Our Carli is a Blessing - A Gift From Heaven Above

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A WEE BIT OF HEAVEN DRIFTED DOWN FROM ABOVE

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YOU LIGHT UP THE WORLD WITH YOUR SWEET BIG BOY CHARMS

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You're So Precious to Me, Sweet as Can Be, Baby of Mine

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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Christmas at the Gaylord Texan

Last weekend we headed out to meet up with Naggy and Pappy, and Uncle Kevin and Aunt Megan at the Gaylord Texan. We only stayed three nights, but pretty sure if you looked at our car you would have thought we were staying over a week! Ah, the life with two small children! And to add to that life, forgetfulness. We made it all the way to the Gaylord before we realized the camera was not with us but was on the back of the couch. Bummer. :( We took lots of pictures on Naggy's camera but apparently the settings were messed up and the resolution is so high we can't the pictures off the camera!!

We did have so much fun though. Carli LOVED the elevators. The Gaylord was beautiful. There were tons of lights, trees and even Santa! The biggest exhibit was the ICE exhibit that depicted Charlie Brown's Christmas story. Carli wasn't so sure - I think she liked the exhibit but she did not appreciate looking and waddling around like a little penguin! She had on a sweat shirt, her jacket and a parka...she was a cute little penguin! They kept the ICE exhibit room at 17 degrees - a bit cold! Ava slept through most of the exhibit on Pappy's chest. Her little head popped up as we were about to leave. Got some cute pictures of her and Pappy - maybe one day you all will get to see those! :)

One of Carli's other favorite activities was decorating a ginger bread house. She and Aunt Megan worked for a good 20 minutes on their gingerbread house and Carli was so proud. We brought it home with us and we just had to take it to Grammy's house yesterday to show her. She showed it to everyone who came by and decided it needed to stay at Grammy's so she could show it to Logan when he came on Sunday!

Ava was not a good little sleeper on this trip. Turns out she had an ear infection and wasn't feeling so good. She took lots of naps on shoulders and after Momma had been up most of the night - Naggy took over at 2 am and kept her so I could at least get a little sleep! Ava still isn't 100% but we have some meds now and sure hope she is a chipper little thing by Saturday!

We did go visit Santa while we were there. Last year Carli started screaming when she looked at Santa! This year we talked about Santa the whole time we were in line. We have been watching a Mickey Mouse that has Santa in it and Carli talked about it a lot. But when it was our turn, Carli would not go see him. To his credit, the Santa was awesome. He talked to Ava and let her pull his beard and got her to smile more than once. Carli was not so easily entertained and I had to sit in on the picture. I was not planning on being in a picture after having been up most of the night! Oh well, memories! :)


Hopefully we will get more pictures posted soon. I can't believe Christmas is in three days! AHHH! I haven't wrapped any presents and have a few to finish! Oh were does the time go?




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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Ava's 6 mth Update

Ava turned 6 months old on the 14th of November. I am not slow to post this update, I just really wanted to get the update in the mail prior to putting it on the blog. But a mix up with Shutterfly and a delay in stuffing envelopes makes this post closer to Ava's 7 mth birthday - but such is life these days.

At 6 mths, Ava is a happy little baby. She has the biggest grin and loves to people watch. She is still a Momma's girl, but we are working on that. She loves to eat but still has issues nursing longer than 5 minutes at a time. She still does not sleep all night, and the closest we have come to such a feat is a stretch of 5.5 hrs two nights. Usually she sleeps about 3.5 hrs at a time, wakes up to nurse and promptly goes back to sleep.

At 6 mths old, Ava weighed 15 lbs 4 oz (36%) and was 24.75 inches long (18%). She is still consistently about an inch shorter and a lb lighter than her sister was at this age. She's short and squat...sound familiar? :)

For grins, here is Carli's 6 mth update. Still think they look so much a like? Nah, I didn't think so!


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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Blowing Bubbles

Last Sunday was a big day for Little Ava Ruth. Carli woke up not feeling well and Keith had already committed to serving communion. So Keith needed to be at church and Carli needed to be at home with someone who could give her 100% attention and cuddle time. So, for the first time, Keith loaded up Ava and off they went to church by themselves. Some folks may not think that is a big deal, but if you've met little Ava you know how much of a Momma's girl she is and that she refuses a bottle much of the time. But we knew all would be well b/c Ms. Patty was going to be in the nursery after taking some time off to recover from her surgery.

We usually don't take the girls to the nursery during service but Sunday Ava got to spend all morning with Ms. Patty in the nursery since her Daddy was helping with church service. She did awesome, even took a nap for Ms Patty! Ava is the only baby right now, but no worries there are more babies coming next year and her new little buddy Levi was born just last month so she won't be alone much longer. But since she is the only one there right now, Ms Patty took her to the 1 year old class and then sent me this picture...

Isn't she such a big girl?!

She did an amazing job on Sunday and when Carli and I met them all for lunch she even let Daddy finish feeding her her solids before demanding to come see me! Woohoo! She's branching out!

Keith said when he picked her up at the nursery she was blowing bubbles and making the motor boat sound...and she continued to do so the rest of the day. Wander what the lesson was about in Sunday School...hmmmm. We actually were on top of things and caught it on video. Love how she puffs out her cheeks!




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Friday, December 10, 2010

Christmas Beauties

Who needs Santa when God's blessed me with these beauties?

Ava Ruth

Ava Ruth and Carli Lynn


Uh Oh, where'd Carli go?

Sweet Sister Kisses

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Thanksgiving in December

Not really, it just took me this long to post about our Thanksgiving with Naggy and Pappy and the rest of the crew. We got up the Saturday after Thanksgiving and made the trek to Rockwall to see that side of the family. It was a pretty nice drive and we actually met Naggy and Pappy with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Megan for breakfast before heading to Emily's house for the day.

I actually took advantage of the free childcare and the fact that Naggy, Pappy and all the Great Aunts and Uncles don't get to see the girls very often and hid in the corner! Literally, I hid in the corner and made bows. I still talked to who ever was in the chair in front of me, but as long as I stayed out of Ava's line of vision, she was a pretty happy camper! :)

There were kids everywhere that day and they all had lots of fun. Carli warmed up to them all pretty quickly and played to her little hearts content. She was no partial to age though - she had Uncle Kevin and Pappy playing too!

Here is a picture of all the kiddos - minus the two babies...

Three happy campers! :)

This is little Noah, believe it or not, he is 4 months old in this picture. Little Ava is 6 months old - she's a short little thing! It was so fun to see the different personalities in the two.
We had a great time at our last Thanksgiving and came home all worn out and ready for bed! Thanks Emily for hosting and all the other ladies for the wonderful meal!

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Sunday, December 5, 2010

We Have A Christmas Tree!

Last year we did not put a tree up. Carli was a mobile, curious little thing and putting up a tree when we would not be home much of time didn't seem reasonable. However, this year Carli is old enough to enjoy the Christmas festivities and we will be home much of the month of December. After much contemplation about whether we could keep her from pulling ornaments off, etc, we decided a broken ornament wouldn't be the end of the world and hauled out the tree!

It was late when we started and Ava already went to bed. We let Carli stay up longer and she helped us set up the tree and put the lights up...


You know you have a toddler when the box is more fun than the intended activity!

Helping put the lights on...

Every year, Grammy has given the grandkid's a Christmas ornament. Bet you won't ever guess what Carli's ornament was this year! Mickey and Minnie Mouse! She was very excited to put them on her tree!


Her ornament from last year, a jack-n-the-box, has been her most favorite to play with so far...


After Carli helped put a few ornaments on the tree, it was off to bed. Keith and I finished up the decorating and made sure we turned the lights on the tree before we brought Carli out of her room the next morning...


She quickly found her favorite ornament!
(Pretty sure if we hadn't put Mickey and Minnie up higher, she would play with them all the time too! But she already managed to break one of their hands! So, they stay at a safe distance!)


Ava is not so fascinated with lights, but what she thinks is super cool - the over sized Christmas ornaments than hang from the beams at Grammy's house! ha!

It is pretty exciting to admit that we will have a Christmas at our house this year. We've already gotten most of the gifts bought (thanks to the help of Uncle Danny's pick up and delivery service!) and now I just have to get them wrapped!

Yep, this year is going to be lots of fun!

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Saturday, December 4, 2010

2010 Christmas Ornaments

During Thanksgiving Grammy and Pa give the grandkid's a new Christmas ornament to unwrap and put on their Christmas tree. This year was a lot more fun b/c Carli could open her gift all by herself and she was so excited to get a new ornament!

Ava was super excited to play with the wrapping paper! Such a little cheese ball!

Carli's ornament was a Mickey and Minnie Mouse. She was so cute b/c she looked them over really good and decided they really didn't need to hold hands! ha!

Then she had to go show them off to her Baby B-Ava-Bo...notice how Ava's name has more "b'ahs" now!

More pictures to come tomorrow of Carli actually getting to put her ornaments on her Christmas tree for the first time! Woohoo!

After the ornament unwrapping, Aunt Chelle actually got Carli and Logan to sit still long enough to read a book and to top it all off - we got a picture of it! :)

Thanks Grammy and Pa for our awesome new ornaments! Ava really likes hers too - we had to put it high on the tree so Carli wouldn't take it off and try to give it to Ava. It is cute, but when we aren't looking we tend to lose track of what Carli does with some ornaments! ha!

Thanks Aunt Chelle for taking time to play with Carli and Ava! They sure are lucky to have such an awesome aunt!

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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Pre-Wedding Festivities

Dionna's wedding was the Saturday before Thanksgiving out near Lake Conroe. We stayed at some really awesome condos right off the lake. They were perfect! Plenty of room for us all (we even shared with Grammy and Pa!) and an awesome view too!

Carli and Ava really enjoyed the patio which literally hung over the lake. Carli fed the ducks, quacked at them and had a blast!

Ava was happy to be outside!


I wanted to take the opportunity to take Carli to some cool place while we were down near Houston. There was a children's museum in The Woodlands and I had read some really cool things about it. So Grammy, Keith, Carli, Ava and I all loaded up Saturday morning and went to check it out. The place was a toddler's dream! Carli had so much fun!

Playing with all the sand! She would have stayed here forever had we not pointed out all the other centers.


Ava really enjoyed the rubber mulch box (kind of like sand box with rubber mulch)


There were two thrones - we thought it would be really cool to get a picture of the girls sitting in each together - but Carli did not have time to sit still long enough for a picture.


They had a toddler size kitchen - Carli LOVED it! She made me some lunch...


After "lunch," she went grocery shopping in the miniature store...


Grammy and Ava were buddies at the museum - Ava thought the puppet show was pretty interesting.


Ava and Daddy watching Carli at the water center...


The water center was Carli's most favorite I think...she would have stayed here forever had we let her!

We actually made a clean exit with no fits or tears - turns out Carli got her sleeves wet and we told her we had to go to the car to dry off. Thank goodness for short attention spans...by the time we got to the car, she was more concerned about all the big trucks on the road! ha!

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