Cookies, Crafts and Parades with Nana and Pops

Saturday was our second annual Cookies and Crafts at Nana and Pop's house and what a great time it was! We started out the day by all going to the Adolphus Children's Parade downtown. We had never gone before and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the floats! The girls loves every part of it! Addison was really excited to see all of the fun balloons and people dressed up, she loved the music too. She got so excited she wore herself out and fell asleep less than half way through!

After the parade we headed over to Nana and Pops' house to make Christmas cookies and Gingerbread houses. The girls had a great time participating in the baking, designing and decorating- it was right up their alley!

Ali and Aiden making cookies

Aiden decorating cookies

Sheridan, Trinity and Emory making cookies

Clark enjoying the gingerbread house he was supposed to be building

Trinity and Nana decorating her gingerbread house

Aiden, Clark, Trinity and Emory with their masterpieces!

Aiden enjoying the taste of his masterpiece

After a day of baking we had to play a little. Oh, I think I forgot to mention all the boys (Greg, his dad and brother) left to go shooting while the girls were taking care of and entertaining the kids. One of these days we're going to get the day off while they entertain!

Nana teaching Aiden to play the flute

Nana teaching Trinity to play the flute

Our nephew, Clark. He is always smiling like this! Aren't his dimples precious?!

Pops with Aiden's light saber. He was having way too much fun!

Nana and most of her kiddos

Here is Nana playing her flute with Trinity and Aiden sing. Couldn't not include this one

Christmas Trees Galore!

On Friday night we took our annual trip to the Christmas Tree Lot in Casa Linda and picked out the perfect tree. We had a great time looking at all the trees and feeling all the trees until we found the perfect one! While it was being loaded into the car we went to visit the huge tree in the parking lot and decided we would take a few pictures. They're not great (only two of many turned out at all), it was night time and we were all exhausted, but I thought I would share them anyway.

WOO-HOO IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trying to keep up

Man, I feel like it's been forever since I made a post about what we've been up to. Well, I think we're finished battling the serious yuckies in the girls (three weeks with at least two of them having a fever at all times is enough for me!), but we are still dealing with the lingering effects. They are all three still really fussy and clingy and tired, and Trinity has a runny/stuffy/yucky nose she has wiped so much it's just one giant painful scab (yuck!) and still has the awful cough. Trinity and Addison both had the congestion settle behind their left eyes and I swear they both looked like Popeye for several days (Emory still resembles him when she wakes up) because their eye was so swollen. The bad part is now that the girls are feeling better, Greg and I are both dealing with the yuckies now too. Greg has pulled a muscle in his chest he's been coughing so much (I'm sure tailgating and watching football in the thirty degree weather and rain for six hours on Saturday helped that out tremendously). Anyway, as a whole we are so much better than we were last week, and that's the important part!

We are so psyched about the holidays! We have most of our decorations up- or should I say I have most of MY decorations up. We have the inside done and my part of the outside done and Greg will put lights on the house this weekend we hope. We are going to buy our tree tomorrow night and we can't wait! The girls are so excited about all the fun stuff we get to do and the fun music we listen to all the time! I love experiencing the magic of Christmas through their eyes! Addison seems to be starting to catch on, or at least she is getting into the idea of getting new toys! I am about 2/3 or more done with our Christmas shopping, and that makes me happy!

Speaking of Addison, she is really figuring out this getting around thing! She pulls up on anything and everything now and her favorite thing to do is to walk in circles around the coffee table! She has started moving from holding onto one object to holding onto another. She is starting to crawl on her knees, though she's not as fast that way, so when she's in a hurry she will just drop down on her tummy and scurry away like a little snake. She is starting to talk more too. She will sometimes say "yes" and "no" when that's what she means, and we have heard her say "cracker" a couple of times too (although that's not exactly what it sounds like). She is now up to six teeth and will eat anything! Anything that is, except the food she's supposed to eat!

Trinity is "playing" basketball for the first time this year. I put that in quotes because she has yet to participate in anything with the rest of her team. She is on a team with Billy (her boyfriend) and his dad is coaching. We had no idea this would be the case, but she is the ONLY girl on her team! I don't think she likes that at all! Once we get to the gym she hides behind a wall and won't come out to save her life. If she catches Billy looking at her she panics and runs to hide! We're working on getting her more comfortable with the whole thing, but I'm not holding my breath!

Greg's evil twin

We all know how much Greg loves the holidays, so this must be his long, lost evil twin.
http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=9606441211

Seriously, he sings Christmas songs all year hoping it will make the holidays arrive sooner! Too cute! When they really do arrive...watch out!

Check out my silly family!

Check out all four of my children. If this doesn't get you in the spirit of the holidays, I don't know what will! Well, I guess Greg's "sweater" from last year's sweater party might do the trick.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9636644867

Shopping Spree at no cost?!?!

What a wonderful thing that is!!!! I love shopping and I love the look on Trinity's and Emory's faces when they get new clothes they absolutely love and that combination of things tends to get me in quite a bit of trouble. This weekend I got the best of those without spending a dime and it was awesome! I finally got Greg to climb up in the attic and get down the crates of clothes now Emory's size and crates of clothes now Addison's size. We found so many neat things we had completely forgotten about. Emory will only wear clothes that spin or sparkle and it's pretty difficult to find too much of that kind of stuff that isn't so cheap it falls apart the first time she wears it, so I was really excited when I found several items packed away! I took a picture of her in her "new" pajamas and boots. She has worn these pretty much around the clock- that is when she's not in the new spinney dresses and skirts. She is in hog heaven!!!!!

Trinity has been a little jealous of all her sisters' "new" clothes, I guess she doesn't realize she's actually getting the better deal on this whole thing! I'm sure she'll figure it out soon enough.

Emory on sugar

Last Thursday Trinity had a play date after school with one of her friends, so Emory had the special treat of Hot Chocolate, something becoming more and more rare around here. This is the result of giving a sugar deprived child something so rich...


This went on for at least thirty minutes. She only briefly stopped when it really dawned on her she was being recorded:)

Mean Green Basketball

Yes, that's basketball because apparently we don't go to enough NT sporting events already. On Saturday (after a garage sale and while Trinity and Emory were sick as dogs in Fort Worth with my parents) Greg decided he wanted to go to the North Texas Basketball game and take Addison for her first experience. Although I was yawning the entire time we really enjoyed ourselves! Addison loved the music from the band that was there and all the noise from the crowd. She loved being able to stand up to watch all the action or move around if she preferred (due to the lack of crowd).


Here is a picture to enjoy.

She loves playing with her teeth- her tongue is out almost all the time!

10 months old?!?!

I'm so tired of having the same thought...where does the time go? You know, once when I was in middle school someone told me a child's day is worth three adult days. What she meant was time goes by three times as fast for grown ups as it does for kids because of all the new stuff, opportunities and experiences a kid has in one day. I totally believe that, in fact I would guess it's more like five days for a grown up to one day for a kid.

So, back to the point of this post...Addison is 10 months old! Actually her true 10 month "birthday" came and went and I didn't even realize it until I checked my email and saw my Babycenter.com newsletter for a 10 month old, week 1. I had to stop and read the subject line a couple of times, then check my watch and the calendar to make sure it was right. I felt terribly for not realizing what day it was, but I guess when she's going on three weeks of a fever all but two days the date isn't exactly the forefront of my thoughts.

This month has been huge for our baby girl! She now has a total of five teeth and three that are trying their best to push through and will actually make it any second now (although she is still waiting on one of the top center teeth-funny!). She has realized she can go from laying to sitting all by herself and does it all the time, she is standing all the time and really pulling up on things, she even stands without holding on to things from time to time. She is becoming quite a silly girl and always wanting to play games with us and do anything to make us laugh. She LOVES playing with her sisters' babies and Little People! Anytime music or singing begins she starts dancing, and I'm not entirely convinced she isn't trying to sing along (I'm pretty sure she hums Twinkle Twinkle Little Star- but you know how mommies always hear and see things that aren't really there), she waves to anyone who will look her direction and smiles all the time! The people at school always ask me if she ever doesn't smile, because they have never seen her not smiling (even at nap time, while cutting six teeth, with a cold, fever and ear infection she still finds a way to smile and wave). All her sisters have to do is look in her direction and she will start cackling, which of course draws their attention even more! She loves other kids and really likes to play with them!

Here are a few pictures of her over the past week or two.

Here is her standard monthly shot with "Mister" She is REALLY sick in this pic (102 fever and her eyes are all puffy) but the sight of the camera makes her smile anyway!

This was the only way I could get a shot of her "snaggletooth".

It was last week, so it wasn't quite as defined as it is today

This is our neighbor, Farron (15 months old). Isn't he precious?!

Addison loves playing with him, just the sight of him lights her up!

What a joy she is to have in our lives! We are all so blessed to have her!

Addison, Mommy loves you with all my heart!

Yucky!

We're still batteling the yuckies in our house! Emory seems to be feeling better and her fever seems to have gone away, but Addison is STILL grumpy and STILL has a fever. Trinity's teacher called on Friday for me to go pick her up from school because her temperature was 103.4- ugh! She is handling it pretty well, she has been in bed all day today and as long as she has Motrin in her she doesn't seem to feel too bad and her fever is completely under control. Looks like we will be spending another Monday at the doc's office.

I think I'm coming down with it now too. I've had a low- very low- fever today and I'm exhausted! Maybe it's just the lack of sleep or the exhaustion of three sick girls...let's hope that what it is!

I'll keep you posted...