Merry Christmas!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We had a great day, with lots of fun and happy, sweet girls. Christmas Eve/Mom's birthday was sad because Elena was sick, but she was all better by Christmas day. We started at our house and had presents and our traditional biscuits and chocolate gravy/butter and syrup breakfast, then went to my parents' house.

We do three gifts each for the girls, and then stockings are from Santa. Elena's big gift this year was a card table ice cream stand. Maeve liked playing in it too! Elena serving up ice cream (before I remembered the dowel to make the window not sag!)

Maeve with her new water bottle (Santa brought everyone one in their stockings)

Maeve with her new wooden ark

Maeve riding her wooden horse-Elena got a sleigh that attaches to the back or can be used by itself, but she was busy pulling it and I forgot to get a picture.

Elena opening one of her presents from Mimi and Poppy-a giant set of Mr. Potato Head

And five adults trying simultaneously to get them out!

Avery with Lincoln's bag-he'll be here soon! It's pretty crazy to think he'll be about Maeve's size next year (well, probably taller!)

Gigi and Grandad sent Maeve a purse, and she spent quite a bit of time pretend talking on the phone.

Elena got a light up tutu! She's worn it all day today, too.

Maeve got her own baby bed, high chair, and blanket

Christmas Eve/Mom's birthday, Mom and Dad came over because Elena was feeling better, but we didn't want to get anyone else sick just in case!

We took a few posed shots, and after they were done, Dad and Maeve were hanging out, so they got theirs taken again.

Mom and Dad with granddaughters (we'll have to say "grandkids" next year)

Everyone

Mom helping Maeve with her new highchair

Mom having some help opening her presents

The rest of these are from the last week or so:

Maeve loves to read and will bring books often, and Elena usually wants to help too. I can't remember where this was...

After the Christmas program at church last week, Elena wanted to see what was in that manger.

She "gets it" this year, and we've been so enjoying her remembering pieces of the story of Jesus' birth and recalling them. Today she was telling Chris about John and Elizabeth in the car. Sweet. The other day, we went to Joanns and E had fun entertaining herself while I checked out.

A few days ago (the same as Joanns trip) we went to a mommy and me day at West Haven recreation, then out to lunch, Joanns, and Bradley's chocolate with Rachelle, Emily, and Julia. The girls had a good time playing on the equipment, and got out lots of energy together.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas activities

We've been very busy getting our fill of the holiday season!

Yesterday the girls and I went to Ijams for the wee ones class, which was on fruit and nuts. They did make an ornament, and planted flowers. This morning we went to the Fountain City parade

Where someone gave a very-serious-Maeve a hat!

Then we went to Krispy Kreme

We made a gingerbread house at the Burlington library on Thursday...this is what happened in the car...

Thursday night, we had an all-girls night! Mom, Ave, the girls, and I went and looked at lights in Chilhowee park, then went to Sunspot.

Feeding the reindeer.

Dancing to her own music

Wednesday, Chris took off work and took the girls to the library. They had a special visitor!

Tuesday (I think!) was the tour de lights at Market Square. Elena and Chris had a great time, and supposedly, she said "Merry Christmas" to everyone.

Maeve and Mama were very cozy and just hung out downtown.

This is the house before the crash...She was very proud! There are lots of finger marks in the icing...

Chris took this picture, but this is what the girls do every morning lately. They get up, watch whatever is remaining of whatever show is on just to give everyone fifteen minutes or so to get woken up, and they sit together with whichever of us gets up, both holding Ariel's hair with a brown blanket and pacis. Sweet!

A lot of randomness...and a lot of pictures!

Lately we've had several events going on that needed separate posts, and I ended up with several pictures that have just gotten stuck in a file on my desktop.

Last Sunday we went to Cami's Christmas program at my parents' church. I love watching these kinds of things-the kids did a great job, and it was both fun and a little funny at once! Very sweet, and Cami really practiced for it!

Elena helping decorate the tree. Surprisingly, Maeve has pulled off a couple of bottom ornaments, but not many, and hasn't messed with it too much.

Once a month, the aquarium in Gatlinburg has a deal where you can go to an hour long preschool program, and you and your preschooler can get in for $10 total. Plus, Maeve is free! Then you can explore the rest of the aquarium for as long as your small children will last. Rachelle and I took the four girls, and they had a great time looking at everything! My camera doesn't do well in low light, but I got a silhouette one of each girl. This is (obviously) Maeve, who LOVED those fishies the most. She talked to them in the beginning.

Emily and Elena walking on the edge of a big tank.

Elena looking at them from underneath a neat tunnel thing (you can also see the small, red light on her new shoes that I didn't know lit up until I'd bought them, put them in a closet for a year, and then given them to her!)

This was a neat thing where they could climb up a tunnel and look through the middle. Rachelle got a better one of both girls, I'll have to borrow it!

Maeve checking out what was going on!

Saturday, we went to a Fancy Nancy tea party at Carpe Librum in town, which was way more fun than Elena makes it look here! Lots of dressed up little girls (that whole mama guilt thing kicks in when you are the one who brought a child dressed normally, not knowing about the whole Fancy Nancy thing!), really cute crafts, a fun story, and hearing a lot of East Tennessee kids say "merci" in a southern accent. Cute! And, they let her keep her teacup and plate!

Last Thursday we took a couple of pictures of the littles at Mother Goose, which is what we do every other week when Emily and Elena go to Mothers Day Out. It's so nice to have focused time with our little girls-they both seem to love it!

Back at the aquarium-Emily would touch the horseshoe crab, which Elena wanted nothing to do with. Very brave of Emily!

This is from tonight-okay, this kid is so hysterical sometimes. Tonight she put this (the sink from her kitchen) under her shirt, and told me she had named her baby Christmas Tree. Christmas Tree Ornament she then clarified. And, as soon as he's born, he's having a baseball birthday party. On his actual Birth-day. That's my girl-might as well start planning one before he gets here! The whole rest of the night, she called us by her grandparent's names, since, of course, she would have to be CTO's mama.

The other day, it was an hour long story about Emily's bunny/puppy birthday party that she was riding to on the hot pink Rody horse. Did I write about that? I can't remember. Anyway, long and so funny.

She's also into singing songs with names. Like, Andrew Peterson's geneology song, or the Joseph musical song about the 12 sons of Israel. I like this kid.

Today was also the Walk Through Bethlehem at Church Street United Methodist. I'm not sure Elena ever understood that it was pretend, and that wasn't really baby Jesus...

This was someone telling the story of Ruth and Naomi, except that Chris and I snickered to ourselves because she called "Orpah" "Oprah" instead, every time. A little funny. We tried to let Maeve smell spices, but she just kept getting mad because we wouldn't let her eat those cinnamon sticks!

This is Esther, the goat. She was very friendly and kept trying to eat the flowers off Elena's sweater.

Playing with ornaments with Poppy

Elena and Danaja (okay, no idea on the spelling) We went to the Christmas celebration at Farragut Town Hall a week or two ago, and met Mom and Danaja. Danaja dubbed Elena her "very best friend", which is exactly how Elena has referred to her since. Also, lots of kids at mom's church call her Mimi, since Cami does. Elena, of course, also calls her Mimi, since she is her grandmother. Danaja informed Elena that "you can call my Mimi 'Miss Beda'". So, Elena obliged and asked "Beda" to open her candy cane! So funny!

The girls with Santa. We'll hope for a better picture, but it'll do if nothing else comes through!

A couple of weeks ago, Mom kept Maeve (thanks mom!) and Elena and I went to the Nutcracker ballet. Elena loves to dance, and LOVED the nutcracker! It was the school performance, but we ended up with front row balcony seats, which was perfect. She's going back and forth between a fairy (which is the sugar plum fairy), or a gingerbread girl for Halloween next year!

We brought out the scale to try to figure out how big Maeve was, and Elena is fascinated by it! Of course, if you JUMP on it, it's not that accurate.

When we were visiting my aunt in Atlanta, we went to the bed and breakfast my grandparents rented. Elena loved looking out of their mail slot.

Maeve's favorite activity was pushing around this chair. She's really walking several steps at a time now, though!

Grandad's legs were the most popular place to be. Both of my girls tend to gravitate to him-I think he's just quiet and laid back enough for them!

Elena, Deedee, and Cassidy-our newest cousin! Maeve got a new carseat-which, since it's pretty and pink, requires Elena to get a carseat cover!

Me and Cassidy-she's so tiny, it's hard to believe that Maeve was a lot smaller than this not so long ago!

Cassidy

Avery and Cassidy sitting on top of Lincoln.

Grandad and Maeve-she sat like this for about 20 minutes

Look at these two-one week less than one year apart!

Back at John and Susan's house at Thanksgiving-Elena loved looking at Nana's new digital picture frame.

Uncle Cliff and all the babies

Elena and Reid-I somehow managed to delete the space between the last two pictures. She's quite a fan of other babies

Oh, my. You might think this is cake because it's from the day before her birthday, but you'd be wrong.

Any guesses?

Peat moss. Peat moss that she's trying to lick off the table.

First Birthday pictures (attempted!)

In an effort to cut costs, I thought I'd try to take Maeve's birthday pictures myself. I think there are some we'll redo in January and have Elena and Maeve's birthdays both at once at Portrait Innovations, but I got several I was hoping for!

However, the picture that was just like Elena's and mine, in this dress, facing sideways and holding a rose....not going to be done by this girl. She's trying to touch that rose with her foot... Here it is! This is as close as we got to her actually holding it...

Silly girl

I think this is going to be one of her two official first birthday poses!

This is the other-she liked sitting in her chair!

There are a bunch of these next few with the balloons-I can't decide how I want to crop them or how I want to go...anyway, I ended up posting more than I thought I would. Some will be culled!

I special ordered these blocks off etsy to spell her name. Too bad you can't tell!

She's singing to Chris here

Do you see this stinker?! She's trying to get in there with her baby! (The others above this were after she managed to do it herself!

I was trying to figure out how to do the cake and balloons-I didn't feel like making another cake, so I bought one at walmart. Do you know they're $4! I wonder how much it would have cost to make it-probably more! It had a hideous rose on it, and I asked for her name on it, which they wrote in letters that weren't the same size with a bright purple icing bag and a star tip. I bought a can of icing and fixed it. It looks pretty good, I think!

She didn't want to eat that cake! Oh wait...yes she did.

I"m pretty pleased! And, since there are about a million pictures I want for her first birthday, this cuts them down somewhat!

herding cats...

Rachelle and I thought we'd like to have a couple of pictures of our girls, who are all good friends. This evolved into a giant photo session with a full set up and four families. While my sister and Nathan got some good pregnancy pics, and I got some good Maeve birthday pics, and Erica and Rachelle each got at least a useable family pic, this is what happened with the four girls. These three are as good as it got--really.

When we got Christmas pictures taken, Elena was kicking out her foot and not being helpful, generally. I took another tonight, and like this one pretty well.

This was one in between pictures, where Chris was waiting for us to pose, but I really like it.

No really good new family shot...

Isn't this sweet of Julia! Emily wasn't having that great of a time, but Julia looks so cute!

Friends!

Happy Birthday Maeve!

Maeve got lots of celebrating in for her big day! We celebrated with Chris's parents in Louisville on Thanksgiving, then at home and out to dinner with family on her birthday, then another party in Atlanta with my family, grandparents, and aunt (and family!)

Maeve's parties were themed (as they always are!) and were Nursery rhymes. Her dress is Humpty Dumpty, and Elena's was 3 little kittens. We had a little bo peep doll and her sheep on cupcakes, Little boy blue butterscotch haystacks, 3 men in a tub punch, I'm a little teapot tea, Mary Mary Quite contrary flowers, twinkle twinkle little star cookies, do you know the muffin man muffins, queen of heart cherry tarts, and Little Miss Muffett's curds and whey (cheese and crackers). We made little lambs and gingerbread men ornaments for crafts, though we ditched the themed games when it ended up being my two girls and infants for kids at the parties. It was lots of fun and very pink!

Maeve highly enjoyed her cupcakes and needed no directions on what to do with them. Maeve with her pewter candle holders (which were mine) and birthday plate! Elena volunteered to help blow out candles. These are from party #1 in Louisville.

Maeve talking to one of her new baby dolls.

Chris's dad, John, made this stroller for her. Isn't it lovely! It'll be in her first birthday pics in a couple of days!

She got some really wonderful things that she's loved playing with so far, though the stroller seems to be the favorite from this party!

The little marzipan sheep didn't do so hot-missing eyes, arms, legs-we went with a new plan for party number two.

Blowing kisses-she sticks her tongue out and sucks to make the kissing sound.

On her actual birthday, Chris was able to take off part of the day.

We went to lunch at Panera, which is everyone's favorite. Our kids think they live there.

Then we went to the adopt a pet center, where we played in the kitty room and held a puppy!

Elena likes animals, but Maeve LOVES them and yelled "hi" at all these kitties. Individually.

Maeve in her birthday shirt-it seemed appropriate for it to be a farmers market shirt.

Maeve got a Madame Alexander doll, a birthday plate, a growth chart, and a book about animals from us. She's loving her baby doll here.

For dinner, we met my parents, Avery and Nathan, and Cami at Cracker Barrel. Maeve loves breakfast food, and not much else!

Cami brought Lincoln and Maeve each a present.

Then, Saturday we were in Atlanta visiting my aunt and David's new baby, Cassidy. So tiny! She and Maeve are one week shy of a year apart, and it's amazing to think that Maeve was about 3 pounds smaller than her just one year ago! Oh, today was her doctor's visit, and she's 17 pounds, 10 ounces, and 27 1/2 inches tall, which makes her in the 10th percentile for height and the 5-10th percentile for weight. That seems small to me, but her doctor said she looked good!

At party #2-she kept her foot on her plate the whole time she ate!

Feeding a furreal puppy Aunt Avery and Uncle Nathan got her

Loving her Madame Alexander birthday doll from Gigi and Grandad

Giving Gigi her birthday Little People-she likes you to say "thank you" then give them back!

She really got in the swing of opening presents, and by the time we had the Atlanta party, she really loved each one, and opening each thing. I wanted to make sure that she had a real party, since it was divided into two, but several people said how much nicer it was to have it smaller both times, where she could open and enjoy every present. Thanks to everyone who came, for celebrating our sweet girl with us!

Christmas and Thanksgiving, early

This year we had Thanksgiving and Christmas and one of Maeve's parties in one weekend at Chris's parents' house. (a big, giant Maeve post is coming soon).

Here's Elena helping Grandma decorate her little tree
Chris got a marble run that can be added to every year, and they've had a great time playing it

Chris and I left the girls for about two hours one day, and when we came back, Elena and Grandpa had built a working paddle boat! She is so proud

When we got back, this is what the girls were up to!

Decorating Grandma

Maeve and Reid playing with the exersaucer

Elena opening gifts

This is one of Elena's gifts, but both girls have played on it every day since she got it!

Grandpa and the two littlest


Maeve attempting to un-decorate Grandma's tree

Chris and Reid

Reid looking silly!

Elena and Grandpa opening presents-this was the trampoline!

Nana and Elena

We had a fun, and very busy trip! I"ll post Maeve pics soon, and all the other things going on!