Christmas 2010

Christmas for us began a week earlier than the actual holiday. On December 17th, we headed to Murfreesboro to spend the night at Papa and Nana's house. We have started combining Thanksgiving and Christmas for them. We pick a weekend between the 2 holidays and it's affectionately known as "Thanksmas". Anyway, we got in pretty late on the 17th. On the 18th, we got up and had a nice breakfast and spent a lot of time just hanging out and visiting.

This was Isaac demonstrating his new trick

Baby Layla

Isaac also put on quite a show for us while we were there. He sang all sorts of songs and Papa even got a couple of them on video.

We tried to get a photo of the 3 little ones and this was the best we could get.

This is Isaac, Layla, and our niece Callie Grace.

(Doesn't she just have the cutest curls ever???)

Layla has really started to smile a LOT, which of course, just melts your heart!

We all got lots of nice gifts. Thank you all! Isaac loved all his toys and poor Layla didn't have a clue what was even going on! Next year will definitely be more fun for her though and I'm looking forward to it for sure!

Daddy and Isaac

Miss Callie Grace

I know she will hate me for it one day, but I just had to put up a pic showing how chunky my girl is.  I just LOVE babies with rolls. Isn't she just the cutest?? (I am a little partial, I know!)

My own little Santa Baby!

This picture was supposed to be horizontal and blogger turned it (not me) and I don't know how to turn it back. I just love the picture though!

Family shot

This is another one that blogger turned horizontal. I still think it's pretty cute though!

Thanks to Papa, Nana, Amanda, and Callie Grace for a great weekend. We all had a good time visiting and will definitely have to get together again soon. We had to rush back to Savannah on the 19th in time for our Christmas program at church. I was hopeful I could get a photo of Isaac with Santa, but he didn't want anything to do with him (again).

On Monday December 20, Isaac had his Christmas program at school. They sang a bunch of songs and it was all really cute. Isaac even had a solo line and Daddy got the whole thing on video. Isaac's line was "Trust Jesus because he is God's son"

They even dressed Miss Layla for the program!!

Now on to the rest of Christmas!  Me and the kids rode in with my Mom to Carthage on Thursday and Darren came in that evening when he got off work. Christmas Eve evening was spent at my Grandmother's house where that entire side of the family comes for dinner. We went over early that afternoon to visit, to help my Grandmother prepare, and do our gifts.

Me and my little man 

Darren, Isaac, and Uncle Patrick

Our little family

Family Shot again

4 generations

I just love this shot of Layla and Moms!

Once again, we got lots of nice gifts, but the best gift was being able to spend time with my family. We left Carthage around 9:00pm headed back to Savannah so that we could do Christmas morning and Santa at our house. Isaac and Layla both were asleep within 10 minutes of getting on the road and both slept the entire way back!

The next morning, we had to wake Isaac up to do Santa gifts.

This is what it looked like when Isaac got up...

Isaac got lots of cars from the movie Cars and several Toy Story Characters. He also got a scooter, but so far, he doesn't seem to care about it too much. Maybe once the weather gets nicer and he can take it outside. He and Daddy stayed busy awhile opening things out of their package and putting them together.

My two Santa babies

All in all we had a wonderful Christmas. We enjoyed our time with all our family and are very grateful to once again have that opportunity. On Christmas Day, our baby girl was 4 months old. Time flies! She is getting so big and getting to be so much fun!! She is smiling all the time and giggling here and there too. I can't wait until the giggles are much more frequent. My Mom weighed her on Christmas Eve and she weighs 16 pounds!! We go back to the doctor January 5 for her 4 month check up and shots.

This will probably be my last post for 2010. This has been such a wonderful year with Layla's arrival and all and only hope and pray 2011 is a wonderful year as well. We are very thankful for the blessings we have received and pray for continued health and happiness.

November Catch-Up

Well, I knew things would be hectic with 2 kids once I went back to work......but I had no idea just HOW hectic life would be! I have been back at work now for almost 7 weeks and I can't believe how fast time is passing. We have been busy, busy, busy lately and things won't slow down any time soon with the holidays and all.

My little ones are both just growing like crazy! They are both doing well at school and Layla is just becoming a little ball of fun. Her personality is really starting to come out now and she smiles all the time. We've even gotten a couple of giggles out of her! I can't believe she will be 4 months old on Christmas Day.

As you can see, she likes her Bumbo seat. She absolutely hates laying down and always wants to be included with things and seeing what is going on with everyone.

For now, her eyes are still big like her Mama's, but blue like her Daddy's



This little man just continues to keep us on our toes

My two babies!

This was taken after we went to try and do Santa pictures. Once again, Isaac was pumped up and ready until we got there, then he didn't want anything to do with Santa. Layla had no problem sitting on his lap for a picture, but if she takes after her big brother, that may be the only one I ever get!

Sweet baby girl

Sweet big brother



This is her solemn face and when she wants to, she can stare a hole right through you!

The week of Thanksgiving, me and the kiddos took off to Carthage for the weekend. This was the first trip home like that I've made by myself with them, but things couldn't have gone any better. Layla slept the whole way both going and coming and Isaac kept me entertained with conversation. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandmother's house and my aunt, uncle, and cousins from North Carolina came in for the holiday too. It's aways good to spend time with family and I was so happy they got to see Isaac and meet Layla. The rest of the weekend was pretty lazy and we just hung around and visited. We went to church on Sunday, which I always enjoy, then came back to my Grandmother's for a quick lunch before hitting the road back to Savannah.

I took this picture of my babies after church and I have to say, it's probably one of my all-time favorites.

My smiling, chunky little girl!

 

Being silly!

Sweet girl again

We went to my Dad's this past weekend to do our annual Thanksmas (Thanksgiving and Christmas combines) weekend. We took TONS of pictures and once I get them uploaded, I'll do a December/Christmas post to finish out 2010. We'll be back very soon!!

Reflections

As I sit here today typing this, I am overcome with a range of emotions. Today is my last day of maternity leave with Layla and I will return to work on Monday. These past 10 weeks at home have truly been a rollercoaster of a journey with many ups and downs. Part of me is looking forward to going back to work and getting to be around grown ups during the day as well as getting back into some sort of routine. The other part of me feels guilty because I know I will never again have this amount of time with my baby girl. I had these same feelings when I went back to work with Isaac and I know it's completely normal, but it's still hard. I know you can't be with your kids every hour of every day and that time doesn't stop simply because I have to go back to work. It doesn't make it any easier though to know she will be spending so much of her active awake time with people other than her Mommy. Please keep us all in your prayers that things go smoothly as we begin this next chapter in our lives.

Mommy's sweet baby girl

Halloween 2010

It's hard to believe that November is here. Layla had her first Halloween and Isaac had a big time too. Isaac went with Daddy to the hunting club on Saturday morning to shoot guns and get Daddy's scope set. Me and Layla went to Mimi and PawPaw's to hang out until the guys got back. Here is a photo of my little ones before we left the house. It's amazing how much Layla looks like her brother did at his first Halloween too!!

When the guys got back, we got the kiddos dressed to go out trick or treating. Several of the large churches here do the trunk or treat deal where the cars are decorated and treats are given out of the trunks. This keeps the kids off the streets and is so much easier than going door-to-door and having to get in and out of car seats so that's what we did. We did go to a few houses of folks we knew basically to visit and let them see how cute our little ones were! :)

Here is my little flower girl Layla.....

and her big brother Spiderman (aka Isaac)

This was the only one I could get of the two of them together where they were both looking in the direction of the camera!

I just thought these next couple of photos were cute and showed off the one thing that both of my babies got from their Mama.........LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those big ole' eyes!!!

My two favorite guys!!

And last but definitely not least, I have followed through on my promise to get a shot of Layla and her sweet smile!!

This is my last week home with this sweet girl and I'm a nervous wreck just thinking about going back to work next week. We have had some sleep issues with this lady. She goes to bed fine and is still sleeping good for the first stretch, but after her bottle, she wants to be awake and play and it's taken a good hour to hour and half to get her back to sleep. That's all fine and dandy now, but I can't do that next week when I have to get up and go to work so last night we tried something different. She got her last bottle around 9:00 and was wide awake, but I was able to get her to sleep around 9:30. I rocked her quite a bit after that just to make sure she was good and asleep, then laid her in her crib in her room. She's been sleeping in a pack and play beside our bed in our room, but decided it was time to move her out. I felt kind of bad because Isaac was in our room like that FOREVER before we finally moved him to his room, but things are so much different with the second child. Anyway, she did great in her room last night. She woke up around 2:00 for her feeding and was asleep on my shoulder, but those big eyes popped open wide when I laid her back down. She wasn't fussing or crying though so I left her in her crib and went back to bed. She must have eventually drifted off because the next thing I know she woke me up at 5:00. She just woke then because she was gassy to after some gas drops and about 5 minutes of rocking, I laid her back down again and she slept until 7:00! I'm hoping to get her into a more predictable routine soon, I just don't know how. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please share!! I also have trouble getting her to nap for much longer than 45 minutes to an hour during the day. The only way she will sleep longer is if she's in her swing, which is not a bad thing, but I don't want her to have to always be in the swing in order to be able to take a long nap. Any ideas on this would be appreciated too! Please keep us all in your prayers as we prepare to start a new routine with me going back to work. We definitely will need all the help we can get!!