If the cat is on the dog’s bed, then where’s the dog?

The answer is easy—sleeping on her owner’s bed!

Here’s Hobbes enjoying Arden’s new bed…

Silly animals.

Silent Night, Holy Night…

Christmas Eve began with a visit from my two “girls” that I used to babysit. They came to see Ashleigh since they were both in town for the holidays.

Ashleigh loved meeting Lindsay and Shannon!

After visiting Santa (see previous post), we headed over to Matt’s dad and stepmom’s house to celebrate.  We had fun eating turkey lasagna and opening presents!

We then went to church at Good Shepherd Lutheran. I was thoroughly enjoying the service until Ashleigh - (how should I put this politely?)- filled her britches! It was so loud that the people sitting in the pew in front of us turned around and smiled. I sat there holding her and was waiting until the second lesson was finished so I could leave the church when everyone else stood up for the gospel reading… that is, until I happened to look down and see (ahem) poop all on the front of my (new) sweater. Yikes. I let out a little shriek and got up and ran out of there as fast as I could, fortunately grabbing the diaper bag on the way out.  I made it downstairs to an empty classroom where I inspected the damage. Ashleigh’s dress? Poop everywhere. Momma’s sweater? Poop on the bottom.  I was prepared and had actually packed another Christmas dress for Ashleigh, but guess where it was? In. the. car. So, into the pajamas Ashleigh went.  After she was clean, I needed to clean myself up. Fortunately, Katherine, the pastor’s wife, had come downstairs with her fussy little guy, so she watched Ashleigh while I scrubbed at my sweater. We made it back into the sanctuary just in time for communion and the candle lighting. Oh boy. After service, Matt and I went to the Parks’ house for their annual Christmas Eve party where we enjoyed yummy food and getting (another) chance to show off our sweet girl, who at this point had been changed into her other dress that I had left in the car. Way to make your first Christmas Eve special, Ashleigh!

When we got home that evening, we opened our presents to each other.

Hobbes was very curious to see what presents were under the tree! Matt gave me a HD video camera, so we took videos of ourselves opening presents rather than still photos.

 

On Christmas Day, we went over to my parents’ house where we ate a yummy brunch and enjoyed spending time with my uncle and grandfather.

What a wonderful Christmas!

(And I know this blog is out of order, but you know what happened the next day?! It snowed!) If you missed it, click on the link to see our snow video.

-Erin

Santa?? I KNOW HIM!!

I wasn’t originally planning to take Ashleigh to meet Santa, but on Christmas Eve, I started feeling panicky…as in….am I going to look back in 20 years and feel guilty that I didn’t take my first child to see Santa during her first Christmas season? So, since we were heading out to Northeast Columbia on Christmas Eve, we decided to stop by Village at Sandhills to visit Santa. The Village provides a FREE Santa (i.e. They don’t have anyone there taking pictures, so you don’t feel pressured to buy from them!). There was a cute little house and a very realistic Santa inside. Cool! Ashleigh behaved very well, and Matt got some great pictures of our sweet girl with Santa.

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Guilty feeling- GONE!

-Erin

White Christmas 2010!

Well, the snow didn’t actually start falling until after Christmas Day, but it is still the season of Christmas and that counts!!

Here is a video we whipped up with Erin’s new Kodak Zi8 camera (in HD too!) of the family’s snowtime funtime!

3 Months Old!

Ashleigh is 3 months old now! Wow, so hard to believe! She is growing up so fast and just keeps getting cuter and cuter (in our completely unbiased opinion, of course)!

We managed to get a few pictures of Ashleigh actually looking at us during her photo shoot. Most of the time, she was doing this…

Yes, her favorite thing to do now is suck or chew on her clothes!

What has Ashleigh been up to now that she is three months old?

She is still wearing size 1 diapers, and I think she’ll stay in those for a while.

She is wearing some 3 month clothing, but a lot of it is still pretty big on her.

She laughed (really laughed) for the first time a few days ago in the bathtub! So cute!

She loves watching tv (at least she likes all the shapes and colors and fast movement).

She is beginning to notice that big black “thing” that loves to give her kisses (known to most of us as Arden).

She loves her playmat. She can easily spend 30 minutes just staring at the dangling toys, and she’s actually trying to hit them now, too!

She is becoming a champion shopper, which is great considering it’s a week before Christmas! We’ve been busy little shoppers!

She is rolling over from her stomach to her back!

She loves to stand up (with our help, of course).

She notices her feet and hands and just stares at them.

She is starting to get the hang of grabbing onto things and holding on to them (i.e. her rattle)

Here are some of my favorite photos from the last couple weeks that I haven’t posted yet…

Look what I can do!

Dad! I can’t believe you put me on my tummy!

I don’t wanna be on my tummy right now!

I want to be on my back!

There! Much better!

Now I can see the tv!

Sigh….life is good again.

(P.S. This is not a fluke… she has rolled over 3 times this morning!)

Seriously??

So, here I am, just taking a nice little snooze….

…when all of a sudden, I see a bright light…

Seriously, Mom, enough with the pictures already!