Gymnastics

MB has finished her first session of gymnastics and it was so much fun! It definitely was a highlight of my maternity leave. I'm so thankful I was able to take her to the classes and participate with her. It was amazing to watch her learn and grow between the first and last class. She is typically really shy at first so it has been great to see her come out of her shell and enjoy all of the different activities. She does well with a routine so she grew more and more confident during each class since she new what to expect. After the first class, she told me her favorite part was getting the stamps on her arms and belly at the end. I took my camera to the last class and captured a few pictures. Her favorite move is called "spide"r and unfortunately they didn't have that as part of the circuit for me to get a picture. However, if you are around us for more than five minutes, you often will get to see this move in person. We definitely will be taking another class but I'm just trying to work out the details since I go back to work next Tuesday. :-( All good things must come to an end I guess.

The parachute is definitely one of the favorite games that they play. As you can see, it is very important to have your tongue out in order to shake the bean bags off. The kids also jump in the middle while we shake it and lay underneath it so we can tickle their toes. She loves it and cracks up every time!

Getting toddlers to stretch is quite a trick and this is the "kiss your knee" move. Another favorite is pretending like your foot is a telephone and trying to answer it.

Sliding down one of the mats.

Crawling up the ladder to the platform.

Jumping over the bean bags on the beam. This is quite a feat! Notice the tounge. :-)

Another highlight is at the end when they blow up the bouncy thing. All the parents and kids lay on the mat while they blow it up. Then all the kids jump down the center line several times and then we all get back on it for them to jump individually and we sing a little song. We end up singing the song a lot at our house while she jumps. She loves it! Fortunately for me, makeup (or showers for that matter) are not required at class.

A little blur of happiness!

Total concentration trying not to eat it. She was able to recover and not fall. Such a fun experience!

Merry Christmas!

We hope your hearts are filled with joy, love and peace this Christmas. Happy Birthday Jesus!


"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." Matthew 1:23

Photos courtesy of Lisa Butler with Cherry Berry Studios. http://www.cherryberrystudio.com/

Catching Up

To say that it has been a while since I have done an update would be an understatement. These pictures start the week before Thanksgiving. We have been having a blast anticipating Christmas this year which is why I have been slacking on the blog. We have been circling the state and have been out of town four of the past five weekends and have spent some great time with family. We start celebrating with Dan's side of the family tomorrow night and are looking forward to making more memories. This is going to be a marathon post so hang on, it's going to get bumpy, messy and probably convuleded so let's get to it.

I just had to capture Ben's first tea party. MB was very particular about which cup he used and which muffin was on his plate. He was a true gentleman and didn't spill any tea or get any crumbs on the floor.

He really is this happy most of the time. It's so much fun to have a baby that loves to grin!

I am in love with this picture and the two subjects. My friend Merran made the shirts and they are awesome!

Drake and Ben's first time at the Harvest Supper. My Maw Maw's church has a pot luck the Saturday before Thanksgiving and it is one of the best meals of the year. They slept right through the entire thing! Notice Ben's boots, they are adorable.

Ben spending some time with his great Maw Maw over Thanksgiving.

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Moultrie and had a play date at the church playground. MB was showing off her mad jump rope skills here.

The day after Thanksgiving we went to pick out my parent's Christmas tree and a had a lot of fun trying to find the perfect one.

These girls are so sweet together.

She enjoyed the freedom of the tree farm.

This picture is a classic. The boys are screaming, the big sisters are concerned/put out and the grandparents are cracking up. Typical!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we drove back to Atlanta to watch a terrible football game and then we went to get our tree. We went to Kinsey Farms for the second year and loved it! This is the tree that we ended up with and it has smelled soooooo good all month.

After we took a ride on the tractor and picked out our tree, we roasted some marshmellows. This was a first for MB and a highlight of the night.

What's not to love, right?

The next week we went with the Doyals to see the Christmas lights at the Bottanical Gardens. They were beautiful!

These two had a blast as usual. Those may or may not be MB's Christmas pajama pants that she was wearing. :-)

I saw an idea on pinterest to countdown to Christmas by wrapping up books for each day of December. I loved this idea and it has been such a fun thing to do with MB. This is something that she looks forward to every night. I didn't have 24 Christmas books so I mixed in some of her other favorites and she is always surprised at which one she opens even if it is one that we have read to hear a thousand times. The Christmas tree was my great Aunt Ann's and we put it in MB's room. She is obsessed with the tree and she likes to hug it and she talks about it all the time. It's so fun and colorful with the fiber optic limbs and colored lights. I often find her taking ornaments off of the tree in the living room to hang on her tree.

Book number one: The Christmas Story. She also is obsessed with baby Jesus in the hay.

Bubba has been a busy little guy. MB loved it when he showed up in her stocking! She is very quick to tell you that Bubba was in her stocking, not Ben's, not mama's and not daddy's.

MB had a Christmas party with her class and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of them all dressed up. I could just eat them up!

MB loves her teachers, they are so great!

We took the kids to "Walk through Bethlehem" last weekend and it was so much fun. All through the town, MB kept asking where baby Jesus was and she only stopped in her journey to feed some hay to a sheep. I couldn't believe that she was brave enough to stick her arm in the pen for them to eat out of her hand. That girls loves animals!

We finally made it to baby Jesus and MB gave him the gifts that she collected while we walked through Bethlehem. It was a fun night!

I made a wreath this year for the front door and am pleased with how it turned out. This is another idea that I got off of Pinterest! I found the wreath for $2.50 at goodwill, bought the ornaments for $1 at the dollor store and the M from Hobby Lobby for about $2. After a little spray paint and some florist wire, it was ready for the front door.

This is the second try by my parent's to get a Christmas card photo. It's so hard and pretty much impossible to get all six of them to look in the same direction and smile.

I will end with this picture of MB showing Ben one of his new toys. It's a work bench and he was totally fascinated with the lights. He is growing up so fast and is sitting up like a big boy in the bumbo. Many more updates to come!

Meet Bubba

Bubba is our friendly elf that keeps an eye on things during the day. His first morning with us he decided to hang out in our Christmas tree and the little lady had a fun time trying to find him. Unfortunately, Bubba is tired and overworked and he didn't make the flight to the North Pole and was in the same place on the tree the next day. Oops! Don't worry, Bubba was given a very firm warning and he made a quick trip to the North Pole and returned to a new spot during nap time. Lucky for Bubba, the little lady never even noticed that he had not been in his new place all day. Come on Bubba, get with the program or I am going to buy the little elf skirt at Target and make you wear it!

Christmas Cheer - Light Em Up

We have been wanting to start some Christmas traditions with our kids and this is going to be one that stays with us for years. This site is created by a friend of a friend of ours and I really love the idea of having a tangible way to teach our kids that giving is better than receiving. It can be easy for kids (and their parents too) to get wrapped up in toys and what they want. This website makes it so easy by having a list of practical ideas of ways to serve others and then tags that you can even print out to attach to your gift. When MB and Ben are older, I want to have one planned every day and have that be our countdown to Christmas. This year we are just doing the best we can and some days we may give out several gifts and then we may skip several days. I'm still doing good to be showered before Dan gets home from work people! :-)

Cookies for the firemen down the street.

I don't have a color printer so I added some holly to spruce up the tag from the Lil Light O Mine website.

MB was so excited to take the cookies into the fire station. She got super shy as soon as the fireman came to the door but she did hand them over and has been talking about "that man" nonstop since Wednesday.

MB and I have given some of these out to Phil our pest control man, the chick-fil-a drive through man and the nice lady at the post office. They were all tickled pink and MB is enjoying handing them out. I am keeping them in my car so it will be easy to pass them out. Our future stops will be our friends at Publix, our pediatrician's office and then the lovely folks at our YMCA. We can't wait!!! I hope you find this project as fun as we have!