Sweet Girl

I have so much to blog about, it's overwhelming. I still need to blog about Christmas, traveling and Titus Christmas. Right now, we are at the beach. It's so wonderful. We got in yesterday early evening and it has just been so relaxing since we've gotten here. We've slept, eaten, stayed up late talking, etc. Last night Laurie and Bronson watched all three babies (Elliott, Jane and Kate) while everyone else went to see Les Miserables. With an hour or so to go in the movie we started getting desperate texts from Bronson. Apparently Laurie stuck around until all the babies were quiet and then she headed to the grocery store. Shortly after that Elliott woke up and then so did Kate. Elliott was good for a bit but then they both started to lose it. So Bronson had one baby in each arm. He only called us when things got really desperate. By the time Jenn and I rushed home, Laurie had gotten back from the store and both babies were calm and not crying. We couldn't help but laugh. So Jenn, Morgan and I need to go see the last hour of Les Mis still. The first half was amazing! I can't wait to see the rest. 

Today I borrowed Jenn's camera and snapped a few pictures of Elliott. The lighting in our condo is amazing! She was being adorable. Not smiling, of course, but still so cute. She is such a stinker and hardly ever smiles for pictures. Silly girl. 

More posts about our trip to come! 

Friend Christmas Party

This year we hosted the friend Christmas party at our place. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not sure when I'll want to host a party at our place again...haha. It was a little stressful. But I think it was a big success. I get so excited when planning parties and come up with so many ideas and don't realize how much work it's going to be. Needless to say, the few hours before the party were pretty hectic! But it came together and I think everyone had fun. 

Jenn was nice enough to bring her camera and take lots of pictures (thanks Jenn!!). Everyone brought yummy treats and we did a hot chocolate bar. I'm not sure everyone liked the hot chocolate much, which was kind of a bummer (because I bought SO many toppings) but I thought it was yummy. It was dark chocolate hot cocoa mix from Starbucks. It was fancy, that's for sure. 

[The props]

[Food and the hot chocolate bar]

[Jane makes the cutest reindeer!]

[Santa Jack!]

[So cute!]

[Obsessed!]

[The white elephant gifts]

[Haha. Hilarious face! She makes this face all the time these days!]

[Opening gifts]

[Elliott getting so good at sitting up!]

So we all ate treats and then we did a white elephant gift exchange. I ended up with a pack of condoms that had a picture of Santa and were called "Santa's pleasure pack." Thanks Perry. And Josh ended up with a game called Cuponk. It's a cup with ping pong balls. Basically you just bounce the balls into the cup...

After the exchange Jake ans Val had to leave so we quickly took pictures. I made a bunch of props on sticks for pictures. I thought they turned out pretty cute. 

[Cutest couple ever]

Then we played games. We did Christmas Minute to Win It. It was a lot of fun. 

The first game we didn't get any pictures of. But you had to dip your nose in Vaseline and then swing a pom-pom up and get it to stick to your nose (Rudolph). Everyone but Nathan was terrible at it. Needless to say, he won.

Then we played Face the Gingerbread Man. You had to start with a gingerbread man on your forehead and had to get it into your mouth without touching it with your hands. Perry rocked that one! 

Then we played Holiday Kiss. You had to kiss a christmas bauble with your spouse and transfer it across the room and hang it on a string. It was super hard. Kelly and Perry won that one too. They were awesome at it. Josh and I were TERRIBLE! 

[Fun picture!]

[Haha! So funny]

The last game was a snowball fight. It was insane. We had tons of wadded up paper and a line across the middle of the room. At the end of one minute the side with the most snowballs on their side lost. It got CRAZY. I should have planned better and made rules about it. I just forgot how crazy boys get. Three things might have gotten broken during that game...(an ornament, one of my willow tree people...and our couch). Yikes. But, nothing too serious. 

The prizes for the games were all Christmas ornaments. Jake and Val took one even though they left before games. They got the hotdog. Then there was a Naughty one with hanging coal, a bird, an owl, a monkey, and cute red boots. 

After games everyone helped us clean (thank you!!) and headed out. It's funny. Now that a lot of us have kids, our parties end so early.  We were cleaned up and everyone was gone before 8pm. Haha! Love it. 

Anyways, it was a ton of fun! Thanks everyone for coming! It was a great time. 

Christmas Countdown

So, I know I said my goal was to take a picture every day of our countdown, but I haven't. Josh has been working tons of overtime and I am working everyday now up until Christmas. So we've been a little busy. Needless to say, we have kind of gotten behind on our countdown. It's hard too because a lot of the activities are child directed (write letters to Santa, sing Christmas carols to grandma, etc) and we feel so silly doing them. I am definitely looking forward to years ahead when she will be able to be a bigger part of it and keep us going on it! :) 

I pretty much summed up what we've been up to lately...work. Haha. Leading up to Christmas there are usually at least 10 baskets a day to be made at Kneaders. That's a really slow day. I was talking to the main basket maker today and saying today was busy. She laughed. She said, "it's busy when we have 80 baskets going out in the morning and 40 more in the afternoon." Oh geez. Needless to say, I'm at Kneaders every day making baskets. It's great though. We are making lots of extra money for Christmas and I get to bring Elliott, so I'm not away from my sweet girl. Thank goodness. 

Elliott is adorable as always. She is getting cuter by the day, I swear. I just can't get enough of that little girl! I'm pretty sure I was right, and that she was going through a growth spurt. She is sleeping much better now and she seems a lot happier. Thank goodness. Man, if I've learned one thing in having a child, it is that they are so unpredictable. Once you finally feel like you have things under control, they change. Sleeping was going incredibly well and then all of a sudden, it was like she was a newborn again. Waking every 1-2 hours during the night. Uh, not okay. But she's back to waking up once per night, something I can definitely handle. 

We are getting more and more excited for Christmas! It should be a fun year. Although I am sad that I won't be seeing most of my family this year. We're off to SC on Christmas day. We'll be spending a few days at the beach. It should be a good time, as always. There's not much better than the beach in December. 

Well, boring post, I know. But just to spice things up, I'll throw in some pictures of my sweet girl. :) Enjoy!

[Meeting santa for the first time at Kneaders]

[Such a big girl! Sitting up on her own at Kneaders]

[These two make me so happy!]

[Helping mommy wrap presents]

[Obsessed with that hair!]

[I love this picture. She is so beautiful!]

[She loves her ball. She grabs it and sucks on it.]

[So chunky!]