Our Christmas

What a wonderful Christmas we had. This post is very late but I have tried to sit down and post something so many times and have not finished so here it finally is.... Sallie got her motorcycle form Santa that she really wanted and has really had a great time riding it. She also got a scooter form her Nana which she has had a blast riding in circles around the driveway. She got a art easel that was her favorite gift but now has just become a huge mess because she paints her hands and her body and then gets in trouble. Sallie was really excited Christmas morning and loved putting out cookies and milk for Santa. It was pretty funny because Jack, our dog, ate the cookies and drank the milk before we went to bed so we had to replace them. Sallie started getting sick Christmas night and was up all night. She had a fever so we took her to the doctor the next day and they said that she just had a cold virus that was going around. They tested her for the flu but she was in the clear. Her fever finally went away the following day however she never bounced back to her normal happy self. We went out of town for New Years and she started complaining about her ear while we were there. Anna was really fussy as well and not sleeping at all. We were up all night for about 3 nights out of town and finally decided to leave Saturday. We took both girls to doctors care the day after New Years and it turned out that they both had ear infections. Sallie has really struggled with ear infections and has tubes in her ears but still seems to get them. Now Anna has had her first one at 4 months so I hope that this is not the start of many more. They are now recovering on antibiotics and we are finally getting some sleep. Anna is laughing and smiling all the time now. She is really getting to be so interactive. I know that I said this in last post but she really is so much fun now. When I go get her in the morning she just smiles and coos. She loves Sallie and laughs at just about anything that Sallie does. Sallie has been trying to pick Anna up lately so I have really had to watch her closely. Anna is still getting up in the night to eat but right now I am going to choose my battles. That is not one of them. Anna weighs 14 pounds now so she really does not need to be eating in the middle of the night any longer. Just a couple more nights of good sleep and then I will let her cry it out...maybe. Sallie is continuing to talk up a storm and keeps us in stitches with her funny sayings. She woke up yesterday morning and came running in our room telling us that she had birds in her bed. I had no idea what she was talking about and she was pulling me to her room to show them to me. I went in her room and she was right, it sounded like there were birds in her bed. Her sound machine automatically goes to the bird chirping noise when the power goes out. The power went out the other night in that wind storm and reset on the birds chirping. Anyway, It was hilarious. I started feeding Anna rice cereal and Sallie told me "no Mama, she just drinks milk". This is because I use to say this all the time when Sallie would try and put something in Anna's mouth. She does not miss a beat and is too smart for her own good. Sallie is such a loving child. She always wants to make sure that we know that she loves us. When I go somewhere now and come home she tells me that she cried. I ask her why and she tells me it was because she missed me. She really knows how to push my buttons. We had a Christmas break and hated to get back to work. I know that 2009 is going to be a wonderful year. My 2009 goals are to be a better mother, wife, and friend. I want to learn to cook better and read more. I want to worry less and play more. I want to take time for myself more often. My number 1 goal is to pray about everything everyday and grow more in my walk with God. I am so thankful for my life and all that I have been blessed with. Sallie, Anna, and Ward you have made me that happiest Mama and wife around and I hope that 2009 only gets better.

Christmas in Columbia 08

Only 11 days until Christmas and we are counting!!!! We have done lots of fun Christmas activities over the last couple of weeks and Sallie is really getting excited!!! We went from asking Santa for a motorcycle and a scooter for Christmas and to a baby doll today. Wow, what drastic differences. We will see what direction Santa decides to go in. Sallie and Ward went on a train ride with Santa Saturday and we also went to the mall to see Santa a couple of weeks ago. She was not really crazy about Santa at the mall but did sit with Santa on the train ride. Sallie has decorated a gingerbread house and made lots of cute Christmas crafts for our Christmas tree. We all went downtown to the Christmas parade last Saturday with our friends. Sallie has learned that Christmas is Jesus' birthday and Jesus was born in Bethlehem. She is very excited about having cake and blowing out candles on Christmas for Jesus. I guess I need to get to baking. Anyway, our house becomes more active everyday and with Christmas approaching it is full charge. Anna is getting happier and more interactive daily and so much fun to be around. She really is a good baby!!! Sleeping has become more of a nightly routine now and she only gets up once in the night now. We have had to put a gate up at the door in Sallie's room due to her being able to open the door now and due to her getting up at all hours wandering around the house and because she has become quite the mischievous little girl. She is into everything now and I mean everything. She uses Anna's bumbo seat as a step stool to get boost herself up to the cookie jar or the candy. She saw me coming when she was doing this yesterday and managed to unwrap 5 Hersey kisses and put them in her mouth by the time I could get to her. I put her down for a nap last week and was upstairs working. I had the monitor on and never heard anything. About a hour after putting her down I walked downstairs to get something and started smelling something that resembled nail polish remover. I went back to the bedroom and she had gotten into my bathroom cabinets and.......painted her "poenails", sprayed hairspray everywhere including her hair and my bathroom floor, taken my hair straightening oil and dumped all three little bottles on the floor, colored my cabinets with eyeliner, and after that I stopped looking. I was in awe!! I wanted to laugh so badly at the look on her face when I caught her but knew that I could not. She could have gotten into the pack of razors and that would have been bad. I picked her up and placed her very firmly back in her bed. She says that I slammed the door but really I shut it very firmly. Everyone asks if I took pics and sorry I did not. I was too mad at the time. Due to this and her wandering upstairs in the middle of the night, her door is now being gated during nap time. Today is the first day so I will post the results. Our Christmas tree is up and we have really enjoyed decorating our new house. If feels like home and all our Christmas decorations fit so nicely in it. I will post lots of Christmas pictures that I have taken over the last couple of weeks. We had dinner with Ward's brother, Carter, and sister-in-law, Beth, and their new baby tonight. Little Ellis is beautiful and Sallie just loved her. I got a cute shot of the three girls. I will post that picture as well. It is so funny to see how babies from the same family look so different.

Thanksgiving 2008

I am so thankful for my family and we had a great time this Thanksgiving celebrating family. The entire side of my Dad's family came down to the beach. We have not seen some of those family members since Ward and I were married. It was great seeing everyones children and letting them all play. We all had Thanksgiving lunch together and then got to watch the Clemson Carolina game on Saturday. The kids had a blast. Anna got a little off while we were there and did not want to sleep and did not want to be put down. This was a little frustrating but overall it was a great trip. We came home Saturday night and had Sunday to get ready for Christmas. I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks of seeing Christmas everywhere. Sallie seems to really be into Christmas this year as I think this is really the first year that she knows a little about what is going on. I did try and take her to see Santa Claus at the beach and she had no interest and said that she did not want to sit in his lap. he talked to her from afar and she told him that she wanted a motorcycle for Christmas. No babies, no dress up, no princess stuff, but a motorcycle. Go figure!! Anyway, hopefully I will be able to convince her to sit in Santa's lap with Anna. We will see!!

The Wiggles

Well, we did it. We went to our first show, the Wiggles. It was so much fun. I actually enjoyed the Wiggles. Sallie enjoyed it as well however she did fall asleep in the middle of the show. It was during her normal nap time so she stayed awake for half then fell asleep and then woke up to see the end. She is her Mama's child. Poor Ward never gets to watch a entire movie with me. Anyway, it was fun. Anna stayed home with Ward while Sallie and I went and met Mary Grace and Betsy for the show. Other than that, our weekend was uneventful. Anna seems to be doing much better now with her reflux. She is smiling all the time now and I love this. She is still not sleeping through the night but hopefully that will come wiht time. They say that she is doing great at daycare as well. She takes a short cat nap there and then usually takes a long afternoon nap which is great for me so I can get some work done. Yesterday when I walked into daycare Anna looked like she had been crying for a while. They said that she did not like the temperature of her bottle. It looks like we have a high mainteance little girl on our hands. I am looking forward to the Thanksgiving holidays and some time off for some r&r.

Back to work

Well I started back to work Monday and it was so hard. Sunday night was a long night to start with because Anna was up many times. Ward had to leave early Monday morning for a case in the upstate and Sallie decided to wake up at 5:00 am and get in bed with me and not go back to sleep. We made it to school by 9 and I got busy at home on the computer. Thank goodness I did not have to go anywhere Mon and I could work from home as there was no shower for me that morning. Getting back into the swing of things is going to take some time as I am sure that this is normal. I hated leaving Anna at daycare but she was only there for three hours and she did fine. She was screaming crying when I picked her up however they said that she had only been crying for a few minutes after she drank her bottle. Sallie goes on the playground and can look into Anna's room window. They said that she came down to check on Anna and when I asked her what Anna was doing, Sallie said that she was crying and Mrs. Kathy was rocking her. Sallie is my little watch dog. It is nice having one day on and one day off with work. Tuesday and Thursdays will be for story times and play dates. Mary Grace and Price came over and played today and we had lots of fun. I had a really cute video clip of Sallie saying the pledge of Allegiance that I was going to post for veterans day however for some reason it did not record so I will have to get this again tomorrow and post it. I could not believe that she was able to say the entire Pledge of Allegiance. She put her hand over her heart and said it and then started singing "I am proud to be a American". At the end of the song she said Amen. I was so impressed. She was even able to say indivisible to where I could understand it. We are going to see the Wiggles live in person Saturday and I am so excited for Sallie. I know she will love it. We have been watching lots of the Wiggles at home to prepare. We are still loving our new house and getting more settled. I finally got a picture of Anna smiling yesterday. She makes you work really hard for a smile so I have had a hard time getting a picture of a smile. I got one and will post!!! Sallie's new saying these days is "cause". When I ask her why she did something she says "cause". She also says "I don't know" a lot. She has been coming into our room in the mornings when she wakes up lately. I do not have a monitor in her room anymore since she is so close to our room and we leave all doors open. Sunday morning she came in our room and around to my side to wake me up. Her breath smelled really minty but at the time I did not put two and two together. Turns out she had been up for a while and I had not heard her. I walked into the den and she had my purse emptied all across the floor. She had every tube of lipstick open and had taken 5 pieces of gum, chewed them, and placed the wrappers neatly on top of the trash can. She had placed her wad of chewed gum on Ward's bed side table before coming to me as if she were trying to hide it. All I could do was laugh!!!! The child loves some gum and would do most anything for it.

Halloween

Halloween was a fun night for us. We went to a Fall Festival with Mary Grace and Price and had lots of fun. We did trunk or treating and got to ride a ride and jump in a bouncy house. It was lots of fun and we hope to be able to celebrate Halloween like this for many more years to come. Sallie got a lot of candy and managed to eat a lot of it as she received it. We took care of the rest when we got home and tired to have a sugar detox the next day. Here are some pictures of the fun time that we had. Saturday night we had some friends come over and play and had a great time. We had wings, watched football and played!!!

6th folder 6th picture

This is Sallie at the beach the summer 07. Wow! She looks like a baby and is so grown up now. Can not believe how time has flown by. Anyway here's what you do... go to your 6th picture folder and the 6th picture in it. Tell about the picture and then tag 2 more people., Whitney and Angela are it!!!