Elf Emergency

A couple of days ago, Sam accidentally knocked Thunder Buzz to the ground. There was a little bit of panic and Sam kept saying, “It was just an accident!”. I had to do some quick thinking and told the kids that Mommy’s were allowed to move the elf if he got hurt. I would have just left him but since he was in front of the door we needed to move him. We put him back in the place where he first showed up in hopes that Santa would be able to bring him back to the North Pole. I actually let Reese pick him up and touch him because she said, “I’ve always wanted to know what he felt like”. The next morning he was back with a band-aid on his head and a note for the kids. He was ok and back to do his job.

Kindergarten Performance

Last night the kindergarteners put on a performance at Reese’s school. They did the ABC’s of the holidays. They sang several songs with motions.

Reese was so animated and in to the performance the whole time. She was so cute! We decided that we will definitely put her in some kind of drama camp this summer.

I loved watching her in front of this large crowd of people. On the way to the school she asked me, “Mommy, when you are nervous do you feel like you have to go potty?”. I giggled and asked if she meant “tee-tee or poo”. She said “tee-tee”. And then I told her yes and that it was normal to feel that way. We made sure she went to the bathroom before the show so that she would know that she only felt that way because she was a little nervous. It was so sweet!

I think she was most excited about the bells and kazoo they got to keep in their pockets for some of the songs. She told me for weeks that she needed to have pockets! Up until that night she was just going to wear blue jeans. Then I found a skirt that had pockets in her drawers that I thought would be too big. It turns out it is a perfect fit so I am glad I pulled it out. She decided she wanted to wear the skirt…of course!

She couldn’t wait for her show to start. When we arrived at the school she was busting at the seams to get out of the car. Finally, Lance had to take her in while I get the rest of us out of the car because she couldn’t keep it together for that long. She was jumping up and down and telling us to hurry.

After the show, her parapro walked her over to us with a huge smile on her face. She said Reese just cracked her up the whole time. We grabbed Reese’s friends from preschool for a quick picture. These little ones are so cute together.

Each class had five kids who had speaking parts. Each of the girls above had a part. The speaking parts started with a letter of the alphabet and presented something from a holiday.  Reese had the letter L. As the microphone got closer to her you could tell she was getting a little nervous but she did a great job! It was just precious!!

Christmas Trees

Last Saturday Lance went in to the office for most of the day. I knew about this plan ahead of time so I made some plans of my own to keep the kids entertained. One of the activities was to decorate their own Christmas trees instead of doing a Gingerbread house. I had to help Sam with the icing on his tree but Reese did a great job on her own. After they were iced, the kids decorated their trees with sprinkles and M&Ms.

Looks like Sam has been eating some of the icing…

Sweet little baby just hung out in the swing the whole time.

My Boys

I just love the way Sam loves Hayes! On this particular day, Sam picked out Hayes’ clothes. When I told him that he had a matching outfit he wanted to wear it. They looked super cute as we ran errands that day.

One Month Stats

So I am a little behind but I need to record these here for the sake of my memory. Hayes had his one month visit on Tuesday. He weighed ten pounds, one ounce. He is 22.5" long and his head was 14.5" around. We don't have to go back for any more weight checks so we will go back to the doctor for his two month well check!

Hayes is such a snuggle bug. He does great sleeping in his crib but he loves sleeping in our arms. I had to run downstairs for just a minute and when I came back up this is what I found...



- Posted from my iPhone

Our Weekend

We had a nice weekend. Friday night we started it off with a Christmas-y pizza and a movie night. We watched Polar Express and enjoyed our pizza.

Saturday morning, our Elf showed up. The kids had been downstairs for about an hour while I was still upstairs. All of a sudden I hear Reese screaming that Thunder Buzz had arrived. It was so cute to hear the excitement in her squeals. She is so emotional about everything and it just cracked me up. We then decided that Hayes needed a bath and the kids wanted to help.

Reese bathed his belly and chest.

While Sam cleaned his back.

After he was all clean, Lance picked him up to dry him off and he got peed on. Ha! He always gets tagged by the kids after bath time.

After we were all clean and ready, we ran to CFA to grab lunch and then headed to our local Santa Parade.

We had a fun time at the parade and then took Reese to a friends house to play. Sam, Hayes, and I took a nap and Lance got our decorations up outside. The kids were both so excited to see the house all decorated.

Sunday we decided to take the kids to see Santa. Reese was so excited to go see Santa. She walked right up to him and climbed in his lap.

However, Sam was not thrilled about this at all. He cried all morning saying he didn't want to see Santa. Once we arrived at the mall, we promised him a treat if he would just get his picture taken with Santa. He did a great job and was rewarded with some yogurt.

After Santa pictures, Reese and Lance had a Daddy-Daughter Date Day planned.

They went to the Fox to see Beauty and the Beast. Reese was so excited about the show and I think she really enjoyed it.

After the show it was her turn for some yogurt. They headed over to Atlantic Station for some more special time together.

Reese wanted to continue their date getting pizza at Mellow Mushroom so they called and invited me and the boys to join them. We enjoyed our dinner together wrapping up our weekend.

Lady Liberty

At school this week Reese talked about American symbols. They made their own Statue of Liberty head piece and torch. She looked so cute!

One Month Old

Today Hayes is one month old. This month has gone by soooo fast, too fast!

At one month old:
*he still sleeps a good bit of the day.
*he is doing great at night. I put him in bed around 10-11 and he sleeps between 4-5 hours. He wakes up to eat and then is usually right back to sleep for another couple of hours.
*we had a little bit of trouble getting him to gain weight so we were back and forth to the doctors office for weight checks. He is finally back up over his birth weight as of Wednesday. He will have his one month appointment later this week. We are not exactly sure why we had trouble with weight gain. There are several reasons tossed around but it doesn’t really matter now that we have him gaining weight.
*Because of trouble gaining weight, he eats every two hours during the day. It usually takes him about 40 minutes to get in a full feeding so I feel like I am feeding him all day. Sam always says, “But he just ate!”. I know, Buddy, that is what it feels like. To be able to get some things done during the day, I usually have one feeding that I stretch to three hours. Other wise I would be sitting in a chair all day.
*he has sweet little baby smiles. Every once in a while, I think he smiles in response to me but it could just be wishful thinking at this point.
*he will look at me and make eye contact but he is not really interested in looking at anyone else yet. He also turns his head to find me occasionally.
*he wears 0-3 month clothes. I just packed up the newborn clothes we had. I wasn’t really sad about that because he didn’t really wear any of them anyways. The main newborn clothes I put on him were the shirts that had mittens until I got his nails clipped.
*he wears size one diapers. Again, he never wore the newborn size diapers.

Playing Together

It is funny, right now Sam is watching a Daniel Tiger episode talking about “find a way to play together”. I need to sit him and Reese down together to watch this show. I think because I have been a little distracted and preoccupied lately, the two of them have been fighting and not getting along very well. There has been a lot of fussing, tattling, and yelling happening. So on the rare moment I caught them playing well together, I needed to snap some pictures.

It didn’t last too long. But long enough that I appreciated it.

Reese is not a good loser. If Sam is even close to winning a game, the game is over before he can win.

We have a new punishment we have been trying when they are not getting along. They have to sit together on the sofa and hold hands for five minutes. A couple of years ago I read Kurt Warner’s book and his wife describes how they did this in their family and I thought it was a great idea. So far the holding hands is enough for my kids. In the Warner family, if the hand holding doesn’t work, they have to hug for several minutes. If hugging doesn’t work they have to kiss.  Haha! I don’t know if I would take it that far but you never know. I really love when the kids play well together and giggle together. I want them to be best friends the way I am with my sisters!

Celebrating Lance

Yesterday was Lance’s birthday. The kids were so excited for him to get home from work to celebrate with him. They hid from him when he got home and jumped out and yelled “Happy Birthday!” when he walked in the door. The first thing they wanted was for him to open his present.

For his actual birthday he only got a sweater. He had already bought himself a birthday gift a couple of weeks ago.

He had requested Chicken Pot Pie for his birthday dinner so I made that. However, it was my first time and I did something wrong. We ended up having Zaxby’s for dinner instead. Oops! I will have to try that again another time. I also made a cake for his birthday that I found on Pinterest. It was pretty good…and we have a ton left!

We appreciate all that you do, Daddy! We love you and hope you had a happy birthday!

Finding time…

It seems to be hard to find time to actually sit down and post updates. I have tons of pictures and words but not much time.

Thanksgiving day, we woke up and watched the Thanksgiving Day parade. Reese was most excited about this but that only lasted about an hour. Then she was bored with it. She did snuggle Hayes some while she watched. That afternoon we had Lance’s family and some of our neighbors over to celebrate. We had a nice evening but didn’t get any pictures taken.

That night the kids put their Christmas pajamas on. We had decided that Friday would be a pajama day while we decorated for Christmas. Reese was very excited about decorating the house. She was a big help.

Some one stuck a Rudolph doll in the swing with Hayes.

All three monkeys with their Christmas pajamas on. They all look thrilled.

Saturday we cheered on Georgia Tech at some friends house. We tried to get a family picture and this was the best we could do. We all sported our Tech clothes/colors…even me! Gasp! I figured I might as well coordinate with my family this year. It didn’t help Tech out any though. We had a great time and the kids had a blast together.

Random phone pictures:

Sam as Batman

Reese as the Red Power Ranger. This was Sam’s Halloween costume. It would fit her perfectly if I hadn’t hemmed it to fit Sam. Sam didn’t really enjoy her being dressed in his costume. Later she had on dress-up high heels and a flower headband in her hair while wearing this costume.

I caught Hayes smiling the other night. He was just staring at the fan grinning away.

Last night some friends brought dinner over and stayed to eat with us. The kids had fun playing Candy Land and Twister together.

Thankful

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever. Psalm 107:1

Happy Thanksgiving!