Baton Rouge and Lafayette

For the first leg of our Louisiana/Texas holiday trip, we traveled to Baton Rouge to visit Joe and his kids. At the outset, we were a little concerned about Bea on a long car trip, but she did really well. For the nearly 11 hours we spent in the car, she slept for at least 8 or 9 hours. Merry Christmas for us. Upon arriving in Baton Rouge, Bea met her cousins Alice, Aidrey, and Jack for the first time.

Audrey was especially helpful with Maggie and the Bea, and I'm sure she enjoyed not being the youngest kid the house for once.

On Saturday, we took a trip to the state capital (pictures forthcoming - they are on the other camera), and here is Maggie and Alice racing down the hill in the park by the capital.

Afterwards, we went to visit Mike the Tiger.

Maggie really loved playing with all of Uncle Joe's rocks and shells.

We even got a visit from Uncle Brian.

Here's Maggie eating breakfast part 1 (cocoa pebbles with Audrey)...

followed by breakfast part 2 (hot chocolate with Alice).

Before leaving for Lafayette, Alice made Maggie a bracelet.

We made our way to Lafayette to visit T-mom and Papa-T and Bea was in a great mood.

Aunt Faye came by to visit Bea and I think we may have found our new baby sitter.

We have plenty more to come.

Learning how to use my camera

I have been playing with my camera a little more. All these photos were taken in some sort of manual mode and then edited using Adobe lightroom. And if you are wondering where are the photos of Maggie. Well, she is a wiggle worm and all my photos of her were blurry. I think for now I will stick to automatic mode for her until I am a little better :) Although, she is helping me by making Baby Bea smile in some of the photos.

Perfect chew toy

Our elf on the shelf whose name is constantly changing due to Maggie is the perfect size for baby Bea to hold, therefore, chew on.

Here they are cuddling...

Bea eating real food

And a cute picture of the girls watching a cartoon.

Winter Smorgasbord

Here is the end of the year picture of Maggie's ballet class.

They almost follow instructions.

If Maggie keeps practicing, she will have a chance to try out for the Nutcracker next year.

Here's some pictures of Maggie being cool as usual.

We finally got some decent snow and had some fun with the neighborhood kids.

Here's Bea standing up to look out of the window.  I helped her on to her feet, but she did the rest.

Finally,  here's Bea doing some sit ups.