Tuesday, December 29, 2009

An overdue Christmas re-cap

What a fun Christmas we had! Last year was a magical Christmas for us, because we got to enjoy it with our brand new baby girl, but since she was brand new, we didn't get out and about as much as we usually do. This year, we made it to all the family gatherings, and even though it was tiring for all of us, we were so glad to be able to see everyone that we love.

We did lunch at my grandparents house on Christmas Eve, and I sadly have no photo evidence of it! I had left my memory card in the computer at home. :(

When we got home, we decided to get into our pjs and go ahead and open presents since we would have to leave early the next morning for Cliff's family gathering in Laurel. In future years, I am sure Amelia will wake us up early enough to open presents in enough time to get where we are going, but this year I made the executive decision to move it up to Christmas Eve to maximize photo ops.

Of course, Katie came by to capture said photo ops, and to watch Mimi open her presents. Here they are playing babies before we got started.


Our little family of three in front of the tree. Katie did most of these in B&W, partly because we just love B&W, and partly because my allergies were going crazy and my nose looked like Rudolph in most of them. Thanks for that, Katie.

She picked up very quickly on how much fun it is to tear open presents! We tried not to overindulge her this year, although I can't promise anything in the future. She still had so many unopened toys from her birthday, and really Amelia just isn't that into toys right now. She would much rather play with a bowl from the kitchen or a remote control these days. She does love books and baby dolls, so she got several of those.

Here she is opening one of my personal faves, the Etch-a-Sketch magnetic doodle board. She has played with it a little bit, and I have played with it a lot.


Santa also got her a puzzle, some fat crayons and a coloring book and some crayons that write on the bath tub. She has tried to eat the crayons, so they have sadly been taken away until she is a litle older. However, I have enjoyed testing out her bath crayons in the meantime. She also got some of those markers that only write on certain paper, but she has also tried to eat them, so they had to be taken away too. Santa didn't really observe the age suggestions on her toys, ha.

Uncle Chris and Aunt Kathryn were not with us because they were in Kathryn's family, but they sent Mimi a whole bunch of fun books to unwrap, and she loves them! Kathryn's parents, who we have never met, were kind enough to send an autographed copy of a precious children's book for Mimi. How sweet of them!


We are SO glad she loves books, since Cliff and I are both big readers. Well, me not as much these days, but I have always loved to read, and I am looking forward to sharing that love with Amelia as she grows older. We have video of her opening her gifts, which I promise to share with you, Chris and Kat, as soon as Katie gets it to me. We missed y'all so much!

Checking out the damage. She does enjoy trashing a room!

(Is mine the only Christmas tree that looks awful in photos? It really was beautiful, and I'm so sad the photos don't do it justice.)

After a bunch of baby playing and book reading, the princess was off to bed, and got up the next day to head to our next event in Laurel. I just had to snap this pic of her resting up on the way over.
And becuase I just love a good comparison photo, here's what she looked like last year while we made that same drive to Laurel.

I distinctly remember stuffing a bunch of tissue into those size 0 red shoes so they would stay on! Every girl needs a pair of red Christmas shoes! I also love comparing the bow to head ratio from last year to this year. She still wears that red bow and it is about the same size as the one in the pic above from this year, but look how big it was on her little bitty head last year! Oh, I miss kissing that tiny head!

If you want to see the rest of her first Chrismtas pics, I wrote about it here last year.

OK, enough reminiscing! Here are a few from Cliff's family's gathering in Laurel. I took a few, and snagged a couple from Katie. We were just having fun eating and visiting and didn't take a ton of photos. Amelia really enjoyed all the attention she got from her Nana and aunts, uncles and cousins.

Cousin Lisa being sweet to Mimi

Cousin Kaitlyn and Mimi enjoying one of her new books


Mimi and Nana
After Laurel, we swung by my parents' house for supper. We departed from all the traditional Christmas food we had been stuffing in, and had yummy fried fish. Here's me, my brother and sister, Cliffy, Mimi and Justin goofing around.
This photo is incomplete without my brother Jeremy, who is still in Iraq. We missed having him with us. Mare and I got cozy in some sweats (you know, what with all the eating). I love getting to come home and just get cozy while I eat a lot of food, ha!
Amelia scored even more presents at Grammy and Papa's. My brother, Josh got her this sweet chair, and you can see she really likes it!

She also got more baby dolls from Grammy and Aunt Mare, and she loves feeding her babies a bottle. It is so dang precious. Speaking of precious, would you look at that little nose from the side?
After Grammy had already gotten her a rocking horse as her big gift, Papa saw this basketball goal and decided Mimi had to have it to be like Daddy!
She was serious about playing some b-ball. Daddy says he's going to have her play out on the wing, but I think she'll be a fiesty little point guard. Or maybe she'll want to be a cheerleader or dancer? Time will tell.
Christmas just became a whole lot more fun, now that we have our sweet girl with us to celebrate the birth of our Saviour. I look forward to making new family traditions over the years, and teaching her why we celebrate this special day.
P.S. Do you like my new blog header? Lindey was so sweet to make it for me using shots from our latest photo shoot, which I will be sharing with you very soon!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Enjoying some time off

Have I mentioned how thankful I am for having a job that gives me so much fabulous time off to spend with my family? Having worked in retail during high school and college, I always had to work during the holidays when everyone else was off and enjoying time with their friends and family. That experience was totally character building and has made me that much more appreciative of my school holidays!

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to during the past few days:

We went shopping and to see Santa with these fun girls, and had such a good time! Amelia and Pailyn couldn't have been more precious. I had low expectations for my sweet girl's mall behavior and she totally proved me wrong, much to my delight.


She even passed out and let me try on some dresses.

Then Sunday we got all dressed up for church in our Christmas best. I wish these photos did this silver polka dot dress justice. The bubble hem. The red shoes. Oh my word.

We spent a good two days straight just hanging around the house doing laundry and cleaning. Well, I did laundry. Cliff and Amelia mainly just hung out. Today we headed to the park for Mimi to be reunited with what she feels is heaven on earth- the swings. The only thing she loves more than a swing set is maybe a grilled cheese sandwich.


Tomorrow begins two days full of Christmas celebrations. We try to squeeze in as many family get togethers as we possibly can, even if it is exhausting. We are grateful for our families and want to see all of them, and of course for Amelia to rack up as many presents as she can, ha! Let's be honest, no one really cares if we show up, they just want to see our baby. I can't say that I blame them. She is pretty adorable, if I do say so myself!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Randoms

As Uncle Chris kindly texted me yesterday and asked, no the blog is not broken, ha! We have had a lot going on lately, and really, I have just been dang tired! Cliff is gone almost every night this time of year and we try to make it to all the home games, so between work, games and church, we just haven't been home very much lately. But that will soon change, because after today, I will be off for over 2 glorious weeks for the holidays! I have even (gasp!) not been taking very many photos lately. That will also soon change.

These are not very blog-worthy, but I'm going to go ahead and share a few recent snaps to satisfy Uncle Chris. He is sadly not on facebook, so he missed these "mobile uploads" from Aunt Mare. Look at those crossed legs- love it!


These shots show what Amelia is up to these days. She likes to run away when I try to dress or undress her before I finish. Here I had taken her top off to get ready for a bath and she wanted to hang out for a little while longer and play with the custard dish she had pulled out of the kitchen cabinet. She likes to take a very safe toy, an ink pen and stir in the bowl with it. You can also see how totally white trash we are for putting our new tv on the coffee table and the dvd player just hanging out on the floor. My tree is also so sad because I always have tons of wrapped gifts under it by now. Did you know that it is very hard to go shopping for groceries, much less actual gifts for people with a one-year old in tow?

Another cell phone pic from Aunt Mare, but you can see Mimi is doing a little online Christmas shopping on her laptop in her reindeer pjs. I was sitting beside her with a laptop in my lap and that may have been a cute pic if I had not been looking like a hot mess. So, a crop was in order. Thanks, Mare.Here are couple that our friend Natalie, the PR director at Co-Lin, shot at last week's game. I think I might have a couple more of Amelia in her t-shirt in the cam at home, but this will do for now.
Totally random blog post, but I know how important new photos of the princess are to the family. More photos to come soon, I promise!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Then and Now

This is what she did last year while I decorated the tree:
And this year:Wearing the cute dress Aunt Kathryn knit for her last year:
And again this year:

Playing in the snow last year:


This year:

What a difference a year makes!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Parading around

Oh my goodness, over a week and no new photos of Mimi from me??!! My apologies go out to the grandparents and Uncle Chris and Aunt Kathryn for this oversight. We have just been busy decorating for Christmas and having fun. With Cliff gone with basketball 5 or 6 nights out of the week (seriously), I just haven't had the time or energy to blog as usual.

Last night Amelia got to enjoy her very first Brookhaven Christmas parade! Last year the parade featured the Budweiser Clydesdale horses and I wanted desperately to go, but it just wasn't wise to get my 6-week-old out on the coldest night of the year. So even though it was ridiculously cold this year, it was on!

Since we live so close to downtown, we were able to walk over with the wagon. We brought along our friend Ella, and she and Amelia had a great time.
Aren't children in winter wear just adorable?
Here's Mimi pretending she is on a float of her own.
Watching the Co-Lin band and drinking mommy's hot chocolate. (Don't worry, it was empty. She was just licking it, ha)






I knew Amelia would love the parade because she is obsessed with music and loves to dance. Today we are going to try to make the Wesson parade after work. More photos to come, I am sure. Have a great weekend!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Counting our blessings

"Count your blessings name them one by one. Count your many blessings see what God has done."

We are so thankful every day for the many blessings in our lives, but I can't help but be even more thankful today. Here's just a few things we are thankful for today:
  • our family, most of all our precious daughter
  • our friends
  • our home
  • our jobs- Cliff and I both have been given our dream jobs in the last two years. How many people can say that?
  • our health
  • our church family
  • a free country and soldiers like my brother who selflessly serve so that we can enjoy freedom

I hope you are all counting your blessings today and every day. It's easy to look at what others have and be envious, but we have so much compared to so many others who are less fortunate. I am also very thankful for having a job that gives me a week off to enjoy with this girl: