I'm in Love

with this guy

Can you blame me?

Look at those blue eyes.

I can't help myself.



I prayed for this little guy. And, of course, I loved him from the very first moment. But lately he has stolen my heart. He is just so stinkin' sweet. He loves to eat my face and squeeze my neck.

He is a mama's boy for sure. And he is completely content as long as he is in his mama's arms.



But I'll admit this was getting a little tiring. Caleb has been pretty high maintenance. He continues to wake up in the middle of the night and has been a nursing machine. He refused the bottle - milk, formula, breast milk, it didn't matter. He just wanted mama.

Until this past week! Caleb is officially weaned! Maybe this is a little tmi, but I am very excited about it. Based on my calculations, in the past 4 1/2 years, I have been nursing for 37 months -- that is over 3 years! (Robbie for 15 months, Eveley 10 months, and Caleb 12 months).

Caleb is now sleeping through the night, and I feel like a new woman!

I continue to be amazed that my heart does not explode with all of the love I have for my 3 children. What a gift!

cousins

Some of my favorite childhood memories come from playdates with my cousins. We lived in the same town and spent many days putting on plays for the family, building forts, playing Barbies, teepee-ing neighbors' yards, and just being crazy together!

Unfortunately, Eveley and Caleb do not have the same privilege right now since we do not have any family living nearby. But we were able to spend a good amount of time with the cousins over Christmas during our trip to Tennessee.

Eveley loves her cousin Layla. She is 1 year older than Eveley, and the two really play well together.

They started the weekend by cooking with Marmee. They were making cupcakes for Jesus' birthday. (but I did not risk actually eating one...)

They love playing dress-up together.

Because Marmee knew this, she made them a fun dressup box for Christmas. The box included a wedding dress, veil, glasses, jewelry, and bouquet. It was hilarious!

They also had fun with their babies and strollers.

But one of the biggest hits was the step stools made by Pop and painted by Marmee. These were designed to help the girls brush their teeth at night. But they had a different idea.

We caught them pulled up to the table, using their baby spoons to eat the dip!

Then my sisters took the girls upstairs to their room to give them a makeover.

Later that evening was our scheduled time to open presents with my siblings. We all got together at my brother's house and put the children to bed so we could have somewhat of a calm evening. We let the girls sleep together - although we never expected it to actually work. We could hear them giggling in the bed and whispering together. The next morning, I asked Eveley what they were giggling about. She informed me that Layla kept saying "stinky diaper," and then she cackled.

I have a feeling that this is only the first of many sleepovers filled with giggles!

Merry Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Our family has had a wonderful, action-packed, joyful Christmas. I have so much to share but decided to post a little at a time so you are not overwhelmed by all of these photos.

This Christmas morning was spent with two wild and crazy monkeys, dressed in their cute Christmas pajamas!

No Christmas morning is complete without a few pans of good ole southern sausage balls!

Caleb LOVED them (of course)!

And Eveley was content with a bucket of snow! We still have over a foot on the ground.

(the view outside our back deck)

We all had a great day and Santa was very good to mama this year! If I can pull myself away from my new toy . . . I will fill you in on the details.

Detour

I get so excited about Christmas each year, and this year was no exception. I was wrapping up my long “to do” list at the grocery story on Thursday. Our plans were to leave on Saturday for Tennessee to spend a few days with my family before heading back to spend Christmas at home with my inlaws. While at the grocery store, a lady asked me if we were getting ready for “the storm.”

“Storm? What storm?” I asked.

She went on to inform me that a huge snowstorm was heading our way, and they were predicting we would get 9-12 inches of snow.

My jaw hit the floor. I had not heard anything about this.

I am a southern girl. And I have been disappointed more than once by an intelligent-looking weatherman telling me we would be getting some snow. It doesn't take much snow to get me excited. 3 inches is perfectly awesome to me! I vividly remember the “Blizzard of 93” but never expected that it would be repeated anytime soon.

I called Bob at his office and he began looking into this weather forecast. They thought the storm would hit our area Friday evening and would continue through Saturday. At the last minute, we decided to leave Friday and try to beat the storm.

Hmm... We had been driving for about 45 minutes when it began to snow. Light, pretty, little snow.

The kids were sound asleep so I closed my eyes to get a little cat nap.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the middle of a stinkin' blizzard! The flakes were huge and it was coming down very hard. We were only 2 hours into our 7 hour trip and quickly decided it was time to get off the roads. With 2 little ones, we did not want to take the chance of getting stranded on the interstate in a blizzard.

And one thing about my husband: when it's time to work, he works very hard. But when it's time to play, he loves to play hard too.

So he called around and found an awesome hotel 5 miles away.

This is where we found shelter from the storm. It was a lovely, historic hotel that was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

They had over 80 Christmas trees and the kids had a great time thoroughly examining each one.

Eveley was intrigued by the puzzle table in the lobby.

And Caleb was intrigued by the bolster pillow in the room.

This was quite a neat Christmas treat.

The next morning, we found nearly 2 feet of snow on the ground. But, thankfully, we were able to slowly get on the interstate and drive to TN. We were very thankful that the Lord protected us and got us there safely. This was definitely a Christmas adventure we will not soon forget!

Weekend Fun

It has been a crazy busy few weeks but things are finally calming down. We finished up with the majority of our Christmas parties this weekend. Most of the presents have been bought and some have even been wrapped. The Christmas baking is complete (after many many batches of caramel popcorn, chocolate-covered pretzels, cookies, and spiced ciders).

But now the kids are sick so we are hunkered down in the house to make sure we are all well for Christmas!

Miss Eveley had her first "Christmas pageant" this weekend. She was the angel (hmmm...) and actually stayed put for the majority of it (minus one plopping-on-the- floor episode). So sweet!

This weekend was also the time I set aside to take the infamous Christmas card photo (yes, I know it is pretty late). I had big doubts, but I believe we actually got the "perfect" pictures. I'll share them later!

Here's Miss Ev in her pretty Christmas coat. She had to hold her breath to get the hat to fit. Go figure... I'm keeping the Christmas outfits a secret until the cards go out!

And then it was time (finally) to trim the tree! We put the tree in the playroom because, frankly, that was the only spot for it! But the kids have done remarkably well with the tree, and we've only lost 3 ornaments and bloodied one hand in the process. Not bad.

We gave Caleb a little piano for his birthday. What was I thinking??? I've been playing since I was 3 or so and was excited to see if any of the kids will have a similar interest. Jury's still out!

Happy Birthday Baby

I cannot believe it. But, yes, today is Caleb's 1st Birthday. How can that be? He's still my baby!

Even though sweet Caleb may not have fully understood the significance of the day, that did not slow us down. We made some cupcakes for the birthday man. I thought the little penguins were appropriate for his winter birthday.

Although we have no family here, and Caleb doesn't really have a circle of peeps, we were able to celebrate Caleb's birthday with our church family on Sunday afternoon. They are truly part of our family and greatly love our kids. We are very lucky!

Let's get this party started!

Eveley was terrorizing the little guy. She could not understand why it was not her birthday too...

So, we did what any wise parent would do. We gave her a cookie.

We sang and tried to keep Caleb from burning his finger. (This is the same candle I've used with each of my little monkeys.)

Then he just palmed the entire cupcake and took care of busines.

As I'm writing this, I am thinking back to the day of your birth. It was at this minute - 10:00 p.m. - that I decided to call the doctor to tell him that I had been having contractions off and on for the past hour or so. We finally got into the hospital around 10:45 p.m. and you were in my arms at 11:47 p.m.

Your birthday has great significance as we wrote about here. And as we celebrate this day with you each year, we will be reminded of God's love and faithfulness. We love you, sweet Caleb, and pray that you grow to love and serve God all the days of your life.