pics

handsome beauty

shirtless wonder

christmas day

santa in coatesville

playing and loving

first cold....

first snow....

bundled

longwood

beauty

ornament

Last year, I believe, my mom gave me this ornament that had adorned her Christmas tree for 30 some years. It was my first ornament. It now hangs on our family Christmas tree. And though it taunts me as it reminds me of my ever increasing age, I love it because of it's age and it's timelessness.

christmas

sooo.....the lack of time, funds and organization on my part has made me decide not to send out christmas cards this year. i only hope that our friends don't stop sending them to us next year thinking we didn't send them one this year. oh well.

here are the pictures i was going to use for the cards. as you can see, all of the below pictures would not be able to fit on one photo christmas card. i just couldn't decide which ones to use! why do kids have to be so darn cute?!?! merry christmas!!!!!!

training

ah, the infamous potty. something that a 3 year old could be afraid of....seriously, where does our poop go when we flush? a good question, if you ask me.

potty training was non existent for some time in our house. we thought we would have eli try during the summer. he was peeing before his bath every night and his diapers were somewhat dry in the morning. so we tried potty training with him and boy, did he rebel. did NOT want to even TRY to go in the potty. when presented with pull ups, at the mere sight of them he ran away, screaming with fear. and so started the wait.

we thought we would wait and try again in a few weeks....same thing happened again. and so we just thought we would wait until he was ready.

after thanksgiving, he was ready. he went two weeks with only 1 peeing and 1 pooping accident. it was like an early christmas miracle! i thought potty training would be a very tough experience for both Eli and us as parents. within the two weeks of him being trained, he would go potty all by himself, most of the time without us even noticing. we would just hear the flush.

how did this all become so easy?!?!!! i am one lucky mama for SURE!

but now i have to find out if it is healthy for a 3 year old to only go potty 3 times a day....man, can that kid hold his pee!

pov

Children are so imaginative. Eli's imagination makes me laugh and marvel on a daily basis. It is amazing to me that imagination is hard wired into anyone. I am not very imaginative. Chad is uber imaginative. He takes nothing and makes something extraordinary with it. I think that is where Eli gets it.

Not that this is hugely imaginative, but I thought it was cute. We have this DVD box set of Christmas DVD's that we have taken out recently since Christmas is right around the corner.

Eli likes to look at the DVD's we have and this box set is no exception. He opened it and looked at the DVD's inside.

Immediately, he puts the DVD's down and proceeds to 'scratch' like a DJ.

He knows what a DJ does because his Daddy used to be heavy into that and he has seen it done on television. I have seen that box set before and never had made that connection. But of course Eli did.

Crazy kid.

updates

Wow, I have not been updating our blog very often. As some of you may know, I am in the process of beginning to start a photography business and needless to say, it has been a bit busy for me and my family. It keeps me up later in the night, editing photos and learning through online tutorials. Plus, I have been waking up at 5am to work out in the morning, which makes me a tired mama. Excuses, excuses....

Anyway, here are some updates on us:

Evangeline: She is now over 6 months old! I cannot believe it!! She sits up very well and loves her sippy cup. Just the mere sight of her cup and she goes into a frenzy trying to grab it and drink.

She is on solid foods now and eats very well and opens her mouth super wide. She smiles and laughs so much and is really such an easy baby. Like her brother, she is a VERY early riser, most mornings before 6am.


At her 6 month appointment, I was told she has a mild case of torticollis which is when the muscle of one side of a baby's neck is tighter than the other and causes the head to tilt to one side. She has been to one physical therapy appointment so far and it went well. It looks like the condition was caused by the way she was positioned in my uterus, according to the therapist. She gave us lots of stretching and strengthening exercises to do at home with Evie and she has been doing fine with them so far.

Elijah: He turned 3 in October! WOW! For his birthday, we had him and Evangeline dedicated at church and then came back home to an Eagles themed family birthday party. He even wore his Eagles uniform Halloween costume. SPeaking of Halloween, he was a DeSean Jackson and would say so whoever asked. Evie was a Ladybug.

Eli loves preschool. His teacher said he was a quiet boy and when I heard that, I almost fell over in shock. This just proves he is a different boy there than he is with us.

He loves to play in the gym at school. He is still doing soccer through USTC and next session he will be without Daddy on the field. Our boy is moving up! We shall see how that goes. He loves, loves, loves Evie. He kisses her and holds her and loves to have her ride on his shoulders. She loves it too and just laughs and laughs.

Chad: Chad's business is slowly, but steadily building which is a blessing. He is such a hard worker. I beg him to take a day off here or there, but he always brutally rebuffs me. He also does the laundry now (since his office is right next door to the washer) and gets up with the kids every weekday morning at the crack of dawn so that I can exercise. What a wonderful man. Of course he stands to benefit a little from my losing weight too. haha. He has a men's bible study on Thursday nights which he really loves. We still have our Friday DVR night which consists of ice cream and Flash Forward/Biggest Loser or a Netflix movie.

Me: As I said before, I am just trying to learn more about photography and building my portfolio. I will probably launch in January or February. My exercising is going well and I am down to pre-Evie weight, but not quite at pre-Eli weight. Besides being exhausted, I feel good and very blessed. I use that word a lot, blessed. But it truly depicts how I feel 100% of the time.

cup

Evangeline is a growing up fast! She has never had a bottle before, but she loves her cup! Well, it is actually Eli's cup, but she doesn't care. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a drinker!