Gingerbread Party

We traveled to Chattanooga recently so John could be in a wedding. Actually we went so we could attend the 4th annual Gingerbread Party at the Collins' house. Rebecca was so excited about seeing Mae Mae and Ambrose. Presley was just along for the ride.

The big girls decorated cookies.

Presley stared out the window.

I got a chance to visit with Denise.

After the wild party, the big girls relaxed in front of the tree.

Christmas Program

Rebecca recently had her Christmas program at school. I should let you know in advance that it was also known as the show your belly program. Here the kids are practicing We Wish You a Merry Christmas before they walked to the Sanctuary. It doesn't look like it in this picture, but for those of you who personally know Rebecca, you know that she was singing the loudest of them all.

Here they are before they started singing.
Once the music started, Rebecca forgot to sing. She was busy doing other things...showing her belly.

Lucky for her, or me, she was not on the front row. Gracie, on the other hand, put on quite a show.

Dear Santa

Mimi and I took the girls to see Santa at Phipps Plaza the other day. Rebecca was so excited about seeing Santa. I knew that she would be okay sitting on his lap, but I was for sure that Presley would freak out. I talked to Rebecca about how she had to be very brave for Presley because Presley had never met Santa before. Mimi and I were very smart to fill Presley's stomach up right before we handed her off to a strange man.

The girls went right to Santa. Rebecca loved every minute of it, Presley never cried but looked very frightened. She kept looking at Santa as if to ask, "Who the heck are you?" Rebecca informed Santa that she wanted a beach ball and Presley wanted a baby doll. Santa asked if there was anything else, and Rebecca said no. How easy are they?

We ran into two of Rebecca's classmates while in line to visit Santa. I think the girls were as excited to see each other as they were to see Santa.

Lily, Grace, and Rebecca

After our visit with Santa we did a little shopping and ate lunch with Mimi. It was a great outing. Thanks Mimi for helping out.

Cousins

My girls have a lot to be thankful for, but this Thanksgiving, I think they were most thankful for their cousins. They had such a great time in Mississippi with Nannie and Pop Pop and the rest of the Denton crew. But they sure had a lot of fun with John, Carrie, Mae, and Ambrose. Here are the pictures to prove it:

Playing dress up

Playing house
Looking out into the world
Some of the boys frying a turkey (or 4)
The big girls and Ambrose playing Phase 10
Presley's first stick fire
The only picture of John
Pulling out Nannie's magazines
Slumber party with the pillow pets
Presley feeding Ambrose
Ambrose stealing Presley's food
Playing Go Fish with Lala
Riding on the pillow pets
Playing Duck Duck Goose with Lala
Making Smores with Nannie

Super Star and a Scaredy Cat

So much has been happening with our family lately that it leaves me with little time or little desire to blog. As usual, I'm tired...but I got lots to blog about.

First off and most exciting, Rebecca is now semi potty trained. I told her last week that she could not go to school next year if she was not tee-teeing in the potty (which is true) and she said "Okay, I'll start using the potty." So yesterday morning we put on big girl panties and went for it. It was a huge disaster, but I was NOT going to give in and put a diaper on her. She tee-teed in about 9 pairs of panties. I was so out done and frazzled by bed time last night, but I was not willing to give up. This morning we put on panties, she has one small accident, and that was it. I set a timer to go off every 30 minutes. When it would ring I would yell out, "Potty Time!" and she would go to the potty. Several times she went to the potty without the timer going off and without my asking her. I am so proud! Oh, and she even pooped in the potty once too! I love her!

She is also doing better sleeping at night. She goes to bed on her own, without someone laying down with her or standing by her door. She sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to get in our bed, but not every night. My only issue is that she wants to wake up at the crack of dawn or sometimes earlier. I need to get one of those alarm clocks that tells her when she can get out of bed. 7:00am thank you very much.

Presley is fantastic as well. She can now say mama, dada, and bye-bye. She can wave. She can clap. She can pull to a stand somewhat, but is still very shaky. She is still trying to wake me up so she can eat at night, but we are in the throws of sleep training. Hopefully we can have some success before Thanksgiving. One thing I noticed today is that Presley is a total scaredy cat. Rebecca and I were rolling a ball to each other this morning. Presley crawled over to where we were. I rolled the ball to her very softly, and she flinched like it was a 90 mile an hour fast ball. I thought maybe she just wan't prepared so I tried again, and again she flinched. I tried it several times and each time she flinched. It was quite cute, funny, and sad all at once. She is also scared of the train at Mimi and Papa's house. She cried like the baby she is whenever Rebecca turned it on. I told her she needed to man up or at least baby up.

I will leave you now with a few of the out takes from our Christmas picture photo shoots. That's right, I said shoots. It took 3 tries and hundreds of photos before I got ones that were decent enough for our Christmas card. It is hard getting 2 beautiful girls to look at the camera and smile. UGH! But it is done, and the cards are off to the printers.

This is not an out take from the Christmas card, but just a too cute innappropriate picture I shot the other day when Presley took off as I was trying to change her diaper. Baby got back.

Nine

1. Presley is 9 months old today.

2. She is still not sleeping through the night. We are working on only waking once a night. It is a good night if that happens. She goes to sleep at 7 and wakes up (for good) about 7.

3. She can say bye-bye and waves.

4. She loves to stand up and hold on to things such as the couch or a chair, but is not able to pull up to her feet all by herself.

5. She has a new fascination with being upside down.

6. She is a quick crawler.

7. She prefers to have Mama in her view at all times.

8. She is eating avocado, bananas, cheerios, apple butter sandwiches, kiwi, puffs, yogurt, sweet potatoes, apples, and pears.

9. She can clap her hands.

I love her more today than I did 9 months ago. How is that possible?

BOO!

Happy Halloween

from the

Queen Bee

and a

flower.

Sisters

Will they

always

get along

like they

do now?

In my experience, probably not. So I will enjoy it while it last.

Presley Update

Presley is changing so much each day. It amazes me how quickly she picks up on new things. She is now crawling, slowly, but she is crawling. If she needs to get somewhere quickly, she rolls there. She can go from lying down to sitting, all by herself. Just tonight she started feeding herself Puffs. My favorite new trick of hers is that she says Mama. Of course she is not calling me Mama, it is more like she is saying mamamamamamamamamama, but she said it first. Not Dada! HAHA!

She is such a happy, smiley baby. I love her smile. I love her laugh. She is ticklish, especially under her neck. She started giving me kisses. They are the best, most slobbery, sweetest kisses. She eats 3 meals a day and nurses 6 times. She gets up once a night, and wakes up around 6:15. She naps twice a day. She has 2 teeth and knows how to use them. She loves anything she can get in her mouth. She loves to be outside. She loves to play with her sister. She does not like when her sister takes toys from her. She flaps her arms when she is excited. She adores her daddy, but is still a mommy's girl.