Blessed

As we enter 2013 I am amazed to think of just how blessed I am. It is crazy to me that Reese is so close to 3 years old and that for almost 4 years I longed to be a mother so badly and now here I am with 2 amazingly beautiful and sweet girls. God has been so good to me and it is easy to forget that and just live life, as hectic as it gets. It is so crazy that Reese was conceived through In Vitro and her precious life is nothing short of a miracle. When I think about Ella and how easily I was able to get pregnant with her after my body had refused to get pregnant for so many years prior I can’t help but realize that her precious life is nothing short of a miracle either. They are both just so amazing and it is wild to me that I have so much love for both of them, a love that I never imagined before having them.

I am also blessed by my husband. We fight in true married people fashion but I love him with all of my heart and am so thankful for the caring, supportive, sensitive and considerate father and husband that he is. The girls are so fortunate to have a man in their life that is going to be there for them no matter what and is going to love and support them to the end. He did want to have a son but I have no doubt that God knew what He was doing when he gave him girls. He is such a spectacular girl daddy. Our girls adore him and it is going to be so much fun to watch that love grow as they grow older.

I am so excited to start this new year but I just want to slow down time. Both of the girls are getting so big so fast. We have such a fun year ahead and I look forward to all that 2013 holds.

Our Christmas 2012

Christmas this year was really special and a lot of fun. It is so much fun to have two little girls to spend it with that are now to an age that they really enjoy it and get into the gifts that we get for them. We decided not to travel for the holidays this year. We welcomed any of our family that would like to come here for Christmas to come. Neal's parents came up for Christmas. While I did miss my family very much it was so nice not to have to pack all that 2 little girls require and take vacation time around the holiday. We had a great 1st Christmas in the home that our girls will grow up in.

 

 

We started the weekend with a trip to chuck e cheese. Reese has been begging to go there and we don't know why because she has only been there twice and the last time was 8 months ago. Honestly, we can go there and only spend an hour and just get a few tokens and she can have a blast on little money and not much time spent. They were both worn out too and took great naps.

One of Reese's favorite things right now is chap stick. I love this shot of her putting her chap stick on Ella. She really is a sweet big sister, most of the time.

 
On Nelson's (our elf on the shelf) last day he brought cupcakes for Jesus' birthday. Reese thought that this was the best idea that he has had all season. They had a lot of fun with Nelson this year and we did too.

This girl is a nut, love her!

Her too.

Every year we get new jammies on Christmas eve and take a picture in them. This year we took a silly face picture too. Below the silly face photo is a look at our Christmas jammie photo in 2011 compared to 2012, the girls have definitely changed a lot in the past year.

We left some sugar snap peas out for the reindeer (Reese is offering some to Barkley but she wasn't interested) and some cookies and milk for Santa.

Their G Pop made them an awesome kitchen. It even has ice trays in the freezer, a metal grate shelf in the oven, a sponge shelf under the sink and slots for their play plates. I made the drape and Chelsea and I painted the window scene. G Pop is so handy and creative. I think he had fun figuring this out and I know the girls will have a blast with it.

 

Chelsea got Neal and I a date night, movie tickets and free babysitting. This is a PERFECT gift for parents of a 2 and 1 year old. We look forward to cashing this in.

Reese was very excited about her new baby. This girls loves princesses and babies.

A sweet picture of the girls with their Gigi.

 

I love this picture from our Chuck e cheese visit. Reese is explaining something very serious to Ella. Ella just sat their and listened to her. Ella loves Reese so much and it is really cute to watch them begin to play and interact together more lately.

 

We are so blessed to have our precious girls to celebrate Jesus' birth with each year. We had so much fun this year and next year should be even more fun as they both become more aware of the event.

Virtual Christmas Card

Today I am linking up with one of my favorite blogs to read, kellyskornerblog.com. She is doing a Christmas card link up. I love this idea. I think this year’s card is my favorite…the last three years are at the top of my list but this year I am not recovering from pregnancy (I still have weight to lose but we are not in sleepless newborn stage) and I have both of my precious girls in it.

Here comes Santa Clause- 2012

I am pretty sure that this years Santa photo will be my favorite ever. Last years was pretty great but Ella was only 2 months old so I wasn't ready to put her on his lap. This year Reese was thrilled to death to sit on his lap and talk to him and Ella wanted nothing to do with him. I was pretty certain that Ella was going to scream bloody murder, she's not too fond of strangers and pretty much prefers me over anyone else. I thought Reese would be willing to at least talk to him and probably sit in his lap but I never imagined that she would run into his arms like he was her long lost friend. She told him that she wants a baby and princesses, luckily she is getting just that. I think I will frame this years picture at Christmas time each year. Love these girls!

Favorite!

She absolutely loved him.



2011, terrified of Santa.

 

The elves worked their magic and made her happy.

 

2010- 1st Santa experience, unsure.

 

She decided he was okay.

Studying the beard.

Houston~ December 2012

The trip to Houston is complete and we had a great time. It is such a long drive but it was so worth it. It was a short trip but I felt like we had some really quality time with my family. The drive down went great. We stopped in Dallas overnight and did some really fun things while we were there. On the ride home we left around 5 and got in around 2:30 am. That was pretty miserable. Reese went to sleep around 9:30 and Ella didn't go to sleep until after midnight. They both woke up crying often and it was hard to comfort them. We won't be traveling at night again.

While we were there we went to the Houston zoo, had the extended family over for dinner, it was so great to see everyone, celebrated Christmas with my family and went to lunch at a great Tex-Mex restuarant that has a huge sand pit with toys just outside. We all had a great time and look forward to getting back home again.

 

 

Tis the season

We are currently on the road traveling to Houston to celebrate Christmas with my family. I haven’t been home in over a year! This is just too long but travel with 2 babies is just so difficult. Now that we have to buy a plane ticket for Reese it is so expensive to travel by plane and less than a year from now Ella will require a ticket too.

We have been having such a blast decorating for Christmas. I made advent bags for each day of December, Nelson our elf has come back to visit for the month, I made a Christmas card board, we are fully decorated and we have gone to see the lights on the Fayetteville square.

Nelson, our Christmas elf, has been a lot of fun this year. The girls enjoy finding him each day. We haven’t gotten too crazy with it yet…he did tp the Christmas tree one night and sipped some syrup one morning but other than that we have been kind of boring with it. We will see what the rest of December holds. As soon as Ella sees him she waves at him with so much vigor and she kind of giggles. Reese thinks it is so much fun to find him. On Saturday December 1st Nelson surprised us with breakfast. He made us french toast strips, powdered donuts and chocolate milk. The girls loved it! I always threaten to tell Nelson when Reese is being naughty so that he can report it to Santa, sometimes it works and many times it doesn’t. I look forward to many years of Nelson in our house.

The Fayetteville square was really fun this year. Reese’s best friend Reagan and her family went as well as Chelsea. Reese and Reagan got to ride ponies, Reagan’s pony had to pee during the ride and another pony had to poop and that is most of what Reese likes to talk about from the night. We also rode on a horse drawn carriage around the square which I really enjoyed~ I have never ridden on one and thought it was nice. We didn’t find Santa until the end and the line was really long. We didn’t think that Ella had it in her to wait since we were already past bedtime. We will be seeing him next week though as he is coming to my work so look forward to some adorable pictures to come. I had the camera case with me but of course the camera was not inside it so I have some pictures coming from Reagan’s mom.

We are so hoping that this car ride is better than we anticipate. We will be staying overnight in a hotel tonight in Dallas and I also hope that the girls will sleep okay in a strange place. Whether the ride is good or not I know that we will have a blast in Houston and it will all be worth it.