Away goes Christmas

Every year as soon as Christmas is over I cannot wait to put away my Christmas decoration.

I LOVE decorating the house for Christmas but as soon as Christmas is over I want them gone

Sometimes I am even tempted to do it on Christmas night when we get home...weird... I know!And if I do still have my decorations up after the day after I will not turn on my light...

I don't what exactly why I feel like this... I just do...

I think that it makes me sad because I feel like all the fun is over for the year and if I just put it up I will forget about it.

But not everybody feels like that so when I drive around and see people who have NOT taken down their decorations and STILL have their lights on it makes me want to go and "help" them take theirs down.

So this year when I had to work the day after Christmas it almost killed me to wait until 2 days after to put all the Christmas goodies up and away. But now it is all done and they are in the attic to stay until next year!

Christmas Weekend Recap

We had a VERY busy Christmas weekend...

It was lots of fun but kind of stressful too...

Santa came to visit Miss Ellie early this year because I had to work on Christmas Day and we wanted to be able to enjoy her playing with all her new toys...

I know that she is only 8 1/2 months but she really did seem very excited about all her new toys.

I put her down in the living room and she smiled really big and crawled over to pile of goodies that Santa had left for her...

Here are some pictures of our " Christmas" morning...

After spending some time with our Santa gifts we packed up and headed to Starkville Mississippi to spend time with my Mom's side of the family.

This is always such a fun time for us.

We love going to Starkville because we have been going there as long as I remember.

Matt and I also love it because that is where we went to school and it is always so much for for us to go back and see how different everything is now.

We got there around lunch and stopped at Bulldog Deli for lunch...yum!

Then we headed over to my Grandparents...

The kids went outside and played for a while because it was just TOO crowded and wild for everybody to be inside.

Here are some pictures of Ellie and her cousins playing in the leaves...

That night we ate a delicious dinner and opened presents.

It was fun seeing all the little babies and seeing the older kids so excited about Santa.

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve...

Our plan was to spend the night in Starkville and wake up early and drive home so Matt could drop me off at work...but Matt got the stomach virus and Ellie would not sleep...so we packed up and headed back to Birmingham on Christmas Eve about 10pm...

On Christmas Day, I went to work and Matt spent the day at his parents. They had some beautiful snow at his parents house...I hate I missed it. He sent me pictures of Ellie eating snow balls...ha!



When I got home from work I got a little nap...yay!

Then we took some pictures and headed over to his parents house.

Here are some pictures of us in the snow!!

We had a great time at Ellie's Mamaw and Pawpaw's house.

Cindy made a Pioneer Women turkey and it was SO good.

Here are some pictures from Christmas Night...

I had to work on Sunday and after I got off work we headed back over to Matt's parent to do Christmas with his Mom's side of the family. We had a good time. Ellie had fun playing with her little cousin Clay.

I forgot my camera...so no pictures from this get together...

So now after 6 family Christmas get togethers...I think we are finally finished with Christmas...

Until Next Year!

Thursday Christmas Festivities

Last Thursday we had a very busy day full of Christmas and Birthday festivities...

We celebrated a very happy birthday for our sweet little Jenna Leigh. Her real birthday party is to come later in January.

We opened some presents...

We spent some time destroying our house ( aka decorating cookies)...

Created some pretty cute Christmas cookies...

And took some time to eat a yummy snack of veggie stick which Ellie LOVES by the way...

What a fun, busy way to get ready for Christmas Eve...

Small Group Christmas

This past Saturday night we had our small group Christmas Party.
It was lots of fun to get together with all of our sweet friends.

Here are some pictures from the night...

This picture cracks me up because I think that Matt and I are the only one looking at the camera

And this picture REALLY cracks me up....

All three babies are making such funny faces...

Baby Bootcamp

This past week in our house we have been doing Ferber Method...

Or as I call it "baby bootcamp"

I decided since Ellie was almost 9 months old and was still waking up 1-4 times a night something must be done about it...so baby bootcamp.

It really has worked wonders on her though and was not as hard as I imagined.

It is a process where you lay them down in their crib awake and go in to check on them at certain time intervals that increase each time.

I am really glad that I did it.

Now she is sleeping about 10 - 11 hours STRAIGHT at night...Hallelujah!!

Family Christmas Pictures

We had our sweet friend and wonderful photographer, Kim Brantley take Christmas pictures to surprise my mom for Christmas as few weeks ago. The pictures turned out so good! I was so excited about them but had to keep quite because they were a surprise for my momma...and she was really surprised! I figured somebody would have leaked the secret but I really do think she had no idea which made it fun!

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We went downtown to Railroad Park and took the pictures there.

Here are a few of them!

Here is a group picture with Ellie and ALL her cousins!

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Random Acts of Kindness

The other day I was running through the drive through at What-a-burger...

I ordered my food and waited to pull up to get my food and pay...

When I finally got to the window to pay for my food the guy at the window said that I didn't owe anything. I was confused at first then he said the lady in front of you just paid for your food....

She left a Church of the Highland card for the guy to give to me...

I thought that this was so sweet and kind of this lady...

So... sweet lady in the black SUV who goes to Church of the Highlands...if you read my blog...thank you so much for the cheeseburger meal from What-a-burger! It was super nice of you!

Christmas Party

Saturday Night we had Matt's company Christmas Party.

We tried to get a few pictures in front of the tree but neither one of my kids wanted to cooperate (haha)...but I we did manage to get one ok one...

Miss Ellie was just so excited because she got to play with her FAVORITE thing...paper!

We did get a good picture with Ellie and her Mamaw.

We also tried to get a four generation picture of Ellie, Matt, his Dad and Grandad but Ellie did not care to participate in the picture...

There was lots of delicious food and some pretty funny entertainment...

But Ellie did not care for the entertainment...

Instead she wanted to pull up on everything...

And crawl under everybodies chair...

What a silly little girl!

Baby Dedication

Last Sunday we has Ellie's baby dedication at church.

It was such a fun, sweet time when we could get together with all our family and close friends and celebrate our sweet Ellie Reese. Our preacher Gary said a blessing on Ellie and it was very sweet and special. Ellie was the VERY last baby to go so by the time we got up there she was a little fussy...but we made it through!

After church we had everbody over to our house for a brunch.

Here are some pictures below...

My sweet Grandaddy playing with Jenna ( Ellie's cousin)

Ellie and her cousin, Gracie. We were so excited she was able to come.

Part of my family at our house.

I know that Miss Ellie will never remember this day

But it will always be fun for us to look back and tell her about it

and remind her of all the people she has in her life that love her

so very much.

Cutie!

Little Miss Ellie looked so cute dressed up the other day for Carson's birthday party I just


had to take some pictures...

Sweet little girl

I love the look on her face in this picture

Ellie Reese says..." Merry Christmas to you!"

Baby its cold outside!

Tonight it was so cold outside so...

We bundled our little chunky monkey up...

and went to eat breakfast for supper

at Cracker Barrel...YUM!

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She looked so stinkin cute in her new hat and gloves that we HAD to take a few pictures while Daddy warmed up the car for us!

I could just kiss those sweet cheeks ALL-DAY-LONG!

Small Group Baby Boom

At our small group at church there has been a baby boom since we have joined.

When we first started going there we had one little boy, Carson.

Now there are four babies and one more ( that we know of) of the way!

Ellie and Miss Helen...

Ellie and her BF Hunter

These two sweet babies are only 5 days apart.

Here is our attempt at a group picture.

There were not very cooperative but we still tried~

And here is our group pictures from ALL the babies...

Including little Miss Ava who will be here in January.