honey for just an hour or less each night this week.  so weird since he hasn't even been traveling overnight.  anyways, the only pictures i have from today are from a company christmas party we went to tonight (and a few after we got home.) some title company chris does business with.  what does a title company even do?  anyone want to enlighten me? 

abigail is so good at saying cheese for pictures, it's amazing.  except that she chose to look at chris's phone instead of mine.  paparazzi problems.

when did this guy get so big?!?!  don't get me wrong, we are very thrilled about that.  but holy cow, he's practically a full fledged kid!  i can't believe he'll be one next week!  i can't believe i was hugely pregnant a year ago!

more and more, baby girl and brady are starting to play games and crack each other up.  like whatever this surprise peekaboo game was.  it was precious to behold.

 

 

at the party we got our pictures taken with santa.  i took pictures of the pictures.  it makes them look vintage, but dont let it fool you, they are actually just a few hours old.  

anyways, abigail still loves santa.

and

 

 brady still does not.

i won't lie, i'm enjoying the crying kid santa pictures.  sorry, brady.

out with a bang

my whole weekend has been kinda magical.

obviously, friday night was awesome.

saturday was really great too though.  we all slept in and then hurried out the door to run errands together.  hit up vitamin cottage for some tahini (so we can make hummus now!) and then to costco where we filled up on a ton of amazing samples (greek yogurt cheeescake, delicious cheeses, chicken sandwiches... some old favorites and some new stuff i hadn't ever tried before) and got groceries and these cubbie things i've wanted forever, and then i ran in walmart for a they're-never-ever-quick return.  it was a luxury to be able to run in vitamin cottage and walmart by myself without having to drag two kids along.  even if i did always have to hear from honey about how long that took.  yes, but it would have taken me even longer if i'd taken two kids... and would have been infinitely more painful for us all.

after lunch, i put brady down for a nap and honey took baby girl to see monsters university.  we're not big movie theater people and honestly, the only reason he even took her was because we got four free movie passes when we recently bought new tires for my car, but baby girl had never seen a movie at a movie theater before and honey really wanted to take her.  he wanted to use the other two passes to take me on a date night but long story short, i'm actually going to use the other two to take baby girl to see turbo (that snail movie) later this week.  i'm excited for our girls night.  while honey and baby girl were gone, i put together all those cube organizer things.  the first one took almost an hour but the other two were quick.  like 20 minutes.  steep learning curve.  i really like putting things like that together.

we went on another walk/bike ride to the playground and it was great.  perfect weather and baby girl is so adorable.  she's so quick to make friends.  or at least try to make friends.  a little boy at the playground looked to be her same age and was wearing a thomas t-shirt so baby girl  kept following him around and talking to him like they were bff.  he ignored her much of the time but there did seem to be some moments that they were actually communicating and playing together.  i think one or both of his parents speak german... so maybe he just doesn't understand english that well.  either way, it's always a whole bundle of emotions watching baby girl make new friends.  it fills me with pride that she is so sweet and innocent and friendly and it wracks me with fear that she'll get her feelings hurt or learn how to be mean.

so then we all walked home and got our kids in bed early (brady has been crazy tired lately... probably from a growth spurt or something) and baby girl didn't nap (we put her down for a really early nap in case she wanted to sleep a bit before the movie but she just played in her crib the whole time) and finished our movie from the night before.  i actually really enjoyed the movie (the big year) which probably means that most people wouldn't enjoy it.  i don't like movies that are too emotionally charged and this one was perfectly middle of the line without being too boring.  it's a given that i don't like movies that are too sad or scary but i also don't like movies that are too happy or uplifting.  romance movies portray an ideal that can make it hard to be satisfied with the day in, day out of your wonderful but simple marriage.  and movies like ruby or the blind side make me feel like i'm not doing enough with my life.  i do really love super funny movies though... but then you get in to the question of if it's risque or inappropriate.  so here's my plug for a funny enough to make you smile but not too emotionally charged in any way sort of movie.  also, i like the bbc pride and prejudice.  but i bet you already knew that.  (even though it portrays a romantic ideal, my honey is actually a lot like mr. darcy and it only portrays the courtship, and it takes place in a time with completely different social norms).  it's a perfect movie... i can find no fault.

and then today.  i wasn't really looking forward to today (maybe i'll look forward to sundays again eventually but not quite yet... too busy and hectic) but, as usual, i was pleasantly surprised.  byc was good.  sacrament meeting was awesome.  i got to go to some of sunday school (like maybe ten minutes) which was really good.  and yw third hour was good.  it was a bit hectic because i was on my own since honey was tied up with a church auditing meeting and i took baby girl to the bathroom twice (she never ended up going til we got home) and brady needed two diaper changes (neither of which coincided with the time i took him to the mother's lounge to feed him).  so it was like most other sundays where i'm making my way back and forth across the church building in heels with my church bags and a baby carseat and a three year old that only knows two speeds, one of which is running and the other which resembles a drunken kitten.

but it was okay because we all left happy and honey's auditing meeting actually got out on time so he got home right after we did.  and after a quick lunch, all four of us took spectacular naps.  we went on another walk/bike ride tonight around the neighborhood a little bit and just sort of hung out as a family.  those walks are amazing though.  abigail is so cute on her bike and so obedient stopping and looking for cars at each intersection.  brady is so happy and content in his stroller.  honey is removed from technological distractions and just puts his arm around my waist while we walk and talk about life.  is there anything more to want?  i think not.

so that was my weekend.  start to finish, just wonderful.  sometimes it's rough to have a stellar weekend when it starts out so great because it's hard to keep up the greatness.  but this time, it was great the whole time and we went out with a bang.

easter festivities

today was another awesome day.

maybe the sun was a little too bright.

makes me look like one of those bloggers that doesn't post pictures of their child's face.

baby girl was all up in this tree... got every last egg.

we went to the egg hunt in my in laws neighborhood.  it was legit.  skittles, starbursts, these sugar coated lifesaver gummis...  loving the eater candy.  baby girl liked it too dangit.

easter bunny

honey and i posed for this family picture sans brady.

for some reason baby girl didn't want to actually bounce in the bounce house but she loved standing at the base of the slide and watching the kids go down.  she looked precious in a sad sort of way.  made me laugh.

happy easter from the hilliers!  we're starting to look like a real family!  just wait til we add our next five kids.  juuuust kidding.  three more will probably suffice.

abigail likes to know what the words say on all of her clothes and brady's.  chris was unaware of this tonight when i was at the young women's broadcast and he was at home with the kids... apparently a humorous and confusing situation went down when abigail repeatedly pointed to brady's shirt while telling chris "it's you big guy!"  "it says it's you big guy!"  ha.

 

 

 

mother son picture.  i know it's silly but having a son makes me feel so special.  not sure why but it 100% does.

hard at work

 

 

 

baby girl came to me sooooo thrilled that she put on her shirt all by herself!  (she's been dressing herself more and more lately and is getting really good at it!)  she excitedly looked down to show me thomas and... umm... immediately became frantic that she couldn't see him.  ha.  

don't worry.  i helped her remedy the situation.

and we all lived happily ever after.  ps- i got her these pjs in 2T for christmas.  they shrunk a lot after the first washing.  luckily they went on clearance and i picked up bigger pj's for $3.  let the pj love live on!

honey woke up at 5:30 or something insanely early to play drop in hockey this morning.  then he took a nap this afternoon and then he fell asleep tonight sometime around 8 30 while i cleaned up the kitchen and got baby girl to bed.  i may have been slightly annoyed that he went to bed before our kid (to his credit, he actually got brady to sleep tonight before i got home from the yw broadcast!) but i thought it was no big deal since i was about to put abigail to bed anyways.  well, i was telling my sister emmy about this the other day but baby girl's ocd is getting a little out of control lately.  especially when it comes to bedtime.  tonight i made the trek up our stairs probably FIFTEEN times in the space of an hour.  our bedroom is downstairs and it seemed like as soon as i got in bed, i'd hear her on the monitor again.  the main issues of tonight were...

i need another hug

i need another kiss

my sippy cup is making noises (this accounted for at least four or five of the trips upstairs)

i have boogers, i need a tissue! (and then after i wiped her nose it was "throw it in the garbage!!!")

say goodnight!!!! (i literally walked in, said goodnight, and walked out again)

i have tears.  i have two tears.  (needing me to wipe her tears with her blanket... or just instruct her to do it herself)

i need my nightlight on! (because it's been sooo long that the timer reached its limit and the light went off)

the other night i went up and down those stairs three times at 1am with baby girl's random requests and then two times again at 2 am for brady.  i told emmy, this would all be severely annoying if i wasn't laughing at the humor of it all.  i used to go up and down those stairs four or five times a day.  now, it's got to be at least THIRTY.  and when it's between the hours of 9pm and 9am, you just can't help but laugh about it.  i mean, what other option is there?!

here's to another night!

our cozy christmas - take two

12.25.12 - just our little family of four