Best Buddies

LeLe loves Sadie. OKay, well, let's say it is a rocky relationship...on again and then off again...but today, it was on. I found LeLe laid up in my bed on top of Sadie. I guess she was tired.

LeLe insisted on wearing a non-Christmas outfit today. I decided it wasn't worth the battle.

I found LeLe in the attic today where I was pulling out Christmas decorations. Yes, it is a whole weekend affair. Anyway, she was throwing the white insulation up in the air while standing directly on the sheetrock of the ceiling below. According to LeLe, it was snowing.

To say the least, Matt came home and put down plywood to prevent this...and I gained a lot of storage space!

Visit from the Reaves

My Aunt Tammie, Uncle Allen and Cousin Lauren came over today to visit. I had Christmas decorations strewn from one side of the house to the other but they are family...and well, have to be my friend.

LeLe is in LOVE with uncle Allen's IPAD. She loves talking to Talking Tom which is an application on it.

More Decorations...and Bounce House Intro

Today, we continued putting up Christmas decorations...and LeLe continued taking them down. She absolutely LOVES the Christmas ornaments. I cannot keep her from taking them off of the tree. She had all of the animal ornaments (giraffe, zebra, moose, and dog) pulling the sleigh ornament. I guess she has the right idea anyway.

Since we really didn't get out much today, we decided to let the kids play downstairs in the play room. Gibson tried out the bounce house for the first time and LOVED it! He even slid down the slide a couple of times.

Afterward, we headed to my bathroom for a bath. I couldn't resist this picture of Gibson! After all, have you ever seen such a cute little bootie?

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, we had Thanksgiving at my house instead of at my Aunt Lisa's house. They had tickets to the Alabama Auburn game so they wanted to get to Tuscaloosa in time to get settled. It actually worked out really well! Matt and I got up early and he took his first shot at cooking a ham. He ended up cooking it with a recipe that he found on Food Network which featured ginger snaps, brown sugar, and spicy mustard. The ham was absolutely delicious!

During lunch, LeLe entertained everyone with her booty shake. While I wasn't involved in this, I definitely didn't approve but everyone else thought that it was funny.

The kids had a great time playing with each other. I decided to start pulling out the Christmas decorations after everyone left. Gibson really enjoyed the food!! He ate and ate him some turkey!

Thanksgiving in Arab

We went to Thanksgiving in Arab. We enjoyed seeing all of the kids as well as the cousins. To quote LeLe "I really like my new friends". Of course, she didn't remember or know their names though in the car but she definitely knew that we had a fantastic time.

It was great spending time with each and every one of them. LeLe hung out with all of the boys and Gibson hung out with Eli (6 months older) and Laura Landers (3 months older) than him.

We had a fantastic meal and fun watching and playing with all of the children. Matt is included in the children category as he spent the entire time playing football and driving the kids around on the

Visit with the Reindeer

Matt and I attended a funeral today of a dear friend's father. While we were at the funeral, my Aunt Lisa and my cousin Emily took the kids to a tree farm where they had live reindeer. Gibson and LeLe were amazed by the reindeer. LeLe even came home with a stuffed reindeer. She is in love. This evening during dinner, LeLe explained to us that she wanted a pet lamb for Christmas. Not a fake lamb like Brother (referring to his costume) but 2 real lambs that she could walk. I explained that we don't have anywhere for a lamb to live and she said that she would ask her Aunt Sasha (Lisa's nickname). I explained, that was a good idea...her best bet for getting a pet lamb. :)

9 Month Checkup

I think that the only thing worse than taking 2 sick kids to the doctor...would have to be taking 3 sick kids to the doctor!! I have been so fortunate to have such healthy kids. Today, I counted my blessings as this has been the first time that I really have had to take 2 sick whiny kids to the doctor by myself. I convinced LeLe to "show" Gibson how to be big. She let Dr. Huie look into her ears, listen to her, and look down her throat. Dr. Huie diagnosed her with a very nasty ear infection, pink eye, and prescribed Omnicef for her (along with some eye drops). She weighed in at 33 pounds. Dr. Huie got tickled at her and her funny sense of humor.

Gibson was pitiful too. While he was there for his 9 month well baby checkup, we changed it to a sick baby visit. :( The did all of the normal measurement stuff including making him strip down to a diaper. He weighed in at 19 lbs 1 oz and was 30 inches long. This means that he is very tall...and very skinny. Actually, it also means that he can no longer use his infant carrier carseat as it tops out at 30 inches. According to the growth charts, he continues to be between 90-100% on height and around 20% on weight.

Dr. Huie was a little concerned about his weight and suggested that begin weening him from the bottle onto more solid foods. Of course, he explained that we would need to do this after the little guy started feeling better and also that he could have lost some weight because of being sick. Little Gibson's iron was also low. He suggested that we begin introducing meet and stage 3 baby foods. Of course, Gibson only likes to feed himself...so, this should get interesting. He did suggest that we cut back on the bottles (he currently takes around 4-5 a day) and that this would increase his appetite. Of course, I think a lot of it is that he doesn't feel well as he use to be a good little eater.

Gibson was diagnosed with a double ear infection and was also given antibiotic. I explained to Dr. Huie about his tummy issues but he thinks that it is all associated with his cold. So, we shall see!!

After the doctor, we met our friend Kristi Pitts for lunch. She has a convertible and LeLe convinced her to let her ride in it around the parking lot. That child hasn't been that happy in days!

Last Day!

Both kids are feeling under the weather. This morning, LeLe woke up with crusty eyes. So, we decided to leave them home and not take them to school. LeLe actually missed her Thanksgiving party today. I decided to go ahead and take the cheese for the party by the school before heading to my last day of work.

My last day at work was so nice. I am really going to miss a lot of the people that I work with but I know that things are going to be fine. I am also going to miss seeing my dear mother everyday. While sometimes, we got into some arguments, she has been such a blessing to us.

I friend of ours gave our babies some medicine last night that as you can tell, made LeLe feel much better! Thank God for wonderful friends and modern medicine!!

I don't know if you can tell in the picture or not but LeLe decided to feed all of her animals pretzels tonight. Evidently, they were hungry.

Maybe it's Maybelline

Tonight, I was exhausted. LeLe and Gibson were very very whiny. LeLe was complaining about her ears....Gibson was just plain out whiny which isn't like him at all. Luckily, I have them both doctor's appointments on Friday.

Around 9:00, I put LeLe in bed. I decided to go ahead and call it a night. Around 11:30, I woke up with her downstairs in our room. When walking her back upstairs, I noticed that there was a tube of mascara in the floor. I didn't think much about it in my sleepy state. I continued to take LeLe upstairs. When I left her room and came back down, I noticed that she was crying....not like a whiny cry...like something was wrong. When I flipped on the lights to see what was wrong...this is what I found!!! Obviously, she had some mascara in her eyes!

Sippy Cup 101

I know what is coming when we take Gibson to the doctor on Friday...he is going to say that he needs to be drinking out of a sippy cup. So, today, we introduced the sippy cup with water in it. Okay so, he actually stole LeLe's cup of Tea so I decided to let him have his own. The next thing I knew, he had drank all of the water out of the cup!! Today, the kids and I were a little under the weather. But, we felt well enough to meet our friends, Johnny and Kandie Baker for lunch at Jim n Nicks. We always love seeing Johnny and Kandie when they come down from Albertville. They have been my friends for over 15 years now. Wow! I am getting old. It is amazing how things change. I remember keeping their little guy, John Christian when he was Gibson's age

Visit from the Cousins

Anne Reaves and Saxon spent the night with BoBo and Pappy. Laura brought them by on their way home. I convinced her to clean out my closet since I put in my resignation on Thursday at Blue Cross. It took her several house but she got through all of it....or shall I say...got rid of all of it. After it all was said and done, we got rid of 18 LARGE black garbage bags of clothes. I am embarrassed to say how long I had been holding on to some of it...and some of it...still had tags. But, let's face it...I probably haven't worn some of it in years.

LeLe enjoyed playing with the older girls...and Gibson did too! They all got in my bed to watch Horton...of course, Horton the stuffed animal had to join too!

Big News Thursday

Mother and Dad had planned on going to North Alabama today to visit some of daddy's friends. So, I ended up taking the kids to school and then my sweet neighbor, Kim Meadows, picked them up and brought them home.

LeLe and Gibson didn't quite know what to think about me taking them to school. However, they are going to have to get use to it because I have decided to quit.

Today was a really hard day for me but I talked to Brian and turned in my notice. We may try to work things out for me to work less hours but right now, it looks like my time is up at Blue Cross. Daddy really needs/wants mother to be there during the day so she isn't going to be able to continue to watch them. Matt and I have always said that if she didn't watch them, that I would stay home. So...now is my chance!

I am excited about the opportunity and I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful supportive husband. I do think that between all of the kids activities and my sewing that I will keep myself busy. I will miss several of my friends at work but hey, who says that I cannot go out to lunch??

Pancake...Princess

Every time that LeLe wakes up and finds her daddy in bed, she asks to make pancakes. This morning, they let me sleep in. When I came into the kitchen, this is what I found!! Cinderella and her prince making pancakes...not just any pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes.

After the pancake party, LeLe, Gibson and I went over to the Alexanders to a pottery party. The kids had a great time playing with the other little people and painting.

This evening, we had the Alexanders over for dinner....a laid back dinner. We had a wonderful time with them as usual.

Princess on Ice!

Matt had convinced me to purchase Disney on Ice tickets. While I knew that we would be close, I had no idea that I had purchased some VIP passes which gave us a table to sit at and some food/drinks. The show started at 10:30 and we got there early so that we could check out the dresses on display. LeLe got a glimpse of Cinderella but really didn't get to see her very close up before the show. Matt got there before us and had already reserved our seats and ordered our meals (that were included). We still ended up dropping no telling how much money on things that well, we could not live without...like a light up Tinker Bell wand ($20), Tinker Bell Cup ($15) and a few other knickknacks. However, it was totally worth all of the money as LeLe was just in amazement. I am not an emotional person but the look on her face when she saw the first princess (which happened to be Tinker Bell) brought tears to my eyes. She truly believed that those princesses on the ice were real.

As you can tell from the pictures, I let her dress herself. She picked out her Cinderella dress and her Cowboy boots. Not sure if I have ever seen cowboy boots on a princess but that is what she wanted. Oh! When I went to get her ready this morning, she told me that her name was "CinderLeLe". I guess it is pretty close as we always tell her that she has Cinderella hair.

After the show, LeLe and I met Gibson and Kim at Christmas Village. They had a ton of the same stuff that I do (applique shirts, ruffled pants, etc). I did get the kids a couple of Christmas ornaments and I also got some waterproof labels and gift stickers for them. We didn't get home until almost 5:00 and the kids were absolutely exhausted.