HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hope everyone has a great night! We had our friend Karri over to celebrate our Christmas together. We ate the Pioneer Woman's Penne a la Betsy, which is a delicious shrimp pasta dish. :) We opened presents. & I got the coolest cross painting EVER! Jeremiah got an awesome shirt. And Presley got bath toys, a cute flower bath towel and the cutest shoes ever...pink converse! (Thanks again Karri!) Look for pictures tomorrow! We had a great year and I would love to do a year in review but....I'm lazy and haven't done it yet and we are about to watch some movies. So maybe it will get done tomorrow but, probably not! Ha ha!

way too quiet

Presley went to Mississippi with my parents today. :( They went to have Christmas with my family on my mom's side. They'll only be gone until Wednesday, so it's a quick trip. But I already miss her like crazy. Of course, I cried over there when I dropped her off and I cried on the way home. I couldn't help it. My mind springs to all bad things that could happen while they're gone.....one of the perks of being a Pediatric ICU nurse and seeing children be hurt from all sorts of crazy things. :( But I have prayed SO much within the last week and I trust that God will take care of all of them. I work for the next 3 nights, so my mind should stay pretty busy. Hopefully!

I came home and decided to take down the Christmas tree. I wasn't being a bah humbug.....I just decided to do it while my little helper was out of the house! Actually I took down all the decorations and the house sure does seem empty and quiet now. It's weird not tripping over toys and hearing "ma ma" every 10 seconds. I never imagined I would miss her this much! I am rethinking taking an anniversary trip with Jeremiah in the summer! ;)

Christmas 2010

I hope y'all had a great Christmas! I know we did! Jeremiah and I both had a 3 day weekend and were able to spend time with family. We missed seeing Presley's Pappaw & Mammaw, but maybe we can talk them into coming to Florida again one year! ;) On Christmas Eve, we went to the 3pm service that our church had at the Saenger Theater downtown. Then we headed over to Jeremiah's mom's house. We ate dinner and then Presley opened her presents. She got some cool puzzles that we had to open right away of course! She loved them!

Presley with her little tree at Meemaw's house! It was so cute! She didn't bother it too much, probably because it was on a table. Good thought for next year! Ha!

Then we came home and opened our presents. Presley got a block train, shoes, animal sound blocks, pjs, and some crayons. She loved the shoes and didn't want to take them off. Who could blame her? They have the sherpa material in them....so soft!
And Santa came on Christmas morning! He brought Presley a kitchen, her own chair, some books, a puppy, an animal train, the potsy toy, and an owl backpack. She loved the chair and puppy! She went straight to them, picked up the puppy and loved on it and then sat down in the chair! Then she noticed the kitchen and dropped the dog and went over to it! I think she pushed every button on it in the first two minutes. She loves it! She liked the potsy toy too. It talks to you about the food you put in it. It has some catchy little tunes!

After breakfast we went over to my parents' house. Both my dad and brother were able to be here this Christmas and it was awesome! We had such a good time! We stuffed ourselves with yummy food, opened more presents, and watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I might have even napped on the couch a little bit! ;)

Jaden was burping Kole's doll. He was learning how to be a good daddy! :)

It was probably one of the best days I've ever had! Not because of the gifts I got, but because I know what Christmas is truly about.....the birth of our Savior. I'm so grateful that God loves us so much that he sent his most precious gift, Jesus, to us. I can't imagine my life with God and it's so wonderful to know that I'll never have to live it without Him.

I hope that you had peace that only the Lord can bring this Christmas season, and if not, I pray that you will have it this coming year!

18 month addendum

I can't believe that I forgot to add that Presley LOVES trains! She calls them "choo choos", which kind of sounds like "sha sha" which is Sosa, my parents' dog! Sometimes though you can't tell if she's talking about the dog or a train! Santa told me he is bringing Presley some sort of train for Christmas and I think she's going to be thrilled! :)

& I'll leave you with an adorable little girl before church this morning!

18 months!

How is my BABY one and a half years old? Ahhh! I can't believe that I will be planning her second birthday party soon. Speaking of that, I probably really do need to start thinking of ideas because it will be here before I can turn around good!


So here is what Presley has been up to lately~
- says "ump" and raises her hands when she wants you to pick her up.
- can point to a ladybug, butterfly, fish, and sea horse when you ask her to find them in her animal book
- brushes her hair out of her face when she needs to see! it is hilarious to watch! I tell her that she wouldn't have to do that if she would just leave her clips or bows in her hair! ;)
- has seven teeth now! 4 on top and 3 on the bottom...more have to be coming in because she holds her mouth and cries out daily. It's really sad! :(
- LOVES the book I'm as Quick as a Cricket....seriously it gets read about 10 times a day now
- can say mama, dada, nana, pawpaw, meemaw, pappaw, & mammaw to the appropriate people. funny how the last 4 all sound similar! that's probably why she can say them all! HA!
- says "moorrah" and signs it when she wants more food.

Presley has become quite the little jokester! She has started this thing when in her highchair, she'll hid her napkin behind her head and raise her hands up like asking "where did it go?". Then she'll pull it out and say "ta da"!!! Ha ha! It's so cute! We videoed it the other day and I need to put it on here so y'all can see it first hand!

We celebrated Presley's month day today by giving her a PB&J sandwich for the first time! It was actually her first time ever having peanut butter! I thought she would just love it and devour it. But she only ate 1/2 of the sandwich. She normally eats all of a sandwich. Oh well, maybe it will be an acquired taste for her.

Presley.....Daddy & I love you so much! You are the light of our lives. We honestly can't remember our life before you! :) Even with all of your toddler tantrums, you are still the sweetest, most wonderful little thing.

ETA: at her 18 month checkup Presley weighed 22 pounds 4 ounces & was 32 1/4 inches long.

our day in pictures

I know that no one is going to care about this post, but I wanted to do it! Today was definitely not the typical day in our household, but I drug my camera around everywhere to remember a day in the life of Presley anyway.

Our morning started out crazy. I'll just say it involved puke & presley. :( I think it was just a fluke because she acted fine the rest of the day. Anyway, we went with our friend Karri to Pensacola to finish up our Christmas shopping. We went to Five Guys for lunch. Yum! How does it get better each time we go?

Then we went to the mall for a few things. We went to Claires and Presley tried on this Santa hat headband. I couldn't believe that she was still enough for me to take a picture.
Next up was Old Navy where Presley made a fast friend! Ha ha! She told the dog just "Hi" at first and then branched out to petting it on the head! She was so cute. Presley has only ever been around just a few dogs and I guess she thought she would take advantage of the one that didn't move! Ha!

And no girls shopping trip would be complete without a trip to Starbucks! =)

Presley and I came home and played for a little bit before the kids got dropped off and Daddy came home. Kameron, Jaden, and Kole are spending the night and spending all day tomorrow with us! It should be fun...hopefully I'll still be sane by tomorrow night! Ha ha! Just kidding, they are really great kids and we love having them over! :)

Isn't that a funny picture above? It makes me laugh because I was trying to get a picture of her cute shirt (that was totally a dress from last year! score with 2 years of wear!) but she just kept coming up to me wanting to sit in my lap.

Tonight we ate some pizza and then headed over to Pensacola again to look at some Christmas lights. There is this house on Cove Ave (the 2nd street on the left going west past the Lowe's on Nine Mile) that is decked out with lights. You can tune your radio to a certain station and the lights dance to music! It is so cool! I love going every year and the kids definitely enjoyed it! We didn't get over there until about 9 pm and the lights were still going when we left 30 min later. I think they start at dark & the radio station is 103.3 FM in case anyone wants to go and already have their radio tuned. I highly recommend going...it's a Pensacola must!

Not too great of pictures I know. But I had to take some and this was the best I got. I need to figure out how to shoot in the dark!

Hope you all had a great Friday!

this kid cracks me up

I guess Presley was really tired tonight. When she got in the bathtub she just sat there and then started scooping water up and putting it in her hair! She had started washing her hair without me! Ha ha! Poor thing didn't even want to play in the tub at all. I took the hint and bathed her quickly! :)

walking in a winter(fest) wonderland

We took Presley to downtown Pensacola Friday night for Winterfest. It was our first time going and we all 3 enjoyed it. I don't think Presley knew what to think of it at first because there was so much going on. There were some characters singing, which she was mildly interested in. But she LOVED the snow! It was just a fake snow (it seemed like soap bubbles) machine that they had sitting on top of a building entryway. It was high up enough that it seemed like it was falling from the sky....well to little kids anyway! Presley had the best time just standing under it. She was so funny looking holding her own amongst the huge kids standing beside her! :) Jeremiah and I were so scared that the bigger kids were going to run her over, but she did ok.

Just standing in the snow! :)

Presley & her Daddy...by a life-size penguin!

watching Frosty & some elves get down!

the beautiful tree by the courthouse

I wish I had gotten some better pictures of Presley and Jeremiah dancing. It melted my heart! But they all turned out blurry. :( The penguin you saw in the previous picture was dancing with the kids by a dj booth they had set up. Presley would bounce up and down really quick when the music was on. I guess because the music was so loud, she thought she had to go fast! Ha ha! Winterfest has some tours you can go on, but we didn't get there in time to do any. That's pretty much the story of my life....late for everything! But it worked out because we didn't spend any money and Presley had a blast! =) Cheap fun is always good!

SANTA!

Presley saw Santa Claus tonight! She didn't cry but she wasn't too sure of him and wouldn't sit in his sleigh by herself. So I had to climb in there. He tried to coax her into getting up there with him by handing her a candy cane but she was skeptical. She wouldn't even hold it until we got away from him and then she ate a few bites! :) The picture was crazy bright with flash so I had to try and edit it a little bit. It's not the greatest picture but what can you do? I do like the background and the Santa though! Here is last year's Santa & Presley picture.....so sweet!

my Birthday day!

Well, I am officially closer to 30 than I am 20. I don't really feel any older, but the "smile lines", we'll call them, on my face say something different! Ha ha! I had an absolute blast of a day. It started when my sweet friend Karri brought me donuts from Milton Bakery. Mmmmmm! If you haven't ever had them, you are missing out my friends! After our delicious breakfast, Presley and I went to my Mom's house for the day! Then we went to dinner at La Hacienda....one of the BEST restaurants in town. I didn't want an expensive cake so I just decided to make a homemade funfetti cake. I totally didn't mind because I love baking and eating the batter is the best part! But my Mom surprised me with Oh Snap cupcakes! YUM! So I have a whole cake sitting on my counter now begging to be eaten! ;)

I gave myself a present this year...I took a vacation day for tonight. So all I have to work is tomorrow and Thursday night. Hey, a 2 day work week ain't bad! I also got some of the most awesome presents....Twilight, Eclipse, & SATC 2 on blu-ray! An itunes gift card! My lens! and of course my camera!!!! Thank you all so much for the gifts, thoughtfulness, and wonderful company on my birthday! I feel very loved and blessed!

My cupcake has a Christmas tree on top! I always hated that my birthday was so close to Christmas growing up. It's been just recently that I have embraced it and actually come to love it. Oddly enough it was when I was decorating the tree this year that I realized how lucky I am to have my birthday so close to Jesus's! =)

Shutterfly equals Awesome

I'm jumping on the bandwagon that Shutterfly is offering bloggers- 50 FREE Christmas cards! I went to their site and was browsing at all the cards (which are gorgeous by the way!) and discovered their photo calendars. I made one for our fridge that is a whole year of Presley! I ordered it Wednesday and got it in the mail today. It is absolutely precious! I highly recommend one (or two) for a Christmas present! I picked the "birds and blossoms" background, because we all know how obsessed I am with birds! ;) You can personalize your calendar completely. You can add a photo to the actual date box and add text to it too. It looks so cool! :) I have ordered my parents a photo calendar from somewhere else before and it was ok. But I am so much more pleased with the calendar from Shutterfly. It is just overall a much better quality.

Here are a few of my favorites for our cards this year. They have so many cards to choose from...sophisticated cards, modern cards, fun colorful cards, the list goes on and on. Shutterfly also has folded greeting cards that have photos inside and out. They even have Christmas gift tags and address labels...which are again, adorable! I am not going to tell you which card we picked, you'll just have to wait and see which one comes in the mail! :)


I guess I was definitely feeling red & green for this year! Because that's what they all are! Ha ha!

Here are other links to Shutterfly's awesome site! Go take a look around! =)

· Christmas cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

· photo Christmas cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery

· desk calendars to http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/desk-calendars

· holiday cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

· personalized mugs to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/photo-mugs

· mother’s day cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/mothers-day-cards-stationery

polka dot play

There's not many things to say about this post....the cuteness speaks for itself!

She was spinning in the next two pics! :)

Jeremiah took this one...I was pleasantly surprised at his skills! ; )

the Christmas parade fiasco

Last night we went to the Christmas Parade in our town. It's right down the street so all we have to do is walk just a little bit to enjoy a (normally) pretty good parade. We always wait until we hear the sirens that are at the beginning of the parade before we walk down there. One- because the sirens are so loud and obnoxious and two- who wants to wait that long in the freezing cold? So anyway, we get down there and are having fun watching all the floats go by when suddenly the parade just seemed to stop. We all thought that there was no way that it had ended....Santa hadn't come by yet and we had only been out there about 30 minutes. I thought maybe we had missed more than just the beginning. But I stepped out into the street and saw a cop car coming and then regular cars behind it. I seriously thought the parade was over.

We were all pretty bummed at such a spindly parade this year. But we went back to my house and got money to go to Whataburger to get some cookies. So as we were eating our treats we see the parade going back by! Someone in the restaurant said that the parade had to stop because a little boy got his foot run over by something in the parade. But did anybody bother announcing that? Nope! So here we are thinking this had been the sorriest parade ever and it really wasn't! Ha ha! We got to see a little more through the windows of Whataburger, but it was ok. We had a memory with our crazy story and that's all that matters! Now, onto the pictures!

SNOW!

One of the floats that you'll only see in Florida....complete with palm trees. ;)

a big man in a little car

me & my little owl =)

Yummy cookies!

Presley has just started wanting to drink out of straw.

She was showing us her full belly! She drank almost all of the water in her cup and ate half of her cookie! Ha ha!