Getting ready for Christmas

We are not bringing out all of the decorations for Christmas this year a.) because I don't have the energy to get it all together and finish getting the two rooms ready and b.) Chris is concerned that he will be putting all the ornaments up by himself if I go into labor.:) But we at least have a tree up and stockings hung. Here is Miss Maddie in front of the tree with her "War Auburn" ornament, her new ornament this year. She was so proud that she helped decorate the tree (it was definitely a test of mommy's patience...she wants to be very independent these days and do everything herself, but we got all the ornaments up without any getting broken).

She had a half day at school on Monday and had a Christmas tea afterwards. I had told her Santa was coming to her school, but I don't think she was fully prepared. She just stared at him at first, but once she saw him picking up the other children, the tears started streaming. She did not want him coming anywhere near her.

Bebe came to the tea too, so she will know where Maddie's classroom is after baby Emalyn is born. As you can tell by the smile, she still isn't quite sure what she thinks about all of this.

Standing in line to see Santa, holding on as tight as she can to Bebe's finger. As soon as it was her turn, she walked up and got her candy cane and turn around to get out of there. We did manage to convince her to sit in Mrs. Martin's lap beside Santa (but she kept her eyes on Santa to make sure she knew what was going on).

And our day is never complete without a little bit of dress up!

Finally....

So much for blogging every week or even every month for that matter! Things have been crazy around here as usual. We have been getting the girls' rooms ready. Miss Maddie is moving upstairs or "up upstairs" as she calls it. And is very excited about having her big girl room (we'll see how she does the first night in it). But for now she loves going up there and looking at the progress and has asked Chris on several occasions if he is playing Bob the Builder. :) She "helped" us paint Emalyn's room, and it is almost done. All we have left to do is put up the wallpaper border and of course move Miss Maddie out, which hopefully will happen this weekend.

Since we will be spending a lot of time inside the house in January and February, I have been trying to plan little fun activities for Miss Maddie (which is probably one of the many reasons why I have been so tired the last few weeks).

Here Maddie playing ring around the rosie with our sweet friends Sophie and Aida. They are a little less than a month younger than Maddie. We see them at the library for story time every Tuesday morning, and then usually get together another day for a playdate. Maddie adores them, but is yet to figured out who is who, so she refers to both of them as SophieAida (no "and" just one word).

She took a little gymnastics class at the Y and loved it. She could not wait to go to "nastics" each week and never was ready to leave!



 








But we have had a few lazy days at home thrown in there. I heard her talking to Bentley and telling him she was coming up-up on the bed with him, little did I know she had gotten a coloring book and was on the bed coloring beside him. She adores that dog! Just last night, we said something about Bentley and the next words out of her mouth were "I love him so much!" I think she talks about loving the dog more than she ever mentions loving Chris or me either one!

And I think one of the biggest highlights of Maddie's fall was going to pick up Bailey from school and going to play at the McDonalds playground. Of course, Maddie did more watching Bailey than actual climbing, but she had a big time regardless. Everytime we pass Woodmont Christian now (which is often) she asks if we are going to pick Bailey up from school.

Here it goes...

Okay, so I thought I would be able to type something in the e-mail as we invited people to view, that just goes to show how little I know about how this whole blogging thing works. I didn't think I would ever start a blog, but as Chris and I sat reading our friends blog several weeks ago, we both commented how much we enjoyed reading and seeing what was going on with friends that we don't get to talk to on a regular basis (and we even learned a thing or two about the ones we do). So here goes my attempt. Hopefully I will be more successful at updating this than I have been in recent months about sending out pictures of Miss Maddie. I figure it will be a good way for me to keep track of all the funny things Maddie says that I mean to write down but still haven't bought a journal to keep track of them. And it will be a great way of updating everyone on baby Emalyn or "Emalym" as Maddie calls her when she arrives. Well, I have spent way too much time tonight trying to get the first post published, so I am now off to bed. I hope to get pictures up of pumpkin carving in the next day or two.

Trip to Gentry's

We took Miss Maddie out to Gentry's Farm a few Saturdays ago but stopped by Uncle Brian and Aunt Sara's house (or in Maddie's world May-May, Max, and John Miller's house) to see their new puppy. He is precious!

Maddie loved him, of course! She has not stop talking about how "itty bitty" he was, which compared to Bentley's 75 pounds, at 3 1/2 lb Perry is tiny.

Then we were off to Gentry's....

She loved seeing the animals, but the turkey's gobble was a little loud for her ears. 

I think by far the highlight for her was playing in the grain. I didn't think we would ever leave the grain troughs! 

After going through the hay maze, sliding down the yellow tunnel slide, and seeing how tall we were this year, we picked our pumpkin just in time before a meltdown. She was asleep before we pulled out of Gentry's. She had a blast! We are going to have to make this an annual tradition, but I definitely learned not to ever attempt this outing alone. We were all exhausted!