3 Years Old!

Emily is 3 Years Old Today!!!

We had a Cinder@lla birthday party to celebrate on Saturday. Emily's cousins, Aunt Chelle, PawPaw and Dee Dee, and friends Tara and Taylor came to enjoy her special day.

My friend Tara made her cake:
We had Cinder@lla tatoos and a Cinder@lla game to play:



Thanks to everyone that came to make the weekend so special for Emily and for us. We had a great time!

3 Months Old!!!

Abigail is 3 Months Old Today!!!

Influence

Looks like my obsession has been passed down to Emily. This morning I got Abigail dressed and had Emily's clothes set out to put on her. Emily said that didn't match her sister and ran to her closet to find something that came close. She asked me to pull out this outfit so she could match her sister. I think she did a pretty good job . . . go Emily!!!!! Joe is now officially outnumbered : )

Matching

I've become a little obsessed with Emily and Abigail wearing matching outfits. I drive Joe crazy making sure they have on the same pajamas for bed:
I also look for matching shirts/outfits in every store I walk into . . . I know there is only going to be a small amount of time where I can do this so I'm going a little crazy right now.

Today our skin actually got to feel some sunshine and enjoy the outside for a little while. It's been so cold here that we haven't ventured out much. But today Emily enjoyed her car that her grandmama got her for Christmas.
We also walked around the neighborhood for a little while and Abigail enjoyed that too:
Speaking of Abigail . . . I love how babies at this age can sleep wherever you put them:
Tonight while I was cleaning up the kitchen Abigail was hanging out with me in her swing . . . look at what this girl started doing while she was drifting off to sleep . . . is that a thumb in her mouth . . . I do believe it is:
We'll see if she is going to start sucking her thumb . . . tonight she sure did. A couple of months ago I would have welcomed this . . . but I don't know how I feel about it now : ) A baby is gonna do what a baby is gonna do!

Snow Day

We had snow here yesterday and ice today. This morning we freaked out a little bit when Joe went to take a shower and there was no water. We thought the pipes had frozen. Turns out the whole subdivision had no water. A water main burst during the night and the water company had turned off the water. We had water again by 9:00 a.m. Whew . . . glad all is well with that. I had a little bit of a nervous breakdown this morning : )

So Emily, Abigail, and I did not set foot out the front door today since the high didn't even reach 30 degrees! Instead Emily stayed in her PJ's and played. She told me today that her babies all needed to take a nap so she put ALL of them in her pack n play:
I also had a small heart attack during the day today . . . I was in the kitchen and Abigail was in her bouncy seat in the dining room watching Emily make some food for her baby doll. I heard Emily talking to Abigail and heard Abigail cooing at her but intermittently would hear Abigail make a funny noise. I went in the room to see what was going on and Emily was trying to put play shrimp in Abigail's mouth . . . have mercy . . . guess I can't leave Abigail in the next room to watch her sister play.

Abigail is 12 weeks old today. I CANNOT believe it. She isn't a little tiny baby anymore. She is my baby who loves to watch her sister and has her wake time after she eats and is happy and laughing when her belly is full instead of just sleeping all the time. She no longer cries because she doesn't know what to do when she is awake. Instead she loves to see what is going on around her. Tonight when I was putting her to bed I lingered a while longer just to hold her and enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with holding a sleeping baby . . . those moments will go by so quickly that I want to remember them. Here is my sweet girl:I also LOVE her hair! It sticks straight up in the back ALL the time. The second it dries from getting a bath it sticks straight up and stays this way. It's hard to get a picture of it but of course I want to remember this as well so here is my attempt at capturing it:

Back on schedule

We have spent this week getting back into the swing of things. I started back to work on Tuesday. I'm able to keep Abigail at home with me right now so that has been a blessing. I work while Emily is at school. No offense to the great company I have worked for since 1994 . . . . but I sure didn't miss working these last couple of months : )

We have enjoyed playing with all the new toys we got for Christmas. Emily got C@ndyL@nd from my sister and we have already played it a ton of times. It's fun to watch Emily play her first board game! If she happens to get a purple and then Joe or I get a purple she jumps up and runs around the room yelling "We both got puwple . . . yea"

Abigail has been getting into more of a routine. She still fusses when she gets tired but it's not as prolonged anymore and it's so much easier now to recognize what she needs. She still loves to hang out in the baby sling with me but also loves cooing and and smiling and laughing . . . and definitely loves watching Emily in action. Our nighttime has become a little more normal since I can anticipate her bedtime to be between 9 and 10 each night. About 80% of the time now she sleeps until 7:30 each morning and then only rarely wakes between 5:30 and 6:30.

We also got Abigail's hand and foot prints delivered to us today:

My mom got these done for us when we were little and passed down the tradition. Now I have two sets. Here are Emily's:
I sure do enjoy watching Emily when she is in play mode. Today while I finished up some work she got her stuffed animals out and grouped them together by category. She had her two red dogs together, her two reindeer together, and lined her 3 fish up together. She also had her baby taking a nap. There were some other random animals scattered about:

Happy New Year!

After we celebrated Christmas at home we hit the road to visit family. First we went to Auburn to see Joe's family.
Chaz and Sidney got Rock B@nd for Christmas and they let Emily try it out. Joe also enjoyed singing along with them:

On Sunday Joe went back home to work and I visited my parents for a couple of days and then went to my sister's house for a couple of days. We took the kids to see a movie at the dollar movie on Thursday. Abigail "watched" the movie with us. I was so afraid she was going to have major sensory overload. She did fine during the movie but then cried the whole way home. She fell asleep about 6:30 that night and didn't wake up until 7:00 the next morning!

Joe came to Birmingham at the end of the week for us to celebrate Christmas with my family:

We enjoyed watching the Aub#rn game on New Years Day:

Celebrating a touchdown:
We also enjoyed staying up late at night to play Settlers of Cat@n. I'm addicted to that game now. We played it two nights until 2:00 a.m. and then on the last day we played it again while the kids were awake. When it got time to eat we threw some food at them and they kept going and we kept playing. I wish we didn't require sleep so we could just pull all nighters enjoying each other's company. I had forgotten how much I loved game nights:

My parents got Michelle's family Rock B@nd as well so Joe got to enjoy playing again with everyone:
and Sam enjoyed playing video games with Uncle Joe:
As 2009 comes to an end and 2010 rolls around Joe and I realize how blessed we are!