Christmas Eve

Parks' brother, Myers, his wife Laura, and their sweet Lillian were with us for Christmas. It was really funny, the girls were thrilled to be together. They couldn't sit still at all. We had to keep rounding them back up to keep opening presents b/c they kept leaving to go play dress up. Christmas Eve was a sweet time. We (Parks, really!) made a great fancy dinner. He read the Christmas story to the girls and we talked a bit about Jesus and sang some. The attention spans were short and the excitement level was high. It was fun.

Here are the 3 girls sitting still - a sight!

Parks reading

Goodies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer

Christmas Morning

You'll have to click on this one to enlarge it and get the full effect. Lily Kate is truly a fahionista with her gloves, red cowboy boots, new tutu, & fan. This is really the result of just saying, "hey, let me get a picture of you in your new stuff". This one needs no encouragement :)

The girls each got ride on 4 wheelers from my mom and they were over the moon. Charlotte's is small enough to ride around the house, and she does ride it all around now

Here's Kate on hers

Our precious niece, Lillian, checking out her new Ariel.

Charlotte got this hilarious monkey on a spring that sings and bounces. It was a hit.

I'm always trying to capture the essence of Lily Kate's quick mind and her specific ideas. Also, the way that I am always struggling to keep up :) About an hour after Lily Kate was put to bed she called me in there. She met me at the door holding out a ring sucker. As I walked toward her she started talking. (you have to read this super fast)

"Mom, I just found this ring in my purse and I have already sucked on it some earlier today. I need you to put it in the kitchen. Tomorrow I need to brush my teeth so I can go to some stores with Lilian. Are we going to go to any stores.?"
"Umm...... we'll probably go to the grocery store."
Gasp "That's great, we can get 2 purple balloons, one of me and one for Lillian and we can get 2 white cookies, not the crunchy kind, and one more white cookie for Charlotte, and we can get 1 pink balloon for Charlotte." Another gasp. "We can save the pink and purple balloons and use them for our birthday party in January. Is that a good idea?"...."Mom, is that a good idea?"
"Ummm"

I'm still trying to figure out if we're really going to need to go to the grocery store.... I can never keep up....

Friday was Lily Kate's last day of school before Christmas break. Her class all wore their pajamas. They watched the Charlie Brown Christmas movie and ate cookies and milk. She was delighted!

Daily Lily Kate goes with me to check the mail. Lately it has been more exciting because we've been getting Christmas cards. We keep them in a low bowl on our dinner table and the girls go through them during dinner and we talk about our friends and family. This evening about 20 min after we put Kate to bed she called Parks in and asked him to take a picture of her and her daughter, Sydney, for their Christmas card. Don't hold your breath at the mailbox, consider this your card. Merry Christmas, Love Lily Kate and Sydney.

This last one has no explanation, just a day in the life of having girls!

The Day of the Christmas Program at school

We have been talking about this day for weeks. This morning Parks and Charlotte and I filed into the gym at Lily Kate's school to see the performance. It was just as you would imagine. Mostly uneventful, lots of precious kids staring blankly until they finally found their parents faces, then they would light up and wave frantically. Lily Kate picked her nose a couple times, but other than that she was perfect, she sang loudly, smiled proudly, and blew kisses every once in a while. One awesome kid yelled out in between songs, "hey Mom, when this is over I'm ready to go home, ok?" Mom just smiled and nodded. So cute.

The 5th Annual Ornament Exchange!

There are lots of pictures with this post. Margaret Lee was a wonderful photographer and we got some good ones :)
Grace and me

Shelley & Julie

Trista

Sara & Jenn

Tara & Margaret Lee

If you look closely you can see the fabulous bird on Shaunna's shoulder. It was a favorite and Shaunna took it home.

This is precious, Emily & her husband are in the (lengthy) process of adopting from Ethiopia. The ornament she opened was a tiny globe. It couldn't have been more perfect. There were tears in her eyes as she held it up. We declared anyone who thought about stealing from her as just coldhearted :)

Joanna with her glittery hummingbidr

Suzanne with her jinglebell

Heather with her coveted octopus

I love this picture, Steph's ornament was in a box that said "5yr old blonde girl" so she was all excited about it being a mini-her. Then she opened it and it was a mini Christmas manatee. It was just so random.

...And here is Amy with the manatee because, in true spirit of the party, she stole it :)

This is one of the hundreds of pictures we took in attempt to make a Christmas card. It's not the one we used. Most of the ones we didn't use involve tears and yelling but this one is just adorable.

Maddie's Fifth Birthday!

Ford, the birthday Princess' little brother

Lily Kate & Sara


Nathan in camo at the princess birthday party, I love it. He stayed strong!

The birthday princess herself

Sweet Fun

Christmas Tree Shopping

The evening we got our tree it was freezing! Parks was shocked at how compliant I was with getting the 2nd tree he held up. It was great I was cold! The girls were all over the place, of course. No shots of them among the trees, just playing around.
I am declaring a new tradition this year. A kids tree! They got to choose the decor (pink and green) and each year I will give them an ornament that represents the year as eventual keepsakes for them. Any other closet control freaks reading this understand that this allows me to keep my tree decorated in my preference :) So far, so good.

Playdate with our friend, Wrenn, longtime Mother's Morning out buddy

Long Time no Post

It's been a while since we've posted. Since then we have given up on our old camera and bought a new one. I am thrilled with the shutter speed and now more determined than ever to get the elusive picture of both girls smiling together that I can't seem to achieve.

In the mean time we've gone to Houston for Thanksgiving (which was before we got the camera so I'm getting some pictures from my sister in law to post). Most days recently have been spent getting the house ready for Christmas, making curtains, wrangling the girls, and keeping them busy in this freezing weather.

On a side note, Charlotte is climbing out of her crib now. I've witnessed it once, she hoists herself onto the top bar, straddles it, slowly brings her legs to the outside and drops down. She has a plastic doorknob cover on the inside of her door so she can't get out by herself. This doesn't slow her down though because she just calls for Lily Kate who lets her out. At least 3 mornings this past week I have woken up to the girls playing in the living room together. All this to say I'm thinking we'll make the big move to a big girl bed in January and also the move to a shared room with Kate. I foresee total chaos at bedtime, at least for the first month. Lots of laughing and wrestling which inevitably turns into crying....not going to worry about that yet...for now I'll just think about the fun parts like fabric for the curtains that will match the twin bead spreads.

Good Morning Princesses

This is what I found this morning. Charlotte is wearing 3 skirts :)

Happy Halloween

Here are the little trick or treaters. Originally both of the girls were going to be cheerleaders but in the last few days Kate got her heart set on being a princess so the awesome flower girl dress we had (thanks Becca!) came in handy. I thought these shots were cute.

Dress up Day

Lily Kate's got to wear her Halloween costume to preschool this morning. I got to go up to the class and help the kids decorate pumpkin cookies (after we got home from the doctor's office). It was precious to see the little munchkins all dressed up. I am happy to report that Lily Kate didn't do anything crazy the whole time. She was really sweet to her friends, one little buddy who was dressed like Superman kissed her when she left. His mom and I were shocked :)

Scary Morning

Charlotte slept in this morning so Parks went to wake her so I could get going to take Kate to preschool. When Parks layed her on the changing table he noticed her eyes darting back and forth, like a spasm. She was coherent and scared and bothered by what she was feeling. She began saying, "I dizzy". He moved her to the ground. The eye movement stopped and then started again. Once it stopped we stood her to dress her and she was obviously dizzy. She couldn't stand without help. We called the dr's office to let them know we were coming right in. The eye darting happened again once more while in her high chair before we left. She threw up on the way into the office but the dizziness and eye movement seemed to have stopped. I felt like my breath was held all morning.

After seeing Charlotte and doing some more reading after we left it seems that Charlotte has Benign Paroxysmal Vertigo. It is really rare in children but the symptoms line up to the T. Her "eye darting" is called horizontal nystagmus. Here is what I have read & learned. You can tell by the language used that some of these are not my thoughts, but are from medical articles :)

The condition is thought to be caused by displacement of otoconial crystals (Ca carbonate crystals normally embedded in the inner ear). This displaced material stimulates hair cells in the posterior semicircular canal, creating the illusion of motion.

Symptoms included sudden episodic sensations of spinning (vertigo) without hearing loss or tinnitus, loss of balance and staggering, expressions of fear, pallor, diaphoresis and occasional vomiting.

It is provoked by changes in head positions.

It is often accompanied by migraines. The doctor told us that migraines could develop, but not necessarily. We are praying that they won't!

....So, all in all, it doesn't seem so bad. It was really comforting to have our doctor read to us from a medical book a case that sounded exactly like our situation with Charlotte this morning. We are thankful to God that she seems to be okay.

We will be seeing a neurologist from UNC in the next month to get a specialized opinion. I thought of my sweet friends, the Laniers, all morning and the journey they've had in the last 6 months with their son's health. Daily reminders to trust that our little ones are in God's hands, that they belong to Him.

Winship

There aren't words for this post right now. Just wanting to put his picture in a place where we can treasure it. This was Winship with Brittany, his girlfriend, a couple months ago.

Pumpkin Patch Playtime

Peeking through...

I love this sweet moment between Samuel and June, look at her smile.


Thanks, Mom for Halloween hairbows!!