Our Christmas Tree Story

I always loved our family Christmas tree growing up.  It is filled with hand-made, special and personal ornaments and is lovely.   I always looked forward to helping my mom decorate the tree and reminiscing over each ornament we pulled out.  It is a timeline of our lives.  So when it came time to decide how I would decorate my own family's tree I followed tradition.  In our 4 Christmases together our tree is growing and telling a story of it's very own.  Hopefully M will always look forward to helping me each year.

Our family story in ornaments.

No Christmas Tree is complete without a Ninja Turtle Baby Ornament

Brent became a coach

Our first Christmas married

My favorite ornament- My mom made this ornament from my wedding dress

Our first baby- Bella

Brent gave this to me last Christmas when I was 27 weeks pregnant with M

M's 1st Christmas Ornament

Our newest edition.  Razorback love.

It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since I've been able to post.  Just a few things we have been up to!

Keeping up with our growing baby!  She turned 9 months old this month- more on that to come!

Lowering M's bed all the way down, because she can now pull up!

Bad picture- but she is too cute not to share.

Watching Christmas movies!

Preparing for Christmas!

Happy Birthday Hubby

Happy Birthday to my sweet husband!  I am so blessed to share my birthday with my best friend.  We have been sharing our birthday since my 16th and his 17th, so this is the 11th birthday we have spent celebrating together and I look forward to many many more!  It is hard to believe that this time last year I was turning 26 and was 26 weeks pregnant!  I felt very blessed to celebrate tonight with my little family especially when I come home to roses, a fire and a home cooked meal.

Oh, Christmas Card

The hubby and I have always sent out a Christmas card, but never with a picture.  Now that M has joined our family I decided our Christmas card must have a family photo.  So last night I set up the camera and tripod, get us all dressed and ready to go and...... FAIL.  Trying to get a baby, 2 adults and a dog to look and smile at the camera did not work.  We have gone to Plan B. However, I did manage to get a few cute shots- just none of us together.  A few of my favorite outtakes.

Her face is priceless here!

Nama

Saturday morning, my MIL made a quick visit into town and we had a lot of fun.  M loved seeing her Nama!
We got to do a little Christmas shopping on Saturday and it included a trip to the American Girl doll store.  I think I had as much fun seeing all of the dolls and clothes as some of the little girls in there.  Nama bought M a "bitty baby" for Christmas and she loves it! She was giving it kisses when I held it close.

Nama brought M a pony

Nama and M

AR v. LSU and Traditions

Thanksgiving is always at my parent's house, but as we get older and start a family of our own I really wanted to start some of our own family traditions for M and future babies.

I decided that every Thanksgiving evening I will decorate the house after M goes to bed so that when she wakes up on Friday morning the house will look and smell like Christmas. I know she is to young to understand or even realize what is going on, but I felt the need to start this tradition now.  Then, on Friday morning the whole family will go tree shopping.

We also decided to host an annual Battle of the Boot watch party.  Traditionally the game is always on the Friday after Thanksgiving so I thought this would be perfect! Even though our hogs lost we had a wonderful time cheering them on.  I think the kids may have had the most fun playing football with the guys.

M's 1st Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, so to keep it short and sweet I'll separate our holiday into multiple posts.  This Thanksgiving I have so much to be thankful for.  Our world has completely changed this year and all for the best.  We had a great1st Thanksgiving with M.  The hubby smoked his first turkey and it was wonderful, we had tons of delicious food and a wonderful time with my family.  Madison tried a few new things at her Thanksgiving meal, turkey and mashed potatoes, and she loved them.

Just a few of the things I'm thankful for this year.

• A healthy, happy, beautiful baby girl that brings so much joy to my life
• A husband that loves, supports and stands by me everyday
• Loving families
• Wonderful friends
• A roof over our heads

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

The Week Ahead

I am so excited about the week ahead and it has me in the best mood! As much as I love structure and planning, I love tradition.  Pretty sure they do go hand in hand. Tonight we must get all of the holiday shopping taken care of: Thanksgiving turkey and breakfast ingredients, and of course, Razorback watch party necessities.  I'm so excited to celebrate M's first Thanksgiving and I have a few new traditions in mind to start!

On another note, M's appointment with the Orthopedic specialist is tomorrow morning.  I'm a little nervous, but am also 99% sure there will be nothing wrong.

M now has a swing in the front yard and she is loving it, although this picture doesn't really show that!

1st time in her swing

Busy, Busy

 We are so busy these days with the day to day life I just can't keep up with my "hobby" of blogging.  The football season has officially been over for the Hubby for 2 weeks, and it is so nice to have him home early on weeknights and all weekend.  I can tell it makes M really happy to have us both home to spoil her rotten. M is starting to make more and more sounds, we now say "dada", "lala" (which we interpret into Laura), and I'm pretty sure she is calling for Bella sometimes, but no mama- but she is figuring it out and it is so sweet to hear her beautiful voice.  These weekends have been spent hanging out, watching the razorbacks, and enjoying the weather. I just love this time of year!  I can't wait to celebrate Thanksgiving and start decorating for Christmas- only 1 week away!!

Fun note: M loves the remote and phones, so I may or may not be teasing her with them so convince her to crawl. :)

1 Year of Pink

I realized that it has been a year since finding out we were having a baby girl.  As much as I prayed for a healthy and happy baby I had secretly hoped for a girl.  A year ago it all became so real that a sweet little baby girl was joining our family.  Poor Brent is destined to be surrounded by women, but we had "known" all along that it was a girl, so he was prepared.  All things white and pink have filled our life since then and I have loved every minute with her.  I will never forget how nervous I was going into that appointment, and I really don't know why but it was a very defining point for me.  Our sweet M  has filled me with so much love and has forever changed my life for the better.

Golden 8 Month Birthday

Our Sweet, Sweet girl is 8 months old! It's really getting hard for me to accept that fact.  Last night I could have cried thinking about how little she was when we brought her home from the hospital and she slept in her pack n play next to our bed and how I will never get that time back.  I know one day we will have another child and I will get those experiences again, but they will never be with her.  It just reminds me to cherish every day and to live in the moment.

Our M girl is up to the following this past month:

• Such a love, she hugs and kisses and smiles when we walk in the room
• She talks and talks and talks
• She is trying to pull up and its only a matter of time.  Right now, she pulls up to her knees and will hold onto something while kneeling
• She is trying so hard to get on all fours, I'm sure it will happen soon as well
• She is still so little, hubby weighed her at home this weekend and she came in at 14lbs, only a small gain since 7 months, but she is active, happy and always full when leaving the table
• She eats 3 full meals a day, and nurses/bottles 6 times a day
• She is starting to make chewing motions with her mouth more and more
• Sleeping has been a real issue this past month.  She has not slept through the night and I am very tired.  She wakes up at least once if not twice a night and then is up for the day by 7. 

We celebrated her first Halloween and in this coming Month we will celebrate her first Thanksgiving.  I love seeing these holidays in her eyes.

Halloween with M

We have been so busy living life, I have not had the time to write about it.  I had a wonderful long 4 day Halloween weekend with my baby girl and it was so wonderful.  We took the Hubby some lunch at work, shopped and most importantly celebrated her very 1st Halloween!  This of course included pumpkin carving, the first fire of the year in the fireplace, and Trick or Treating family and friends.  Around 5 I got her dressed in her costume and off we went to my parents house to "trick or treat" them.  Before I could even get M out of the car her Mimi, PawPaw, and aunts and uncles were standing outside with all of their cameras.  I feel so lucky to have such a warm and loving family.  M is one lucky little girl and is always surrounded with so much love.  Her first Halloween was a major success.  She did not know what was going on, but she loved the attention.

She looks so big here!

Sunday Blues

I have the Sunday blues.  

Every Sunday it hits me like a train.  I had hoped since I was off on Friday and tomorrow things would not be so bad.  I was wrong.  It's Sunday nights that remind me I get to have my dream job on the weekends only, and it's time to go to bed and wake up to my reality- being a working mom.  

Don't get me wrong I'm grateful to have my job, a job I love and enjoy going to, but if I could be anything in the whole world I would be a stay at home mom.  I work because I have to help pay the bills, but let’s be real.  Don't we all?  If we all had unlimited budgets and could do and be whatever we wanted I doubt most of us would choose to work 5 days a week from 8-5.

When M was born I felt this since of fulfillment, as though if I fell off the face of the earth tomorrow, I would go knowing I had done on this earth what I was supposed to do.  So, when I realize that my reality is being away from her 40 hours a week it stings.  She is growing so quickly, and I have missed so much already.  

I feel as though I have reached that part of my life I was always meant to reach.  Maybe it's being the oldest of 5 siblings or maybe it was just built in me from the beginning, but I was meant to be a mommy.  It is as if my life before marriage and M was just filler time.  It was fun and boy do I have some memories, but this is what it was leading up to.  And even though I must leave my home on the weekdays, I have never been happier and more complete than I am now.

So that is my Sunday night rant.

What will I be for Halloween tomorrow?  A stay at home mom! 

Wordless Wednesday

Father-Daughter Love

Is what this is...

Things to Remember

So many little things are happening with M and I don't want to forget!

• She has become very affectionate.  She gives big hugs and kisses and this weekend she started tilting her head to the side to rest on my shoulder.
• She says "dadadadada" all the time.  I'm pretty sure this means we need to  claim "dada" as her first word but I'm not quite ready.  The other morning she started calling "dadadadada" from her crib because she knows that her daddy is the one that gets her out every morning. However this could be a coincidence.
• She wants mommy and only mommy 98% of the time.  If someone else tries to take her she turns and buries her head into me.  The majority of me really loves it and the other part feels bad for the other party.
• She is doing this snorting/sniffling thing.  She will lean into you and breathe heavily as if she is trying to sniff up all of your smells.  We think she got it from Bella. It is definitely a puppy trait.
• The medicine seems to be working and hopefully this means she does not have a milk/soy allergy! Thank goodness as I would have, but did not want to, gone milk/soy free myself.

"We didn't do it"