Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas 2011

To start our Christmas 2011, we went to Eric's parents' house to visit with the Roberts family. We had some great food and enjoyed seeing everyone! When we left their house, we moved onto Memaw's house for our annual Christmas eve dinner. We opened many presents, sang a little, and ate some yummy food! Here are some pictures...



 Even Sam Nolan got gifts! Of course, we helped him open them.



 We rushed home to get ready for Santa Claus to come the next morning. On the way home we were talking about him and all of sudden Delaney said, "I scared (I'm scared.) I don't want Santa to come." I think she got a little scared of a strange man coming into our house. But once we assured her that he was sweet and would only leave presents and eat his milk and cookies, she was okay. When she woke up, she was very excited to see what he had left. I videotaped her reaction that morning, so Eric was in charge of taking pictures. Her reaction to all the stuff was, "Wow!" and "So much stuff!" Her favorites were: baby stroller, Dora doll, doll house, and pink fluffy puppy. She had such a fun time playing with all of it! She has never played by herself as much as she has the past day.



 Sam Nolan's presents...

 When Delaney asked, "Did Santa eat his cookies?" I showed her the plate...

 For breakfast, I made her a snowman made out of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. This is all of her favorite breakfast foods, and she loved it. (And it was on her new Dora plate)
After that, our family came over to see what Santa had brought. We watched the video of her Christmas program and reaction to Santa. Our Christmas was full of blessings, love, and family. What else do we need? As Delaney has said many times the past couple of days, "Happy Birthday, Jesus!!"

Sam Nolan update:
I went to the doctor for my 35 week appt. Everything looked great! I am extremely swolen, tired, and ready, but Sam Nolan isn't. I think he's going to stay in there a little while longer!! 4 more weeks!!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Three Amigos Get Ready for Christmas 2011

Delaney's friends, Ashlyn and Connor, have joined us in many of our festive and fun holiday activities. Going to have "Breakfast with Santa" was no exception. :) When we were seated, we immediately began work on our crafts...
 Can you tell we love crafts??
 And eating... :)
This was my attempt at getting them to get in a picture from the booth...
 Keeping occupied while waiting for Santa...

 Apparently, she is telling him she wants a "pink teddy bear," (not something Santa was fully aware of)...
 Such a cute group picture... :)
 Not only do these three friends see Santa together, we were so happy when they came to the house to do some crafts. A little messy, but SO much fun...
 Delaney's reindeer...
 and colorful nutcracker...
 We also made cute and very yummy Christmas trees for us the kiddies...

 Reindeer food was made so that the reindeer would find us!!
And then we took a much needed reading break... (it must be the teacher in us)
 Connor got a hold of the food coloring. Do you think we had some fun or what??!!  :)
 And finally took a picture of them after all the excitement. FYI- I'm not a bad person for not putting pants on Delaney. She was a mess and had used her foot to make the painted reindeer.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

JCA Program/Christmas Party

Last year, Delaney did NOT want to show off her singing skills at the annnual Christmas program at JCA. She definitely made up for it this year!
 She sang the whole time, and wasn't afraid at all.

 We were so proud of her, and I think she was pretty proud of herself, too. We visited with Santa afterwards, but I videotaped it instead of taking pictures.  The next day, we went to her Christmas party in her K2 class.  We did a craft...

 Played musical books with our gifts...
 And enjoyed opening and reading our new Mickey Mouse book. I loved seeing how Delaney interracted with all of her friends. She is so sweet, and it makes me so proud to see her have good manners towards her classmates. 
 It also made me smile to see her playing the "teacher" role when reading with her friend.
 We had the best time, but our favorite part was most definitely the eating. :)
Not only have we visited Santa and his elves, they have come to our house, too. :) A friendly elf, Rebbi, has visited our house to "fluff" it for us! He even left a note to Delaney. :) What would we do without that elf??!! We LOVE it!!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Santa Baby

With all of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, we have managed to do as many fun things as we can (even before Christmas break). Since we know this will be our last Christmas as a family of three, we have tried to talk about Sam Nolan and all (or most) of the things that a new baby brings. This means the tree won't be ENTIRELY devoted to Delaney's ornamants...

And the Christmas wrapping won't be ENTIRELY Dora the Explorer/Disney princess/Toy Story. But we will be sharing our newest fun toy ("Elfis") with our baby brother next Christmas. Eric We decided on this name after our long list of rejected nominations from Delaney and I. These included: Boy, Frank, Dora, etc. Eric wanted "Elfis." :) We didn't follow the rules to the Elf on a Shelf trend because I hadn't read the book nor did I really want to.  We decided to use an elf she received last year and have him re-visit our house for the holidays this year.
 The first night, Elfis decided to get into the marshmallows and start a snowball fight. Delaney knew we would have an elf visit us, and was eager to see him in the morning. Well, I thought she would be eager. She was more scared than I had anticipated. Note: She is grabbing my finger and asking me to go in the room to touch him first.
 Eventually, we warmed up to him and he has become a fixture in our house. She is enjoying seeing him do things each night and wants to give him snacks to give him energy.
 Since I had been told by friends that he isn't "suppose to be touched" Eric decided to take it upon himself to hang him in various locations...
 But he did manage to get into the Christmas tree cakes...
 One of our favorite things we have done so far is the North Pole Express train ride. We went with my "WMK" girls that we enjoy so much each summer. Misty, Bradley, Connor, Tonya, Glynn, and Ashlyn met us in Calera to ride the train and see Santa. We were VERY excited all week.
 We wore our pajamas since the event is based on the book/movie "Polar Express." We were given cookies/milk, ornaments, and saw our favorite big man.  The pictures I took were right before we saw him. My camera and video camera decided to go out during the train ride. I will post pictures that Bradley took when I can.


Our attempt at taking a group picture...
 This face says it all. She was amazed at it all. This made the hour drive to get there totally worth it. :)
 She even got to hear one of her favorite singers, Jim Aycock, sing over the speaker system. Apparently he was on our train, but not in the same car. I will make sure to get that train next year.
 This is when she saw Santa for the first time...
 And making sure everyone else saw him, too.
 If that Santa visit wasn't enough, we went to Bass Pro Shops today to see him again.

 This year Delaney was so excited and happy to see Santa. The big ol' smile on her face lasted the rest of the day. When we talk about Santa, she knows exactly what she wants...DORA!
 Next year she might ask for this. :)
Here are some updates I want to remember about Delaney at this age:
- We have the best conversations. She loves to talk about things that we have done and can remember random things that Eric or I have said. She also loves to talk about our family and what they're doing. An example of a conversation this morning:
Me: "What do you want to do today?"
Her: "I want to go the festiball (festival)"
Me: "You mean the parade?" (She went to one yesterday with Nannie and Pop)
Her: "Yeah..I want to see the Santa and the girls and the candy. We got lots of candy."
Me: "Was it cold?"
Her: Shakes head. "Nannie and Pop gave me blanket."

Another one we had the other day made Eric and I laugh.
Us: "Look at the trees!!"
Her: "They so pretty! Nana's trees fall down."
*She had remembered Nana telling her that all the way back in April from the tornados!!

Before every bath, she likes to get naked and say "Shake my booty, shake my booty."

I absolutely LOVE having conversations with her everyday, and each day I am amazed at what she knows and how much she has learned.

She is also reading her books just like a teacher. She smacks her lips after each page and makes sure everyone is listening to her.

She tells everyone when she has pooted or burped (no matter where we are). This might be a future problem, but we are laughing about it right now. :) She also tells us she has "beans in her hiney."

Pregnancy update: I am two days shy of 34 weeks, and I am feeling Sam Nolan ALL the time. He is much more active than Delaney was.  He tends to move right after lunch and at night. At this point, it has become very uncomfortable to do a lot of walking, cleaning, etc. Eric has been such a wonderful husband through this pregnancy and helps with laundry, picking up, and housework. Needless to say, we are all so ready for him to finally be here!! :)