Abigail Walking . . . sort of

Abigail started walking tonight with her walker . . . so we are getting closer people!
Here is a video of her on the go:



She walked up and down the hallway for a good 30 minutes tonight. She would get to the end and get stuck and bounce up and down and squeal at me to turn her the other way.

It's been VERY cold here this week so Emily has had to get creative indoors. We've played Santa about 1000 times this week where she tells Santa what she wants (i.e. me) and then goes to "sleep" while I put toys out for her. And then she does the same for me. On Monday morning she told me she was decorating for Santa. She took out all my old Christmas jewelry and hung the "ornaments" on the curtain hooks in our room:

She said Santa will think it's so beautiful when he comes to our house : ) I sure do love that girl!

Santa

We visited Santa on Saturday morning.

While we waited in line Emily had fun playing on the trains. Abigail enjoyed Joe walking her around:
Abigail wasn't too sure about Santa but she never cried. She just gave us looks like . . . can we get this over with soon : ) Emily loved talking to Santa again:
Saturday afternoon we visited a used bookstore that had a nice kids area. Joe and Emily enjoyed looking at books in the bean bag chairs:
Check out which book Abigail chose to look at:
Last night I finished the girls outfits so they wore them to church this morning:
We had a small reunion at church today. The Youngs were back in town this weekend so several families visited church with us to see the Youngs and then we all went to lunch together. It was a nice visit.

And this picture is just because . . . Abigail was really excited this afternoon after her nap:

Busy Day

We had a fun filled day yesterday . . . so by bedtime we all crashed! Emily had gotten up 3 times the night before so Joe and I both made it thru the day in a fog . . . luckily we had lots of activities to keep us going.

First off, we decided we hadn't made enough cookies this month, so when our friends Rachel, Julia, and Liliana came over to play guess what we did . . . we made more cookies! The girls had a great time. Emily ended up with a good stash of cookies and Julia and Liliana ate as they went . . . I'm with them : )
Last night we went to our church Christmas Party. They had several rooms set up where you got to make crafts, write letters to Santa, make reindeer food, get your hair done, and visit Santa!

Emily enjoyed making a reindeer puppet:
and Abigail enjoyed watching all the activity:
then Abigail and Joe decided it would be more fun to point and babble at all the bulletin boards around the building while Emily and I made our rounds. At this station Emily made a snowman:
then she had a long talk with Santa. They visited for quite a while:
Speaking of Santa . . . I have to share this story that I LOVE! Our friend Riley (who is 2) is shy and only wants to wave at Santa from a distance. She told her dad that she didn't want Santa coming inside her house on Christmas Eve, so she asked her dad if he would go outside and get the toys from Santa and bring them in for her . . . that is so sweet to me! I love that story. Thanks Jason and April for sharing that with me.

After visiting Santa we went to the "Who Hair" station. Emily enjoyed getting her hair done:
Before we left, Emily told us she wanted to show Santa her new hairdo . . . he was so impressed!

Christmas Cookies

Last week we went to a friend's house and all the kids helped decorate Christmas cookies. Emily LOVED IT!
So I decided to be brave this year and make cookies together. We borrowed the cookie cutters and I bought some pink and white icing (I was too scared to try red and green icing my first go around) and some sprinkles and waited for an afternoon where I knew we would be home.

Well . . . I took Emily to the dentist yesterday morning and found out she has 3 cavities. So since we have to get them filled in January, I figured I might as well add to all the sugar on her teeth by making cookies when we got home : )

Emily had so much fun. She was giddy the whole afternoon with rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies and then decorating them. These pictures of her do not do her justice. The girl was overly excited thru the whole process and spoke so fast sometimes that she couldn't get her words out:
I figured she would get tired after about 5 or 6 cookies but that girl didn't stop until every last one was decorated.

By the end of the day she had decorated about 25 cookies:

My nerves were shot by the end of the afternoon : ) I told her she needed to go play with her toys for a little while and then I took some mindless down time in the kitchen cleaning up.

She really did do a great job and it was fun making the cookies with her . . . I just found it funny that I was over the whole process and ready to move on way before she was . . . usually it's the other way around : )

Work Friends

On Friday the girls and I drove to Auburn to go see the people I work with . . . I've worked for this company for 16 years! I love these people:
Tony enjoyed showing Abigail around the building:
The girls enjoyed hanging out with PawPaw and DeeDee:
On Saturday we drove home to watch the SEC Championship game with Joe. What a great game to watch!!!

I love Trading . . .

I met a fellow mom at a birthday party a couple of months ago. She makes doll clothes and we discussed sewing. She found out I have an embroidery machine and asked if I wanted to embroider some names for her sister in exchange for gift cards at the restaurant she works for. It turns out her sister works at one of our favorite restaurants! So I put some names on their aprons:
. . . and got these in return:
Guess where we are going to eat tomorrow : )

A Bunch of Random . . .

We've been busy the last couple of weeks! Instead of posting on the blog, my time at the computer has been spent searching for Christmas presents and ordering photo cards. My other "free time" has been spent on embroidery and decorating for Christmas. With all these extra projects going on . . . you do NOT want to see our house. Every room looks like a tornado has gone thru it. I don't even know where to start on the clean up so I'm not . . . I'd rather be in denial and post some pics on the blog : )

We spent time over the last couple of weeks with friends at the park and at the indoor play area at the mall. We met our friends Kyle and Sydnee at the park:
And met our friends Julia and Liliana at the mall. Abigail thought she was such a big girl sitting in one of the play cars. She sat there the whole time the girls played. The couple of times I got her out she fussed at me:
As I have said before, Emily's imagination amazes me. She is constantly busy "pretending" something. Last week I gave her some old thread and fabric and she spent the afternoon making balls by rolling up the fabric and wrapping the thread around it. Then it turned into dog food to give all the dogs that lived in her princess house:
She also discovered the value of the magic eraser last week when she decided to write on her wall with her colored pencils:
On Thanksgiving Day we spent the day together just the 4 of us. We had such a great day! We enjoyed eating fun food and then went to a park for the afternoon. That evening we put the kids to bed and then grilled out steaks! Yum!

On Friday, Emily and I decorated our tree. Emily had the BEST time decorating. So far she has enjoyed moving the ornaments around each day:
On Saturday we visited Joe's mom in Auburn and took Emily to Toomer's Corner to see the trees covered in toilet paper. Emily had a blast running around:
Abigail took a marathon nap that afternoon. . . this is the cutest picture ever!

Now that's some good sleep right there!