Family picture sneak peek

I have debated on whether or not to share these...but I just can't help it! So here is a little teaser for ya.  I am IN LOVE!!!! And in our family shot Don even smiled...BIG!!

If you know how to navigate Kristina Only's site, go right ahead.  But no hints or passwords this time;)

Don't you all want it to be a surprise?!?!?!?!?

Oh, and this sweet smiling girl hasn't been so smiley today.  Poor thing has bronchitis!  Ugh!!  I feel so bad for her.  We are armed with a huge bottle of prescription cough/congestion syrup and an antibiotic so hopefully she will be back to her old self very soon!

So much to be thankful for...

I have to admit, I am a little sad.  We have had the best holiday break!  Don was off for an entire week and Ellie and I both were spoiled having him home.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving spent with both sides of our families this year!  Thursday, we headed to Greenfield to celebrate with Don's side of the family.  Ellie played hard in Knox's room for hours with the big kids and had a ball!  She even got to try some grown up mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and mac and cheese!

Don has a much larger extended family than I do so it's always fun and a lot different from what I am used to! Matt and I have been the only "kids" on my mom's side for a long time, so we have a smaller group for most Holidays.  I can't wait until Christmas Eve though...it's going to be CRAZY!!!

  Anyway, we ate way too much of course and had a great time visiting with everybody.  Sweet Knox was so tired he fell asleep sitting in his high chair!  He is SO sweet:)

While the guys headed up to the "man cave" to watch football, the girls looked for some awesome Black Friday deals.  I didn't participate in Black Friday this year...but they sure did!  Talk about some hard core shoppers:)

Friday was Memphis for my side of the family.  My mom cooked the entire meal by herself...for the first time ever!  She even managed to replicate Granny's dressing which is HARD to do!  Granny is famous for her tasty dressing and I have to say, Mom did it right!  It was all delicious and we had another great day.  Too bad Granny has been sick for almost 3 weeks.  I am ready to figure out what the deal is so she can get to feeling better very soon!

(and yes, Ellie wore the turkey dress to every Thanksgiving dinner...why waste a good thing?)

The boys watching a little football

 Dad carving the turkey

 Mom's cute pineapple turkey centerpiece

Can we say pecan pie...complete with a beautiful leaf crust?!??!?  YUM!

I hate this is so dark, but part of the crew chowing down!

After lunch, Rachel and I got a little crafty.  We both brought a little activity to work on and had lots of fun doing it!  We made ornaments and a little something I can't show just yet...they are going out in the mail today!

Here I am...late at night...still crafting!  I was about over it by this point!

Needless to say, I am SO thankful for my sweet angel baby, my awesome husband, and our families.  Everything else is just an added bonus!

Ten Months

Ellie, you are 10 months old!  DOUBLE DIGITS!  I cannot believe I am ordering your birthday invitations next week and planning your party.  (I know, I know, but I'm a planner and this stuff takes time and thought!)  You are such a sweet, happy, content baby and we love you now more than ever!!

You have become such a big girl in so many ways over this last month.  You are pulling up on everything in sight and you are standing, moving, talking and constantly on the go!  You still only have your 2 cute little teeth, but the drool is back so there may be more soon!  You have recently taken more interest in TV and love to watch Sesame Street, Super Why and The Cat in the Hat.  We LOVE PBS Kids!!  You are still in size 3 diapers, mostly 9 months and some 12 month sized clothes.

You are a fabulous sleeper!  If we are home and you stay on your daily schedule, you go to bed between 6 and 7!  I have learned that the more you sleep, the more you sleep!  You wake up between 6 and 7 in the mornings too and take 2 great naps!  This makes your mommy very happy:)

You have now had lots of table food!  You won't hardly eat your baby food anymore, you are Miss Independent and want to feed yourself!  You love your Yo Baby yogurt, whole wheat toast and pancakes, any type of potato, shredded cheese, your Gerber tomato puffs, cheerios, diced carrots, ravioli, fresh banana, diced pears, mac and cheese and you still love that bottle.  You are taking it better at MDO now too!  You went for a while without taking a bottle at all and I really didn't like wasting all of that formula.  So glad you are back on track.

Turning our guest room into a play room has been a great decision.  All of your toys are in there (Santa has NO clue what to bring, you don't need a thing!) and you could play for hours!

Sweet girl, you are the light of our lives!  Your smiles make me melt and your sweet voice just cracks me up.  I love you SO SO much!!!

Ellie says...

We've been busy!

I love playing with stickers!

What I don't like is when Mommy takes them away.  And what's so bad with wanting to play with remote, cell phone, or batteries?  They taste gooooood!  Everybody keeps saying "busy", "curious" and "mess" but I don't know what those words mean.  They sure say them a lot!

Mommy and I also had a stomach bug.  That was NO fun!  I bet she changed my diaper 24 times so I needed lots of Resinol today:(  Her favorite word seems to be SHOOOOOOWEEEEEEEEE.  She also sprayed Lysol all over our house.  That made my room smell much better!

I have LOVED that my Daddy has been home so much to play with me!  He told me coaching football was hard work so we have let him take a few naps.  Mommy did make him a "honey do" list so he was busy putting up Christmas lights this afternoon while I slept.  She said they look so pretty!

 He has also been deer hunting a few times and said he wants to buy me a lifetime hunting license so I can go with him!  Mommy says sitting out in the cold dark woods sounds boring.

There is stuff all over our house!  All of this bright, shiny sparkly stuff.  Mommy made a huge mess!

She also put a pretty Christmas tree in my playroom!  I love the shiny lights and ornaments.  Sometimes I want to pull them all down!

Mommy calls me her little turkey when I wear this shirt.  She is SOOOO funny!

We are going to visit lots of my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents for Thanksgiving.  I sure hope they let me have some mashed potatoes!!

 Happy Turkey Day!!!!!!

A bunch of random pictures...

Over the past few weeks, we have:

Visited with Auntie Em,

Played with all of that yucky political junk mail,

Gone to the UT/Memphis game,

refused to look at the camera!

Adjusted to the time change...(poor thing!)

Cleaned out the fridge....

Started playing in the new "playroom" (still TONS to be done, but it's a start!)

Lots to catch up on

I feel so behind in the blogging world!  There literally hasn't been anytime to sit down, upload pictures and think of something to write, so I am just going to start here with this weekend's events.  To say we have been busy is an understatement.  I think I put over 700 miles on my car in the last week and a half!  Don finished up his last game of the season yesterday and is getting ready to hit the ground running with recruiting.  I have been working a lot which is great, but it leaves me SO tired!  I feel like I haven't spent enough good quality time with Ellie or Don, so now that life seems to be slowing down a bit hopefully we can make up for that!  I have also been a bad picture taker lately so that is another reason for the lack of blogging:)

Anyway, this weekend was Baby Dedication Sunday at church and it was a special day for our little family.  Ellie got all dressed up in her beautiful Christening Gown from Maw Maw and we had lots of family come in to town to join us for the service.  Ellie's friend Will was dedicated as well which made it extra special!

Here we are during the service.  Ellie did pretty good, but she was hungry so we had to give in and give her the paci:)

There were a set of twin boys standing next to us.  They were SO sweet!

There were 15 babies dedicated at our service alone!  They gave us a bag full of goodies including a personalized pink baby Bible and a book for the parents.  

I am so glad we got some family shots before we left.  My parents were a HUGE help and came early to help with food.  We all came back to our house for lunch after church.

We had a yummy lunch (that I forgot to take a picture of) with this beautiful white chocolate cake from Dumplins for dessert.  I can't believe I will be ordering a 1st Birthday cake from them soon.  Makes me want to cry!

Have you ever seen a happier baby?

We took her to the nursery for the rest of the service and I changed her in to this dress.  I think it is so sweet!

 We set up an extra table so everyone would have a seat and I framed little pictures of Ellie for everyone to take home with them.  They LOVE getting new pictures, so I figured this was perfect!

Don and I got Ellie a little gift.  I collected Precious Moments Angels as a child and I thought about starting a similar tradition with Ellie, although all of my figurines are still at my parents house!  I wrapped this instead of putting it in a bag because I wanted to see how she would do with the paper.  That girl had this little box unwrapped in no time!  She will be a pro by Christmas and her birthday.

My parents also bought her this beautiful white gold cross necklace.  She's already got a pretty good jewelry collection started!  I had no idea they were doing this so it was a pretty special surprise.

We had Aunt Jana, Maw Maw and Mark, Mammie, Blythe, my parents, and us for lunch.  It was a full house but a great day.  

Ellie is one loved and adored little baby.  I am so thankful for the great support system we have with both of our families.  They all do so much for us and we are so grateful.  We missed you Granny and Grandonna and Uncle Matt and Aunt Rach!