Sneak Peek...

I did a photo session with our babysitter and her husband and here are the un-edited photos that are my favorite... I don't have a professional camera, so I'm having to make-do for now. I'm hoping to get a little cash for Christmas and maybe at least upgrade a little, but I think these turned out great for what I had to work with. (my camera, not the people!!)

Our week...

Ava's ready for her Christmas party at Mother's Morning Out.
She talks about her "Mah-Mah" all the time - Maggie is one of her friends there!

This is the Paula Deen Peppermint Cake that
Ellie and I stayed up so late making last night - it was SO worth it!!

Ellie and I got to have a "big girl" day and I took her to see the Nutcracker ballet.
We had such a good time. We do little things here and there, but it's always really special when she and I get to do things by ourselves. Jeff and I are going to start spending more time with both of the girls individually because it's so different and so fun to make them feel so important that they get Mommy or Daddy to themselves! Poor Ava rarely gets one-on-one time, but she eats it up when she does.

A diaper cake Ellie and I made for a baby shower at church.
The topper was a Christmas ornament they could keep and
the ribbon in the center was a hairbow for the big sister!!

We've had a busy week! Started with a visit to the ENT - both girls are getting tubes in their ears on the 29th and Ellie is getting her adenoids taken out. Then, Ellie had a stomach bug, then Jeff got it, which meant I changed my work schedule and have had to reschedule for later this week and didn't get much sleep (something I should be catching up on right now!!) Last night, Ava had a rough night and Ellie and I were making a cake for her teachers at Mother's Morning Out (actually, it was for all the staff), so I went to bed at 2am (Ellie crashed way before then) and was up at 7, but was up with Ava 2 times between then. We took the girls to Chuck E Cheese just for fun as a family yesterday and I took the girls caroling at a nursing home tonight. I love Christmas and all the activities, but I'm almost ready to slow down...my favorite thing about January.

Christmas Open House

An outside picture of the first time we have decorated anything outside!
We never had a house of our own, so we didn't want to buy anything that we couldn't use for several years. Last year Ava was so small that we decided not to, plus we bought the lights after Christmas on sale! Jeff did a great job of hanging the icicles!!

One of my favorite snowmen...

At the end of our hall, we have our stockings and
a great Christmas pop-up alphabet book some friends gave the girls last year.

The centerpiece on our dining room table.
(A wreath laid flat with a candle in the center.)

Ornaments on display.

Our tree...it was my parents' tree when I was growing up and I love it!
All of the ornaments are ours that we have collected through the years.
Nothing trendy, just good, old fashioned collectible ornaments.

Our nativity.

I guess most people who check this blog don't get to visit our home, so we hope you enjoy a few pictures of how we like to celebrate with decorations!
Merry Christmas!

Have yourself a very Nashville Christmas

Nannie had such a good time!
We wore her out, but we had a blast with her!
I am so thankful she went with us.

Sweet Hadlie checking out the lights outside...
and licking the window!?!?!?

Ellie being goofy
Nannie and I braved the cold and went outside to see the front entrance.
We did not, however, ride the carriage in the freezing cold!

This is one of my favorites of the girls together - I especially like this one of Ellie!!

All of us -
this lady started taking pictures of our girls, so we asked her to take one of all of us together. We let the girls get down and run and play and they had a blast!! We were all laughing at them and people we didn't know were coming up and taking pictures of them!!

This is one of my faovrite pictures of Nannie ever!
She loves flowers and we had never seen miniature poinsettias before.

This one is for mom. Didn't turn out exactly like I wanted, but it's still pretty cute.
They were sitting in front of one of the poinsettia trees.

Another one in front of the poinsettia tree.
Hadlie is very laid back, which is why she's looking right at the camera in this one. Ellie is a mama to everyone, so she was making sure Hadlie wasn't going to fall and making sure she was happy and Ava is just happy and silly and so darn cute -
this picture shows their personalities perfectly!

My favorite of Ava by herself!

Going to see Tishie - this was taken at our hotel.

The outlet mall has the cutest train - we rode it once -
Ellie taught Ava how to say choo choo!

Ellie, Hadlie, and Ava waiting to talk to Santa.

We went with Jeff this week to Nashville - he had to go for work, so we decided to go with him and visit with some friends. Then, my aunt Tishie had to go to the hospital and my mom and dad were going to be out of town (my Dad got a cruise for meeting a goal at work!!). Anyway, I invited Nannie to go with us, thinking she could stay with Tishie as much as she wanted, but Tishie got to go home much earlier than expected and is doing much better!! So, Nannie got to stay with us, which was so nice. I loved having her company (I used to be attached to my Nannie like crazy!!) and she was such a big help with the kids! We all had such a good time. We also got to visit with Brad, Julie, and Hadlie, our friends from when we were first married.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know, I'm behind in posting, but here is our Thanksgiving picture this year. Missing a couple of special people, but they were with us in spirit, I know.

the replacement...or not

just a sweet pic of the girls in the jingle bells shirts
they were headed to mother's morning out

so, meet Chloe.
Chloe was supposed to be Lucy's replacement.
Chloe hasn't been home all afternoon.....
we're just not having much luck with this kitty-pet thing.

Tagged

So, I was tagged by my friend Sandy to list 7 of the most random things I can think of to share with you. Of course, I'm supposed to tag other people, but I'll just encourage you that if you're reading this right now, it would be fun for you to do the same on your blog. :-) So, here are 7 random things about me that you may or may not know.

1. I still sleep with my baby blanket. Until after I was married, I slept with the exact same one. It was the best - way better than the replacements I have now. When my mom turned 50, I put it in a shadow box for her because I was afraid that if I kept washing it, it would eventually turn to dust. However, my Nannie had a replacement that I used at her house and Jeff's grandma had one that she gave to me too, so I now have 2 (and Ellie likes to cuddle with one of them).

2. I've always heard that creative people are not organized and organized people are not creative. I must be really creative!!

3. I enjoyed most all of both of my pregnancies. I didn't have trouble sleeping, didn't have morning sickness, didn't gain too much weight...things were just good and I loved being pregnant - and even labor and delivery, although there were a couple of rough hours with Ava, but all in all, I have no bad stories to tell. (all but, stay away from "staydol")

4. I was a cheerleader from 3rd grade until I graduated high school AND I tap danced from the time I was 2 until just a few years ago (although I switched to clogging in high school, but same difference). If I could find an adult tap class or clogging class around here, I'd go in a heartbeat!

5. I have always picked out names for my kids before I was even pregnant and they were both girl names. I've always heard that which ever name is easier to pick out (boy or girl), that's what you'll have. We're not ready for another one yet, but one of these days, I already have another girl name picked out, so we'll see if we can keep that trend going.

6. I love music. I have music playing all the time. I'm not terribly picky about what kind of music, either. When I grow up, I'd love to be a musician! :-) (obviously that is not what God has called me to do and I am terribly happy with what I do for a living right now, but if I were good enough and God wanted me to, I would love to sing and dance and play the piano all day!)

7. I'm addicted to the computer. Probably not a shock. I don't know much about computers, but I love to check blogs, e-mail, facebook...

8. and I'll throw in another one for fun. I absolutely love spending time with friends and family. I would rather be with people than to be alone 99.9% of the time.

:-)

Tubes and Tats

Before church

Mama's girls

What a big girl!
Ava doesn't look like a baby any more...
guess she's really a toddler now?!?

Proud of her tat!

Well, the doctor finally agreed to put tubes in Ava's ears after 6 double ear infections. This last one just about did her in. She had it so bad in both ears that the right one was about to rupture. The dr. gave her a shot of antibiotics, then said for us to come back the next day. Another shot. Then, oral antibiotic. I hate giving her so much medicine! It's really messing with her - especially her little belly. She's not been eating well, not sleeping well, and just not happy like her usual self. Anyway, she's still as cute as can be, just fussy. She also cutting molars, which isn't helping.

Ellie went to a birthday party the other day while I was taking pictures of a little boy's first birthday, and came home with tattoos ALL OVER her body!! It was funny! She's been saying funny things lately, too. She had furry boots on the other day and said, "Mom, my boots are hotting my feet." (Instead of "my boots are making my feet hot"!)

Lucy is officially missing. Guess she's gone.

Please pray for my aunt. And put her on any prayer lists you have or know of. She has a form of cancer that does not have a cure. She's on an experimental medicine, but it doesn't seem to be doing what her body needs it to be doing. Not sure what else to say, just asking for prayer.

LUCY

We love Lucy...I Love Lucy is my favorite show to watch on tv, but we also named our cat Lucy - the one we got Ava for her 1st birthday. Well, we've not seen her since Monday. It makes me sick to think about where she is or what happened, but we're hoping that someone thought it was cold and rainy and let her in the house. We've been all over the neighborhood and have passed out fliers with her picture and our phone numbers, so we're hoping we'll hear something tomorrow. Jeff has to go to Indy for the day, so he's taking all the phone numbers with him to call vets, humane societies, animal control...just to check. We'll keep you posted.

Also, Ava and I have been sick, so that makes me even more emotional. Ava is worse than me, but I didn't get any sleep last night, so that didn't help me to feel better. She seemed to feel a little better after a late nap today, so maybe the worst of it is over.

One more thing, I'm starting to do more and more photography and I love it! I'm so excited - I have two photo shoots booked for this weekend, so I'll post some of my favorites soon.

13 months

The pictures above are Ava at 13 months,
and the pictures below are Ellie at 13 months!

So fun to compare how different they look and how their personalities are different!!

Just a swingin'

One of my favorite things about Ava right now is when she walks around swinging her arm(s) - sometimes just one, sometimes both, but I never have my camera around when she does it. I wanted to get it on video so I can always look back and remember what she looked like swingin'. Just makes me feel like she's a happy girl and it's so cute!

JabberJaws

Ellie got the cutest play-doh activities for her birthday from a friend. You make all kinds of ice cream sundaes, cones, and even sprinkles! This picture looks like she's fake smiling big time, but she was pretending to take a bite of the ice cream that she made with her new play-doh toys. One of her new favorite things to do is to write. She asks me how to spell something and just writes away. She can write several names on her own now, even remembering how to spell them. When we travel, Ava watches "Lady and the Tramp" (her favorite and Ellie even enjoys it, so I just leave it in the van) and Ellie takes a tablet and a pen and asks me how to spell words for hours at a time!

When I was growing up, we would take vacations in the Smoky Mountains. While we were there, we would go in to Cherokee, NC, and would always see Indiana dressed in traditional attire. One in particular always looked like he was talking - he was standing outside of his teepee with no one around and just talked...so we nicknamed him JabberJaws and looked for him every year. Well, little Miss Ava has turned in to a Jabber Jaws herself. She just babbles all the time, but with great inflection in her voice, as if she were carrying on a normal conversation! It's so cute and so funny! We usually try to pretend we understand and keep the conversation going! Today, I fixed some homemade tiny pizzas with tostito chips and she ate it up - then licked her plate!!!?!?!?!? Doesn't she look so grown up in this picture??

She went for her one-year check-up and did great! She was a ham and really showed off for the doctor, talking, signing, dancing...and the doctor jumped to the 18 month questions. Ava can do everything but kick a ball at the 18 month level!! The doctor was impressed! (and we were just a little bit proud!) She weighed 23lbs. 13oz. (75th%), 32in. tall(97th%), and her head was in the 95th%. She's a tall girl! She also has a heart murmur. Nothing to worry about for now, just something to watch in the future.

It's a boy!!

My brother and sister-in-law had a baby boy on Tuesday, Nov. 4 at 9:01am. They kept it a secret the whole time - we didn't know if it was a boy or a girl and we didn't know name choices. He was 7lbs. 13oz. and very healthy! He was a long time coming, as they have had 2 miscarriages trying to have another Harrison baby. His name is James David Harrison, after my grand-daddy (James) and my sister-in-law's grandfather. They are calling him JD. He is going to be spoiled rotten - the only grandson!!