1st baby food!

I waited a little late to start her on solids.  Since I waited, there was the opportunity to have my sister here to witness this "first." She lives in Williamsburg, so she doesn't get to see the big milestones in person (only on our blog). I thought it would be cool, if she fed her her first foods. It was fun!  And she was great about the Mom & Dad paparazzi going on.

6 months. bring it on.

Here's her baby stats:

15 lbs 4 oz (25-50 percentile) & 27.5 inches (95 percentile...some Daddy genes, I think)

memories from Christmas morning

Here are a few of my memories from our Christmas as a family...

Starting our morning reflecting on the nativity & why we celebrate Christmas

Here is my gift from our oldest girl. I opened up a nicely packaged gift bag and found rocks, $1, and her favorite seashells. She gave me her "treasures." I love them! I know what her heart meant by giving me these things. They are important to her & so I will treasure them too. Sweet memory!

One of her favorite gifts, a sparkle purse. Adam and I have such a funny story about this gift, but no one ever finds it funny when we tell it. It will just be for us, I guess.

The sweet baby did not need a single thing. So, she got a sweet wooden rattle. It was in instant hit!

What I'll remember our Christmas morning looking like...

Adam surprised me with some clothes money & a blurb.com gift credit (so I can make my annual family yearbook out of last year's blog posts). I'll be enjoying my gifts for a little while, mainly because I can't find time to shop & blog book design! But I'm so grateful!

christmas eve service

1.  the candlelight service is so pretty  2. lots of red jammies  3. my beautiful sis & baby 4. my sis holding the baby again!

I love our tradition of Christmas carols and candles at church on Christmas eve.  We went to the late service with the girls in their pj's.  Our sweet neighbors next door came and had a good time.  And all of our family together took up almost 2 rows.  I love that we were all together at a worship service.  Our oldest tattled on my sis, Rachel, when she had access to the mike that night.  Our pastor's wife, Kathy, asked all the kids (when they went up on stage) if any of them had been peeking at their presents.  Our girl leaped to the mike and said, "My aunt, Rachel, has."  We all got a good laugh out of that.  Poor Rache, she wasn't actually peeking at her presents earlier that day, but she will always have her reputation tarnished.

Papa's Birthday

We had a large family gathering to celebrate my Papa's birthday.  We all love him so much!  Papa and I love pictures and collecting family stories.  I enjoyed seeing his new book he made recently with all of the genealogy work he has been doing.  He is very computer savvy!  He got a new DVD player for his bday, so Rachel and I got him the John Adams miniseries on DVD.  If you haven't seen it yet, it is a must see (minus 3 scenes that we fast-forwarded...just had to throw that in).

love you, Papa!!

oh, all the ladies made appetizers.  It was brilliant!  And very yummy.  Banana pudding is Papa's favorite, so we enjoyed that as well.

family portraits & christmas card

I had fun making our card this year on the computer.  I did a 4X6 layout...because printing is cheapy, cheap.  I just love cards!  And I just love getting mail.

Here are a bunch of Rachel's pictures from November.  I couldn't post them before the card went out...that was hard!  They were taken on Main Street in Round Rock and Kawaii's sno-cone place.

it has already been an eventful day! updated.

My best friend, Mary, had her baby girl last Friday.  She is a doll!  Now we both have 3 girls each and can be totally terrified of the teen years together...6 girls!  We will have many, many stories to share with each other.

Here we are...

I'm sporting lovely bedhead (and trying to hide it) in this picture at 5:45am.  I've been waiting for you to post your pictures online, Mary.  What are you busy with a NB and 3 other children or something?? But I can't wait any longer.  I have to show the fam, who have heard to so much about her.

From Friday...

This is just a teaser.  Look what I got to wake up and see?!  More to come soon...