Christmas break with Gommy (and Nini)

The girls got to spend another night with Pappy and Gommy before she goes back to school. They got to do several fun things together, including go shopping for a birthday gift for Emory. While at the mall we found the play area and had a great time! Addison so desperately wanted to play with the big girls, they looked like they were having so much more fun that she was! She tried to chase them around, but wasn't quite fast enough.

Here I come sisters!

Almost there!

No, I wanted to do it by myself!

Happy Birthday Emory!

I can't believe our sweet little angel is already three! Of course there are times when we forget she's ONLY three (Greg thought she was turning four for a brief second), but whatever age she is, pretends to be, acts like, or looks like we love her dearly!

Emory (Emsies, Miss Em, Angel, Pink Monkey, Munchkin...), you are such a blessing to our family! You are always there to cheer us up, laugh with us, snuggle with us, or help us out whenever we need you, even before we ask! You are the most agreeable person I have ever met, but also aren't afraid to hold your ground when you're challenged or threatened. You are a wonderful Mommy to all your babies, friends and family, taking good care of all of us and making sure we have everything we need. You are the first one to offer assistance when the need arises. You are a true fashion diva, always knowing what to wear and how to wear it, you love your make-up and accessories too! You are so gifted with your physical abilities, playing basketball, soccer, t-ball, volleyball and anything else you can do that involves running or jumping! That physical ability stretches all the way over to high heels...you rock! You walk in high heels better than most runway models! You can dance and groove, always staying with the beat and you can mimic any step your dance teacher shows you, the first time! You are doing so well with your language skills, and your desire to read and write is amazing! You are always grateful for what you're given and content with what you've got! You are an incredible blessing to this family, to everyone who has had the opportunity to meet you and to the entire world! Your teacher, Miss Donna, told me if her whole class were Emorys then she wouldn't have a job to do because always mind and always help the other children out with everything! Thank you for who you are and for who you will become! Mommy and Daddy love you with our whole hearts and look forward to loving you more with each and every day! We are so proud of you just for being you.

Since the day you were born we have loved you more than words can express! I haven't found the CD of pictures from that day because your daddy is on an organize kick, but here is a picture from just a few weeks later

By your first birthday we knew you would be a wonderful person to be around. You never cried, always slept well and loved learning from the world around you by observing every little detail. You weren't talking much at this point, but you didn't have much of a chance to with Trinity as your big sister. You loved celebrating your first birthday in your special dress and you were so excited about every single gift!

Then, before we knew it you were two! By this point you were talking up a storm, saying your first word of "thank you", even though it sounded a little more like doctor "dac due" and had definitely expressed your affection for your mommy and grandmothers, always giving us a few extra hugs, kisses and smiles! You were already cruising around in your high heels and had made it well known you had a preference of what you would wear every day, either a spinny dress or a Minnie Mouse shirt (or two). You were so willing to play your sisters games and share your toys with her, but also made your own suggestions of what you guys should do together. You were getting so excited to become a big sister! I can't believe this was a year ago! I look at these pictures and feel like it was just yesterday!

This past year has been filled with some pretty amazing moments! From starting school to becoming a big sister and thinking you're the boss of everyone, to making even more strides toward being an amazing person, not just a good kid! This isn't a very good picture for your birthday picture, but I'll get all the party pictures on soon and there are some precious ones there!

We love you Emory!!!!!! We hope your birthday is everything you want it to be and more than you ever imagined it could be!

Dinnertime with kids

We try to sit down as a family almost every night to have dinner and we usually expect "dinner table behavior" from the girls, but one night last week we let them stretch the limits a bit...okay, a lot. They started out screaming for some reason and Addison couldn't wait to participate! She started screaming at her turn too. I captured it on video so next time the girls say we're no fun parents we can show this to them and remind them how much fun they do get to have!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

I can't believe it's already 2008! What a wonderful year 2007 was for us, so many things to be thankful for! We look forward to discovering everything 2008 holds in store! We hope you have a blessed 2008, full of wonderful people, experiences and new opportunities!
We rang in the new year at Nana and Pops' house along with the rest of Greg's family. The girls got to have their first slumber party with their cousin, Aiden and had a great time! They actually made it until about 11:40 and would have probably made it longer than us if we hadn't made them turn the light off and keep their voices down since the little ones were sleeping. They were such great kids!
Greg and I actually made it up to midnight for the first time in several years! We played some games with everyone and had a great time taking turns making fools of ourselves! It was a great group of people to ring the new year in with! I was too busy having fun, stuffing my mouth and chasing kiddos to get my camera out, but rest assured it was a great time!

Over the river and through the woods...

Over the Trinity River and through the undeveloped land in South Dallas to Pappy and Gommy's house we go!

Next it time to celebrate Christmas with my family! They have chosen a tradition of celebrating on a day other than Christmas so they can have us for a whole day and not have to share us with anyone! I love celebrating after Christmas because it's not all over in one day...it just keeps going! The Saturday after Christmas Greg and I loaded up and drove west to Mom and Dad's, where the girls had all spent the night. We had a wonderful day together!

We started out by opening all the presents under the tree...and there were A LOT!!!!

Addison's big gift was this cool ride on zebra, and as you can tell, she didn't exactly like it at first. She did start to play with it as the day went on and now she loves it! She really, really likes to stand in front of it and make it go, I'll take a video of it soon...too funny!

Emory has been asking my dad to get her a pink care bear, so he searched and searched for the right one and found this special anniversary bear! She LOVES it! She is showing me her hands in that first picture because the ribbon she was pulling on left glitter all over her and she loved having sparkly hands! She was so excited about her very own robe, just like sissy's!

My sister, "Nini" made all three of the girls little wall hangings with their names on them, that is Emory with hers.

Nini and the girls have this thing where they are all Monkeys. No one really knows why these nicknames stuck, but they did! She is Orange Monkey, Trinity is Pink and Purple Monkey and Emory is Pink Monkey. Emory takes this name quite seriously, so her Nini got her a bunch of Pink Monkey stuff for Christmas. She got a super soft blanket, a night gown and house shoes! She immediately put her nightgown and house shoes on when she opened them and wore them the rest of the day! Such silly girls!

Trinity was so excited to open presents, we found her sitting on the coffee table waiting for everyone else!

She got these great walkie talkies! She loved them so much she tackled Nini to thank her for them, then started playing with them right away! There will be hours and hours of great fun had with these things!

Trinity also got new Pajamas! These are pink flannel footed PJ's with frog Princesses all over them. She put them on as soon as I took this picture and wore them all day too! She was nice and warm!

The girls made Gommy a new bag to carry her stuff in and she was so excited to open it! She does a great excited face and it sure does make the girls beam with pride! Hope you enjoy it Gommy!

Mom and the girls worked so hard on making a Bouche deNoel(I'm sure I didn't spell that right)- a traditional French Christmas Desert, which I think means Yule Log, for all of us to enjoy. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it really looks like a piece of wood covered in snow! Great job ladies!

While the boys were escaping all the estrogen at the movies the girls opened their stockings. I'm not sure what this face was about, but it was too cute to not include it!

Thanks Pappy, Gommy and Nini for a wonderful Christmas and many more wonderful memories! We are so blessed to have you guys!

A little running around time

Two days after Christmas we were all ready to pop with the crazzies! The house was a disaster from all the gifts we were still trying to find a home for, all the new fun toys to play with and not get put up anywhere, the cold weather...just everything! Greg was at work, so I took the girls to Mickey D's for a little help with getting the crazzies out. Trinity and Emory had a wonderful time playing, running, screaming, climbing, sliding and making new friends while Addison sat with me and watched.

Just before we left I got Addison out of her high chair to wipe it down and when I was finished I couldn't find her. I finally looked under another table to find her going on a merry-go-round all by herself.

Now if this had been Sheridan she would have come out chewing gum:)

Christmas with Mimi

After a huge lunch and a ton of fun with Nana and Pops we headed over to Greg's Mom's house for another round of celebrating! The girls napped the whole way over there, but were wound up and ready to go again as soon as we arrived! We enjoyed wonderful gifts from the family, and delicious dinner and great company! The girls were extremely needy by this point in the day so I worked in even fewer pictures, but here are the few:

Addison looking for a little quiet time and personal space under Mimi's table

Addison and Clark discussing who will get to open the first gift

After a long, full day we headed home for some much needed R&R! The girls had a wonderful day and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it! They were all three wonderfully behaved and very grateful for every little thing! Addison's first Christmas was perfect!

Christmas with Nana and Pops

After a full morning of celebrating at home we headed over to Greg's Dad's house for a family Christmas with all of his family. We had a great time with everyone! Unfortunately I didn't get the camera out very much because there was so much going on (with a 5, 4, 2, 1 1/2 year olds and 11 month old it was pretty crazy!), but I did manage to snap a few pictures that turned out.

Addison and her Pops, helping him with his "stocking"

Clark and Sheridan opening their family stocking

At Nana and Pops' house their "stocking" were getting so full they switched over to shopping bags, they HUGE shopping bags! Each family gets one and they're always jam-packed with all kinds of goodies!

This is a quick snapshot of opening gifts. This looks like it was after most everything had been opened and a huge percentage of the stuff pulled out, but this gives you an idea of what it's like over there!

As always, Nana and Pops were way too generous with their gifts, we all received way more than we deserved! Thanks for such wonderful memories with a wonderful family! I am so grateful to have married into this!

It's Christmas!

What a wonderful day Christmas is! We are so grateful to have the most incredible reason to celebrate and to spoil our children and spend quality time with our family!

When the girls woke up Christmas morning they couldn't wait to see if Santa stopped at our house! Indeed Santa did stop and he left some pretty great toys! We started out by exploring all these wonderful gifts, then moved on to the gifts from each other. Here's Addison's experience in pictures:

Santa gave Addison a Tickle Me Elmo TMX (this is something the entire family has really enjoyed playing with!) a LeapFrog table, Princess blocks, Little People, Jack-in-the-box and quite a few other things too! She was a bit overwhelmed with the entire morning and all of the new stuff around her, so she didn't really get into opening gifts, but here are a few of the gifts she did open:

A baby from Trinity

(she has really enjoyed loving on this little thing, her face lights up when she sees it!)

A placemat play place

She also got a couple of outfits, books and toys.

Next is Emory! Here's her loot from the big man in red:

Santa knew just what Emory wanted! He brought her a baby that poops and pees in the potty (we're having about as much luck getting her to go in the potty as I am having with Emory), dress up clothes, Princess oven, purse, arts and crafts, and a lot more! The whole time Emory was opening gifts she was so grateful! She kept saying, "Thank you so much, this is just what I wanted!", "Oh, I love this! Thank you so much!", "Santa, you are wonderful!" and a number of other very sweet things! Here are some of the gifts she got from the family:

My Little Pony

Angelina Ballerina costume and video

Pink sparkly shoes

Her very own James Avery butterfly and cross necklace from Trinity

Last, but not least is Trinity. Here's her goodies from Santa:

She got a Grows and Knows Your Name Puppy, which she named Chloe after her Chapel Buddie at school, she got TONS of beading stuff, arts and crafts and several other things too. The trampoline is for all three girls to share. Trinity really got into the spirit of Christmas this year and for her it was mostly about giving and enjoying the delight of other people when they received something new. She was really excited about passing out all the gifts to everyone, then each of us taking turns opening one gift at a time so we could all see what it was and how special it was to the recipient. She was a big help with everyone's package opening! She didn't really want me to take any pictures of her, so I only got a couple:

American Girl Doll clothes from Emory.

She was so excited about it, Emory ran up and gave her a hug!

A crystal "PRINCESS" wall hanging

We are so blessed to be able to provide such wonderful gifts for our girls!

Speaking of blessed...I am blessed with the MOST AMAZING husband in the entire world! He was supposed to give me a new cell phone for Christmas (since my Razor spent the night in a puddle in the bath tub) and that was it, but he so didn't listen! He went shopping all by himself and check out what he got me:

Yep, you see right, that's a Diamond Necklace AND a Dooney and Burke purse!!!!!! Hello, is he good or what?!?!?! I was totally surprised by each of these, together they nearly knocked me out! I LOVE MY HUBBY! Oh, and yes, I did still get my new cell phone that I love!