Deck the Halls

I guess when I was on maternity leave, I forgot how rejuvenating weekends are. It was great to have our sweet family together this weekend.

This past week Carter and I decorated the tree with ornaments although we've had it up with lights on it for a week. He was TOTALLY into it. He would hang one (with help, of course) and then say, "I want to do another one." Carter would even ask me to lift him up so he could "reach it" when he wanted to hang it up higher. We are, however, having a hard time convincing him to LOOK at the ornaments and not take them off the tree. Twice now, he has brought ornaments from the tree to us upstairs. Every time he walks past the tree, he has some sort of comment. Sometimes it is just "OOOhhh," but he has also told me that it is a "pretty cool tree." He cracks me up.

Below he is getting a lift from Nick to hang an ornament that my mom sent to him. Please notice both how intent he is and how he is pushing Nick's arm back.
In other news, our weekend was not without incident. Carter decided to color on his bedspread with crayon when he should have been napping in hindsight, I suppose we should know better than to allow him to take the box of 4 crayons upstairs . Wrigley swallowed another pacifier, which requires a not inexpensive endoscopic surgery at our local animal clinic that we've already had to do once in the past three months. AND, Callen has been a little under the weather.

I am not 100% sure what is wrong. Last Thursday night, Callen started losing her "voice," and they called me from school saying that it was all but gone on Friday. When I called the doctor, all of the usual questions seemed okay {eating, sleeping, fever, disposition, etc}, so they didn't say I needed to bring her in unless I just wanted to. So, we've been watching her this weekend, and she's developed a little cough, but seems to be getting her voice back and is still sleeping and eating well. The good news is that she has maintained a happy disposition. The better news is that she keeps giving us HUGE smiles. The best news is that I heard her sweet little laugh for the first time this weekend!

Firsts

This morning, we woke up to our first snowfall of the year. As you can tell, it wasn't that much snow {my preference!}, but it was enough to make the roads fairly treacherous this morning.

And, when you pull away from the close-up, you can see our Tide flag waving in support of our team on its way to the National Championship! Roll Tide!

Apparently, our neighbors are Gator fans {not really}. This was posted in their window before the game on Saturday. {This is their kitchen window and is right across from our kitchen window.}

Our neighbors have twin girls who love to give Nick a hard time about just about anything. Their parents used to live in Florida, but they aren't really U of FL fans. They just thought it would be funny to leave us a little message prior to the game. Last year, they put one in our mailbox. I thought this was pretty clever!

And another first in our house....

While this sweet boy was enjoying an ore.o for being such a good eater and a good boy {not firsts}

This little one was doing her best to roll over {a first}.

Success! Clearly she was not a fan when she ended up on her tummy. I sure was proud, though!

First Day Back

Well, the big day has come and gone. I started back to work today. Overall it was a good, but somewhat crazy day. Nick was out of town for work, so I actually managed to get both children and me up and out the door. I know that doesn't sound like a very impressive feat, but when it is the first time you've ever had to do it... Well, I was impressed, anyway.

We left the house about 7:30am, and got to school in time for Carter to have breakfast and me to talk with Callen's teachers for a bit and love on her before I headed out. Gosh, driving away from school is still tough...but I made it to work by 8:40, and managed to have a good, productive day!

Callen had a great first day. She took lots of little naps, which I remember Carter doing at first too, ate well (drank all of all three bottles!--I don't think Carter did that), and enjoyed new experiences. She got to go on a buggy ride to see her brother. Carter's teachers said that he was so cute. They opened the door to push the buggy in and Carter said, "that's my baby Callen" and climbed up on the buggy to hug and kiss her.

When I picked them up, I picked Carter up first and took him to Callen's room to pick her up. He found her in the floor and wanted to read her a book. How precious is that?

I think it did me good to get back to the working world a bit, and it is so wonderful to have Carter and Callen in childcare that I love and that they thrive in. Though, I sure do miss those two precious kiddos when I am not with them!

Christmas Card Out-takes

Well, yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and try to get a good picture (or two) for our Christmas card. 100 pictures later, I think we found that we had a few good ones to choose from to showcase on the Christmas card. While I'll save the selected shot for the cards, I'll share some of the non-selected ones for your viewing pleasure.

Thanksgiving weekend

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with our sweet little family of four...and it couldn't have been better! Nick and I prepped and made all of the yummy sides on Wednesday and Thursday, and Nick smoked a {WONDERFUL} turkey on Thursday.

I couldn't help but think of how truly thankful I am to have such a precious, healthy family. My husband is amazing beyond belief and my sweet children are one of God's greatest blessings in my life. My cup runneth over.

I start back to work on Monday, and I can even say that I am looking forward to it a bit. I know that it will be hard to leave Callen, but I can hope that over time she will have as many wonderful experiences in school as Carter has had. In preparation for my return to work, Callen decided to start sleeping through the night last week. Praise the Lord. I am much appreciative!

We also enjoyed the too close Alabama-Auburn football game yesterday. Callen was awake for most of it, and Carter wanted to play his own football game while we were watching it. They were decked out in their Tide gear...

Heaven forbid that he tear his eyes away from the game for a picture...he must be his daddy's child.

There, that's as good as I could get.

Yeah, keep wishing me luck with that Christmas card pic...still looking like I'm going to need it.