Social Butterflies

Hallelujah, I have found my digital camera! I feel much better because our couch had eaten it, so really, one can hardly blame that on me. Here is Zach Shipman doing an impression of our hungry couch:
Zach was also the cause of one of our many recent social outings. He turned one on Oct. 10th, so we headed to Prescott, WI to help him and his family celebrate. That's Claire in the top picture with our friend Hannah, who was also there. Hannah is awesome with babies, and you can tell Claire is having a blast with her. Isn't Zach an adorable 1-year-old?We also went to my sister-in-law Stephanie's house to visit with her, her husband Andy, and daughter Alex (below) for a family barbecue. Rich and Gwen also joined in on the fun. Alex loved running around the yard and playing with balloons. Hanging out with Alex always gets me excited for when the girls are a bit older and can play more.
The beginning of November has included an annual event for Ryan and I for the past 9 years - The CTV Auction! We headed to Eau Claire to volunteer in the phone room for another fun and exciting auction event. Rich and Gwen watched the girls, and brought them to CTV to meet everyone, which was a lot of fun. We can't walk away from the auction without buying something, and this year it was this huge stuffed bear. Seriously, it's huge!

This past Tuesday, Nov. 18th, the girls and I went to Target to visit Ryan at work. We've been a few times now, but everyone was amazed by how big the girls are getting. I was pleasantly surprised that the girls stayed happy and smiling the whole time. Nice job, ladies!

Even with all this running around, we made sure to fulfill our civic duty on Nov. 4th. The girls came with me for their very first presidential election (Ryan headed to the polls after work but we went during the day for fear that it would be uber-busy in the evening). Because of this early exposure to the excitement of politics, I'm certain we now have a future President in our mists. Who will it be - Claire or Abby? Only time will tell. . .

I'm sure the socializing will continue as we head into the Holiday Season. Stay tuned for more updates from Life at the Lamberts!

A Bear, A Duck, and Girls on the Move

Sorry for the very long lapse since my last post! Things have been a bit hectic around here, plus I seem to have lost my camera again (!) so I'm a bit lacking in pictures. But I do have some cute Halloween ones courtesy of Aunt Jill. (Yea for Aunt Jill!)

My sister Jill, niece Lily, my parents, Ryan, the girls and I headed over to Grandma and Aunt Pat's house on the afternoon of Halloween to show off our costumes: Abby Duck, Lily Ladybug and Claire Bear. We had a nice little photo shoot, and Abby got so excited she kept almost falling off the couch.

I started thinking that maybe we should wear costumes every day if they're this happy about it. It was adorable! Then, Ryan and I said good-bye to our girls as we headed out for a date while they headed off to spend the night with Grandpa Mike and Grandma Maggie. The rest of the group (minus Grandma and Pat) went to Jill's neighborhood in Robbinsdale to trick or treat (minus the tricks and the treats) and meet some of Jill's fun neighbors. All in all, a pretty eventful first Halloween!!
BREAKING NEWS: Forget about the Presidential Election, this is what you really want to know! Last night, the girls started crawling!! They were playing in the room next to the kitchen when I saw Abby moving forward out of the corner of my eye. I had to do a double take to make sure she was actually crawling, and she was! Not wanting to be outdone, Claire did a tiny bit of crawling soon after. I got some video on my cell, but it's not very good. I will try to find the camera and take some better video so I can post it for you all to see. I know all babies do it, but I was so excited and proud! It's great that they're crawling but after watching my sister and girl-on-the-move Lily, I'm not looking forward to everything they're going to get into. Stay tuned!