Lauren is 14.5 months old now and super cute.  She's learning to say words now (her current favourite is "cat" since we're babysitting two cats for friends for the next few weeks).  She's also growing quite quickly... debating whether we need a new crib for her or not.  (See photo below.  What do you think?  You know what they say about small space = small people.)

Lauren standing up by herself

About three weeks ago, Lauren learned to stand up by herself. See Video 377 of Lauren showing off her new skills and being super pleased about it :)

Home-cooked Thanksgiving at Ethan's

On Nov 19, we enjoyed the BEST EVER turkey dinner at Steve, Annie, Ethan and Aaron's home. Lisa and her kiddies, Carol and her kiddies, and the Wang Gang all descended on their apartment for play and food. Thanks again for having us over! Cannot stop thinking about that turkey! Photos below :)

The kids dig in first. Love Ethan's funny face. Reminds me of Pop-eye.

Yummy home-made macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs on top. Dee-lish!

As you can tell, Ethan loves guns and loves to shoot people.

Very creative "sight" on his lego gun made from a window.

Little Aaron looks EXACTLY like his big bro Ethan. He's so big now!

The party people say "Cheese!"

The awesomely amazingly juicy perfectly cooked succulent 16 pound turkey. That butter sauce is no joke.

Yummy ribs.

The spread. Turkey, cranberry sauce, beans, salad, macaroni and cheese, ribs, sweet potatoes, corn, and more!

The kids finish up... time for the adults to dig in!

We put the electronic babysitter on for the kids. There were 8 kids in total (Michael not pictured below).

Funny pic of Vanessa.

Me and Carol share a sisterly hug.

Lauren Videos

My new phone takes great videos so have been taking advantage and below are a few recent videos of Lauren playing.

Video 374 of Lauren giggling as she sings a song and does the actions with Carol yee-yee.

Video 377 of Lauren climbing up and then down and then back up and then down from the bed.

Video 376 of Lauren playing on the bed and discovering her feet.

AMC play room

After a delicious lunch, we hung out in the AMC play room for a while. It was really relaxing because there were so many toys to entertain the kids!

Lauren found the exact same walker we have at home and of course instead of using it to learn how to walk, she climbed up.

Natalie was in love with this kitchen. She was the only one playing in it and organized all the plates and plastic food.

A little later, Natalie's friend Moorea wandered into our little play area and showed Lauren how to play with some wall toys. Lauren demonstrated her appreciation like this.

While Natalie was busy talking on the phone with the computer toy, Lauren wandered around.

Don't be scared kids... it's just Clark taking a nap.

Lauren at Tennis

Natalie regularly takes tennis lessons every Sunday with her cousins Vanessa, Victoria and Nicholas. Here are a few pics of Lauren getting in on the action at the tennis courts.

She kept raising the racket to her face...

And licking it.

She was thrilled to be able to handle the racket after hours of watching her sister and cousins playing.

Hey, where'd everybody go?

Our girls

Here are some random family photos featuring our girls.

Natalie loves to hug Lauren and recently, Lauren has started to hug and kiss her back.

Natalie likes to help dry, cream, diaper and dress Lauren after her bath.

Natalie relaxing on the sofa. She loves to press the button to raise the legs and lower the back and read books from this seat.

Natalie and I relaxing together after a long day.

Me and the girls at a buffet.

Hallowe'en Cupcakes

This is waaaaaaay past due (about a month now) but wanted to give a big thank you to Debbie and Natalie's Olivia for inviting us to decorate cupcakes with them at grEAT. It was tons of fun! Thanks also to Bern for the great pics :)

The mums and girls who participated.

The girls help to fill the cupcake tins with delicious valhrona chocolate cupcake batter.

All of us paying rapt attention to the "teacher".

Natalie watching closely as the "teacher" creates chocolate ears for her owl cupcake.

Natalie with her three cupcakes: a monster, a skeleton and an owl.

Back home, Natalie digs in to the skeleton. The owl was for me and the monster was for Clark :)

Natalie shows off her dirty post-cupcake mouth.

Pics of Lauren

Below are photos of Lauren from over the past month. She's now 13 months old and growing fast!

Lauren with her hair parted and combed to the side.

Looking goofy.

Naked baby after a bath. She has the softest skin!

Remnants of tears in her left eye. Her hair is brushed to the side.

Full-on bangs -- I think her face may be too round (not long enough) for bangs just yet. Here she is hanging out with me at Shangri La buffet. She loves to stand and gets impatient strapped into a high chair during long meals.

This is what I see when Lauren crawls over and wants to be picked up.

One of Lauren's ugly expressions... maybe her gums were itchy? She's a slow walker because, as you can see, she prefers to climb over walking. We try to bring her to the other side of the walker, but she'll just crawl back around and climb up again.

Looking puzzled in her sleep.

More peaceful sleep. I'm jealous of her long eyelashes.

Sleeping like a baby...

Am I cute?

Lauren is only 13 months and she's already doing the cutesy close-up shots like the J-girls do. Kawaii!!

Happy Halloween!

It's the funnest time of year again for the kids... Hallowe'en! What could be more fun than dressing up and eating lots and lots of candy? Below are some photos of the girls and their cousins Nicholas and Michael in costume.

Our girls Lauren and Natalie: the Pumpkin and the Fairy!

Happy Hallowe'en family and friends!

Lauren kept trying to pull off her hat so we had to squeeze in some quick photos.

Natalie the fairy is flying!

Michael is a pumpkin, too but he's a standing one.

Lauren and Natalie smiling with cousin Michael while Nicholas hangs in the back.

Michael has something in his mouth and Lauren is trying to figure out what he's eating and whether she can steal it from him.

While Nicholas and Natalie watching some TV, we played dress up Lauren and Michael. Michael didn't like being a duck as much as a pumpkin.

Poor Michael... so cute though!