A mega Christmas re-cap

Well hello there, 2012. I suppose it's past time for me to do a Christmas post. I have been waiting to share Christmas pics here and on facebook because I have misplaced my camera and kept hoping it would turn up. Sadly, it still hasn't, so I'm just going to recap our holiday and share some pics that I got leading up to Christmas and some that Katie took on Christmas Day, the last day that I can remember seeing my camera. I can't even handle the thought of having absolutely no pictures of Mimi from Christmas! Thank goodness for Aunt Katie.

I am overwhelmed at how behind I am on recording our family' memories, so I will just make this mostly pics and try to do better from now on. I really want to do an update on everthing Amelia is up to these days soon. She is such a mess!

I'll start with a cell phone pic of her decorating her pink tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year was the year of enthusiasm. She was so excited about every little thing to do with Christmas. We had fun decorating her very own tree.

Amelia got to participate in the children's program for the first time this year. We were SO proud of her for standing up in front of the church like such a big girl and singing her songs.

Impossible to get a good pic of that many kiddos!

 She was excited that Grammy came to see her. Papa had prior commitments at their church. Aunt Katie, of course, was also there but she was the one taking these pics, so no evidence of her, ha.

She also got to attend a fabulous party with her Mission Friends class.

Mrs. Brenda and Mrs. Bethany did a great job with their party, and the kids had a blast decorating cookies and cupcakes. Have I mentioned how much I adore our church and the preschool department? Amelia LOVES going to church, and I love that she is learning about Jesus and the real Reason for the season at such a young age.

We got to spend a day with Baby Jackson while Mare was in a wedding during the holidays. How cute is he in this onesie I made for him?

We made our annual trip to the Mall of Lousiana with Lindey and Pailyn to see Santa. You may recall that we haven't had a successful photo with Santa since she was 8 weeks old.

Well, my friends, we had success this year! This isn't a great pic. I was trying to sneakily break the rules of no photos, ha. I do have the actual ridiculously overpriced photo that we purchased, and I plan to scan it and include it here for our memories. She had a big ole grin on her face and I loved every second of it.

She was so excited to meet Santa, and although she hesitated just for a second, she hopped on up in his lap and told him that she wanted a princess castle and "a lot of colored lipsticks." Of course, this was after she had requested a dollhouse for the past couple of months. She saw a commercial for the Disney princess castle about a week before Christmas. We had to tell her that Santa had already made her dollhouse, ha.

We had a lot of fun playing at home in the days leading up to Christmas. This was an especially fun day because she got a new teaset in the mail from Uncle Chris and Aunt Kaki. We immediately had to have a goldfish picnic on the living room floor.

 We also made some cookies for Santa. She was really pumped about it here, but lost interest while they were baking. Oh, and Grammy and Papa stopped by to play.

 I ended up having to finish most of them myself. She did add a few sprinkles though.

And then, the day finally came! Even though she had some sassy and not-so-well-behaved days this year, Santa still thought she had been a very good girl and brought her a dollhouse, a lot of colored lipsticks, some books, some Dora bath toys, some DVDs and her very first basketball goal!

We had to wait forever for her to wake up on Christmas morning. When she finally did, she was a little groggy and didn't go as nuts as I had hoped, but she was still very excited. We have it all on video and I took some photos, but you know, the whole camera being lost thing is preventing me from sharing.

Luckily Katie came over before we got ready for church and snapped a few pics of Mimi and her new stuff.

Last year as a family of three at Christmas! (My face was totally swollen here, I'm sure due to the excessive amount of salty foods I consumed on Christmas Eve, ha.)

On Christmas Eve we went to my grandparents house, as usual. Since my grandfather just passed away in October, it wasn't exactly the cheeriest of days for everyone there, so I didn't take many photos. After church on Christmas Day, we went to Cliff's Aunt Lisa's to have lunch with their side of the family, and then we went to my parents' that evening for supper. Katie came along with us, so that's why I have a few pics from that night.

By this point in all our holiday running around, I am always dragging. These babies looked like I felt that night!

But when they woke up, they were ready to go!

 Amelia got a ridiculous amount of gifts from my parents and siblings. She is such a blessed little girl!

 Pretending to be a country girl with my brother's grunt call. (At least I think that's what it is called.)

 We were so glad to have the Walkers home from Alabama to celebrate our first Christmas with sweet baby Jackson.

 I am so crazy about my precious nephew! He is seriously the happiest, sweetest baby ever.

This little girl is pretty crazy about her aunt too.

We are SO incredibly blessed to have great families, a wonderful church and so many wonderful friends. Amelia got an insane amount of gifts this year, but I hope in years to come she will learn more about giving to those less fortunate than us, and all of the other things that go along with Christmas that don't involve getting presents. It's hard to believe that next year we will have a little baby boy crawling around in front of the Christmas tree. I'm pretty sure our fun has only just begun!

27 weeks

I thought I'd give a montly update on baby boy. I'm 27 weeks now, and growing bigger every day, yikes!

Not much has changed since last month, other than my belly, but we have decided on his name. He will be called Graham Davis Furr, or Baby Graham, as his big sister calls him. There's not much of a story to his name. Davis is my maiden name, and although we would have loved to have called our son Davis, I really wanted to call him by his first name, and we couldn't come up with anything we liked for a middle name with Davis.

Graham is a name that we've liked since I was pregnant with Mimi, but it wasn't our top choice. Our top choice from back then had gotten a lot more popular since 2008, and there were issues with so many others that we liked such as they didn't go with our last name, etc. Graham was a name that we had thrown around but hadn't committed to it yet. However, Amelia immediately started calling him Baby Graham and kissing my tummy and talking to him all the time. After about a month of that, it really felt like that was his name. So Graham it is.

We're clearing things out of the guest room and hoping to make some major progress in the nursery while we're off for Christmas. I will be sure to share that progress when it happens.

And to compare, here's a belly pic when I was a little further along than I am now, at 28 weeks with Mimi.

Although I feel ginormous, I guess my belly isn't that much bigger than it was with her, although the scale says otherwise. I do weigh a few pounds more now than I did at this point with her, as my doctor was so kind to point out to me the other day, ha. I'm trying not to freak out too much over how big I am, and just be thankful that everything is healthy for me and for him so far. He is a super active little guy, much more so than his sister was. We've reached the alien in the belly stage! Last night I was just watching him jump around in fascination. Isn't the miracle of life amazing?

I got so annoyed during my first pregnancy when people would make comments about how big I am, and say the always annoying, "I don't think you're going to make it!" But this time, I have to admit that I think that on an almost daily basis, lol. Just how AM I going to make it for 3 more months?!

A Fancy Nancy Birthday

Even though it's almost Christmas, I just couldn't move on to the next holiday without finally documenting Amelia's third birthday! I promised that I would scale her party back this year, and I did. Really, y'all, I did. But that doesn't mean things can't still be cute, right?

I absolutely loved everything about her party this year! The theme was based on some of Amelia's favorite books, the Fancy Nancy series.  It was so ridiculously pink and girly and this girl loved every second of it. I am pretty sure it was the happiest day of her life so far.

Here are a few shots of the party details.

 

There was a dress-up table for the girls and boys to get fancied up as they entered the party.

  

The girls got more into the dressing up, of course, but this guy liked being fancy too!

Some other random shots of the birthday girl and her friends

She blew those candles out like a champ! I was so excited for this because last year it was too windy and the candles wouldn't stay lit. This was her first time to get to do it (besides the little cupcake we had at home last year.)

As you can imagine, she absolutely LOVED opening her presents this year. Since she has SO much stuff already, I seriously considered requesting no gifts from our guests, but after seeing her get so excited for her friends at their parties, I thought I should at least give her one more year of gifts, especially now that she's old enough to be excited about them.

Posing with one of her faves, Aunt Katie

 And Grammy and Papa

 and Aunt Mare

Believe it or not, there are about 150 pics that I did not share. You're welcome, ha. It was such a fun party, and I'm so glad that we did it for her. She said thank you over and over again. I have decided that three years old is the best age for enthusiasm for things like birthdays and Christmas. A trip to the Dollar Tree excites this girl, so you can imagine what a birthday party and Christmas is like for her.

And now that I've finally documented her birthday, we can move on to Christmas in a few days. Didn't 2011 JUST start?

Baby Update

Well, I think it's past time for a baby update. In many ways, this pregnancy has been exactly the same as with Amelia, so I haven't really had a lot of newsworthy stuff to share the second time around. Unlike with Amelia, we haven't settled on a name yet, we haven't started on his room yet, and really just thinking about all that makes me want to take a nap, ha. How things change with the second baby!

But don't you worry, this boy will have a great name and a fabulous nursery. I just haven't had as much time, energy or money to get everything going like we did the first time. It will get done. I'm looking forward to having the next week off and then time off for Christmas to get some things done in that area.

The great news is that things are going very well for me and baby boy. I've been blessed with a pretty uneventful pregnancy, health-wise, so far. This doesn't count the nausea and fatigue of course, since that's pretty normal. And there has definitely been more fatigue this time! But I just chalk that up to the busy time of year and the fact that I have a three-year-old to deal with this time. That reminds me, I haven't even blogged about her third birthday and party! That will have to be next. I really want to do better at my memory-keeping.

The bad news is that I. Am. Huge. Seriously, y'all. It came out of nowhere. I feel SO much bigger than I was with Amelia at this point. Up until recently, things have felt exactly the same, but I don't know if it's the fact that he's a boy, or that it's my third pregnancy or what, but I am already much bigger than I was with her, and I just feel much more pregnant already. Shortness of breath, back pain, etc. I am not complaining at all. Well, maybe a little, but I don't mean to. I am so thankful for a healthy pregnancy and baby when I know so many who would give anything to have that. I am just surprised by the way I look and feel this time. Here's some proof:

(Pic taken with my cell phone at work today. Cliff hasn't been around much lately to ask him to do it at home.)

To compare, here's the first belly shot I took with Mimi at around the same time, 23 weeks.

I'm lol'ing at how I'm wearing work out clothes. That could be a reason I'm bigger this time. I haven't worked out since, oh, about July when I found out I was pregnant, ha.

Here I am in the same dress at around 25 weeks with Mimi. Maybe the bumps are about the same size, I don't know. I just know it feels so much bigger this time.

Bigger belly or not, we are so thankful for this sweet boy, and we can't wait to meet him! I know Mimi is going to be an awesome big sister!

Thankful

This girl has already learned about thankfulness, no thanks to our teachings. On Nick Jr, between episodes of Dora, Olivia and Peppa Pig, they've been talking about being thankful.

I hadn't noticed until my sweet girl looked over at me a couple of days ago and said, "I'm thankful for you, Mama." Melted. My. Heart. Then she said the same thing again yesterday, and it made me tear up all over again. When Cliff came home, I thought she might show him how precious she could be and I asked her to tell Daddy what she was thankful for. Her response: "I'm thankful for my play-doh."

Guess we can't be deep all the time. I'm so thankful for this girl and her baby brother!

It's a...

...boy! This is old news to most anyone who reads my blog by now, but I wanted to document it for our memories. I think Amelia is over the shock that she isn't getting a sister, and I'm kind of over my shock as well. I guess since girl is all I've known for the last three years, it surprised me that we could actually have a boy.

He is still nameless, but we're working on it. I'm just not ready to commit to anything yet. The ultrasound showed that everything looks great, and for that we are relieved and thankful. The photos aren't very good since he was squirming around so much. I've been feeling little kicks here and there every day for the last few weeks, much earlier than I felt them with Amelia.

Of course Cliff is tickled, and we just can't wait to meet this little guy and see what he's going to be like! For now, I'm starting to work on getting Mimi's room turned into a big girl room so we can move the crib into the new nursery. It's converted into a toddler bed now for her, but I'm looking for a twin bed and bedding for her. I do enjoy a decorating project, and this is going to be a big one! Who knew I would ever be buying blue?!