Christmas 2007

We had a wonderful Christmas this year and really enjoyed spending time with family. Having an 18 month old during the holiday season is just the best. Ashley was so "into" everything that encompasses this wonderful time of the year. Every time we walk past the nativity in our house - Ashley just has to stop and point out baby Jesus. I love that even at this early age she knows that baby Jesus is special. She was also very fascinated with the lights, santa, snowmen, and trees this year. We had quite a busy Christmas schedule this year that started off with opening presents on Christmas Eve Eve at Nana & Pops house. We exchanged gifts with Tiff, Larry and the boys. We had a great time watching the kids play with their gifts and eating pizza. On Christmas Eve we went to our church, Prestonwood for the candlelight service. Ashley even went with us this year and got to go down front and listen to Dr. McKinley talk to all the kids. She absolutely loved it and kept waving to all the kids down there with her. She is so sweet. I love our church and love all the musical talent that our congregation is blessed with. There are several occassion throughout the year where I leave the service with tears welled up in my eyes - and the candlelight service is always one of them. After the service we headed over to Gigi and Granken's house for tamales and chicken enchilada casserole. We had a blast and got our annual night before Christmas present from Gigi and Granken (Christmas Pjammas). We said goodnight - went home - put Ashley in her new PJs set out some cookies and milk for santa and then tucked Ashley in for the night. Then it was time for us to go to sleep and for Mr. & Mrs. Claus to get busy on building a kitchen for Ashley.


We woke up the next morning bright and early to see what Santa had left for Ashley. She loved her kitchen and the play food that Santa had left in her stocking.

We had a blast playing with her new kitchen and then moved onto the living room to open presents by the tree.
After that we headed over to Gigi and Granken's for some sausage bread (YUMMMM!) and to open more presents.
Ashley got a Betty Butterfly from Memaw & Papaw and loved riding it!
We then headed to Nana & Pops house for lunch and back to Gigi & Granken's for dinner. Man were we stuffed after all this yummy eating! We had a wonderful Christmas!

Beautiful Day!

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous! Not a cloud in the sky and 70 degrees! Ashley and I went to the park and had a blast. Aunt Kristen met us up there and we had a great time watching Ashley on the swings and slides. I am so thankful for the weather today that allowed us to spend some time outside at the park. Ashley is getting so much more independent each and every day. I'm always right there behind her in case she falls - but as I've been watching other moms lately I've decided that maybe I'm right there behind her a little too much....so at the park today I let her have a little more freedom and climb up the playground equipment and go down the slides by herself....she loved it :) I snapped a few pictures of her loving smile today. What a sweet child I have.

Don't be jealous...

but all my Christmas shopping is finished. I'm super super excited about this as I think this is the earliest that I've ever before in my entire life been done with my shopping. All I have left to do is wrap everything.

Weekend Recap...

Friday we hosted Playgroup at our house. The kidos decorated Christmas cookies with icing and sprinkles and all had a blast playing together. Ashley wasn't too sure at first about having 25 kids in her house and playing with her toys and was extremely clingy to mommy - but after about 15 minutes she warmed up a little and jumped right in with all the other kids.

On Saturday Ashley, Daddy and Mommy braved the mall to finish up their Christmas shopping. I could not believe how crowded it was. Ashley had a good time and took a little nap in her stroller while Daddy and I continued to search for those last few perfect gifts. We then dropped Ashley off with Gigi and Granken and headed to our Bible Fellowship Class Christmas Party - we had a great time.

On Sunday we spent some time with Eric's family celebrating Tiffani's birthday.

The weekend was great and I for one cherished each second of it - time spent with friends and with family.

Ho Ho Ho

This weekend we went to the North Pole - also known as Willow Bend Mall so that Ashley could visit Santa. We ran into our good friends Shannon and Erik and their two cuties, Cole and Lane who were also there visiting Santa. After waiting oh so patiently in line Ashley got to sit on Santa's lap. She told him that she had been a darling little angel this year and that she would love to get a play kitchen for Christmas....pretty please. Santa said he'd try his best to find her a great play kitchen as long as she would bake his reindeer up some yummy cookies and leave him a big glass of milk. Ashley nodded yes!

Then Ashley posed for a quick pic with Santa and then politely said "bye bye Tantaaaa (santa)" and waived.

I just had to post her Santa picture from last year. WOW! She has grown from a sweet little baby into a beautiful little toddler. God is amazing!

Where did November go?

Wow...so where did the month of November go and did it take our camera with it? I can honestly say that I'm not quite sure. Here is a quick recap of our month (since there was an extreme lack of posting going on and lack of picture taking).




~~~~ Mommy turned 28 - Aunt Kristen and Uncle Matt threw Mommy a party with yummy food and lots of fun. (no pic - Kris/Gigi do you guys have any?)





~~~~ We visited Uncle Michael up at OU during parents weekend. We had a great time. Michael showed us around the campus and Ashley found some neat things along the way. The first two pics were taken in the front of Michael's house. We had a great BBQ lunch at the house and then toured campus, went to Campus Corner and then to the game - where I must say that our good old Baylor Bears held out and fought hard against OU...we were proud of them even though the Sooners ultimately won.

There must have been something interesting on her hand...hmmmm...cute though!

Ashley loves statues...I mean really loves them. Here she is by some sheep she found while walking through campus.

~~~~ Ashley had her first Oreo this month. I've been dreading this moment - imagining all the horror that could unfold and the chocolate fingerprints spread throughout the house. But Daddy gave her one - and I must say that she did quite well with it. No major messes. She LOVED it!

~~~~ Thanksgiving. We spent time with family and unfortunatley we have no pictures to post (Tiff, Nana, Kris, Gigi - send us some pics). We had a great day and ate way TOO much food - but that's what Thanksgiving is all about.

Baylor Homecoming

We ventured down to Waco this past weekend for the BU Homecoming. We had a lot of fun - got to see some old friends and had fun showing Ashley the greatness of the Baylor Homecoming Parade. She loved all the bands and the swing dancing team that walked in the parade. She also really like the floats with animals on them. Luckily Daddy's college fraternity, Kappa Sig, had an animal themed float this year, so Ashley just had to stand by it and get a picture with Daddy. We were only in Waco for 14 short hours - next year we will definitely have to spend more time down there!

Fall Festival

Every year our church puts on a big Fall Festival for the kids on Halloween. It is crazy how much they have for the kids to do up there - about 40 inflatables, carnival rides, games, food, music. It is really neat. Ashley definitely had a great time!

Here is Ashley playing the duck game. She said she'd rather keep the duck than pick a piece of candy. She loves ducks!

And here is Ashley towards the end of our time at Fall Festival. I think this picture was taken in line waiting for the train...the line was very long for a 16 month old to wait in.
After Fall Festival we went over to Nana & Pops house to visit them and Tiffani, Larry, Alex, and Sam. Here is a cute shot of the kidos all dressed up. Aren't they cute?!?! It was a late night - Ashley didn't get in bed until 11:30pm! But it sure was fun!

Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch

Gigi, Granken, Ashley, Mommy, & Daddy all packed into the car and drove to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch to enjoy the wonderful weather we've been having. We all had a great time! I think Ashley's favorite part was eating the pumpkin bread that Gigi bought :) Just kidding, she loved riding the trai with Daddy and running around all the pumpkins and looking at the character cut outs. We ate lunch under some shade trees and Ashley apparently made a new friend. A bee - no, not a kid dressed up as a bee - a real live bee - while we were in line buying some food to eat Ashley and Gigi were saving our table. My mom looked down and Ashley was petting a bee that was on her coke can. AHHHHHHH! I am very thankful that she was not trying to hit the bee or smush it!

Ashley and Daddy crammed into the Yellow Train Car :) CHOOOO CHOOOO!!


Ashley with her FAVORITE characters, Baby Bop, Barney and BJ.

Eating some of that oh so yummy and fresh Pumpkin Bread that Gigi bought. YUM!
Ashley loved playing in this little jailhouse.

Playgroup ~ Owen's Farm

Ashley had a great time with her little friends at Owen's Farm. We all went on a hayride where Ash got to see some horses and ducks. Here is Ash sitting on the hay like a big girl all by herself.


Then we visited the petting zoo - Ashley wasn't too sure about feeding the goats so she let mommy do it. We had a great time seeing friends and eating lunch with everyone outside. It was a beautiful day and the kids all had a blast. Last we picked out a pumpkin to take home with us. I think Ash was asleep in her carseat before we even pulled out of the parking lot. FUN FUN!

The kids all loved this blow-up. It had ghosts that would pop up out of the pumpkin. Here they are staring at it.

Ashley is growing and learning more and more each day. It is amazing to me how much of a sponge she is. At Owen's Farm they had a scarecrow and some pumpkins that we all thought was a great photo op - so on and off the mom's were placing their kidos in front to snap some pics. Well, I guess Ashley had been observing this because suddenly after one of the kids was done getting his picture taken Ashley ran over to the scarcrow and sat down - put her hand on the pumpkin - looked up at me and smiled. Of course I snapped her picture - too cute...guess she wanted to get in on the photo shoot action too ;) Here is her photo....

My little bow head...

Sorry it's been awhile since our last post. We've been busy busy w/ Halloween and getting ready for the Snowflake Bazaar this weekend. If you have some time this weekend you should go (I love going - you can get a big jump start on Christmas shopping). I'll be a vendor again this year, along with hundreds of other great sellers. I'll be selling my necklaces...wooohoooo...here's hoping they're a hit! The snowflake bazaar is at Plano West Sr. High on Parker Road - Sat and Sun from noon-6. I will post all our Halloween, Pumpkin Patch, Baylor Homecoming, etc pics next week sometime...but until then here is a glimpse into Ashley and I's morning ritual.

BEFORE

AFTER - and yes...EVERY morning :) I love my little bow head!

Oh Boy!

Ashley and mommy went to Target the other day and were looking at the items on clearance and found this....Ashley says WOW!

Jewelry on the Brain

So as most of you know, after months of agonizing I decided to take some time off from the career front. My last day was this past Friday. It was a really difficult decision, but one that I am glad to finally have made. It will be nice to get to spend more time with Ashley ~ although I'm sure there will be days when I question if I was sane when I made this decision.

Ashley and I had a great day on Monday. We watched the rain fall from our safe hidout at the front windows, we played upstairs in her playroom, ate lunch together, went for a walk, visited Gigi and GrandKen. It was a good day. Here is a picture from our day - Ash in camo and her favorite new shoes - pink moccasins.

I opened up an online shop to feature the jewlery I've started to design and make. I am a crafty girl at heart and am really excited about this ~ we'll see if I ever sell any of it :) You can check out my shop HERE or click on the pictures of my work in my sidebar.

One final note - I went to Costco today and was pleasantly surprised to see that they already had the Danish Shortbread Cookies out - you know the ones w/ the big sugar crystals on top - that they have around Christmas time? Well, I couldn't resist - so I picked up the unusually large tin and tossed it in the cart. Inside the tin they have the cookies arranged in groupings of three in little paper cupcake things. Anyways, I just realized that in one day I have eaten the contents of 6 cupcake things - so 18 cookies!!! AHHH! To the next person that comes over to my house - PLEASE remove the tin of cookies before I eat them all! Until next time...SMILE!