A Very Merry Christmas

We celebrated Christmas in Arkansas and then Oklahoma this year. Cody's parents and sister with her family all live in Arkansas and most of his extended family are in Oklahoma. We traveled for some where between 20-22 hours split up into 4 days. Our sweet baby was a real trooper. The only time she even fussed was when I was strapping her in her car seat for the very last time after a lunch stop when we were almost back to Nashville. At that point, I wanted to cry from being in the car so long too, so I don't blame her! Our Christmas was wonderful though and it was great to get to see all of our family. I wish I had taken more pictures when we were in Oklahoma. I got some on my iPhone, but haven't gotten them off yet, so here are the ones from the camera.

Everleigh trying to get into her present

Looking at her new shoes

Crawling to get Piggy - her very favorite stuffed animal

She must have pulled this hat off 7-8 times and I gave it one more try and she left it on for all of the present opening! Good girl! She was so cute in it.

Everleigh and Pappy Christmas Eve opening gifts with the whole family

Ethan and Everleigh playing with potsy

All 4 kids playing with their new toys

Pointing at the picture of the present on the box

I decided to get some pictures in front of the tree before my office Christmas party. Here's how about 20 of the pictures turned out:

But we got one great one so it was all worth it!

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas this year. I know we did!

"Everleigh is okay, but she pooped out a bow..."

This is the phone call I get from Katie, who is keeping Everleigh. My daughter swallowed a hair bow!

So - I have never been one for the huge hair bows, but I am now. I am if I want Everleigh to wear a bow at all! It all started when a few weeks ago, Everleigh had been running a fever for 4-5 days up to 102.5. I knew she had a ear infection and she was on antibiotics. Well, they obviously weren't cutting it, so I took her back in to see Dr. Tolar and her ears were getting worse, so we did Rocephin shots. Any of you whose kids have had to have these shots know that they are extremely painful. Much worse than routine vaccines and you are giving them to kids who already don't feel good, so you can imagine how upset Everleigh was. She cried/screamed for probably 15 minutes. Cody had come with me to the office since she was so sick, b/c I figured this was coming and I would need help. So, we get her calmed down and get her in the car to take her home. Everleigh falls asleep in her car seat. Pheww! Sigh of relief that she is finally getting some rest. We get almost back to the house and she starts choking in the back seat. Not just a little bit - I really didn't think she was breathing. Cody starts trying to pull over while I'm jumping in the back seat to get her out. By the time I get her out, she's fine. Color is back to normal and she seems ok. Well, as I already said, she had been sick for several days and was coughing like crazy for most of this, so I thought she was just choking on all the mucous in the back of her throat. We got her back home and as I was getting her out of the seat, I noticed that her hair bow was missing. I asked Cody and he didn't know. I assumed it fell out at work and I'd find it later. For the next 2 weeks, she had diarrhea. She had been on 4 different antibiotics (1 at the start of the ear infection, 1 shot when the first one didn't work, 1 after that that she was allergic to, so we switched her to a new one - 4), so I thought it was from all the antibiotics and didn't worry too much about it. Then, I got the phone call from Katie. Katie never calls me - an occasional text, but she doesn't call, so I was freaked out that she was even calling. "Everleigh is okay, but she pooped out a bow..." What in the world! It took a few hours for me to piece it all together. It was a small clip-type bow, but who would have ever thought she could swallow that. I naturally freaked out and called Dr. Tolar immediately, who said to me, "Lauren, you have a human vacuum cleaner on your hands. This will not be the last odd object she poops out. Don't worry. She's okay." Made me feel better.

Moral of this story: No more hair bows unless they are GIANT!

There will be no pictures with this story, b/c you don't want to see them.

Snow Day!

Sunday and Sunday night combined, we got about 3-4ish inches of snow at our house. We didn't play in it long since it was WAY below freezing, but we did get a few pictures...

She LOVED the snow!

"I want to go outside, Mommy!"

Christmas at our house

This weekend, we had Christmas at our house with my family. My sister, John, Isabella, Cole and my dad all came in for the weekend. We went to Dickens of a Christmas in downtown Franklin and the kids opened presents that night from each other. Karen couldn't make it and we missed her there! Merry Christmas!

Santa Cole and John!

Opening presents

Dad with his new Apple Airport

Santa Cole (what we were calling him b/c he's in his Santa suit)

with his new Mickey blanket

Everleigh opening her first present - she loved ripping the paper off

and also loved all her new toys!

Everleigh was a little slow, so Isabella helped her

Isabella reading her book and letting Everleigh help her

Christy and Cole

Cole is such a big boy now!

Santa Cole in front of the tree

Silly girl!

10 months

Everleigh is 10 months old and could not be more fun - or clingy to Mommy!! Here's what she's like right now:

• She was 19 pounds (40%) at 28 inches (50%) at her last check-up. I forgot what her head circumference was, but it was the 93rd percentile!! What a big brain for my smart little girl!
• Still sleeping great!
• She is now eating mostly finger foods at all of her meals. She has gotten very picky with her baby food, so it's hit or miss, but she loves to feed herself. She's very slow though - we're talking about 45 minutes for a full meal! And she tells you when she doesn't want a bite. She makes this awful face and squints her eyes and you know she's either not ready or doesn't like it.
• She is not crawling, but gets around just fine. Instead of moving her knees she pushes on her toes and lifts her knees off the ground (downward dog in yoga) and then gets a little frustrated. I think she'll crawl soon.
• She has 1 tooth (finally) and one on the way!
• She is so ticklish under her arms and around both of her hips. She also loves for you to kiss her on her neck.
• She loves her daddy and still laughs at him all the time, but is very clingy to me for the most part. I have to sneak out of the room now if I want to leave. Because of this, she lays down for sleep a lot better for Cody than for me. With me she cries when I am leaving her and with Cody she lays right down.
• She is now pointing a little bit
• She LOVES to walk while holding your hands. She is so proud of herself!
• She has cruised on furniture a little bit.
• She imitates sounds we make. Our favorite is na-na. It's the sweetest sound ever. And da-da is usually very quiet, which is so sweet.
• She is not as happy in her car seat as she used to be. We think she just gets a little bored.
• To give you love she headbutts your face and she'll give you open-mouth kisses all over your face while shaking her head back and forth - slobbery, but precious!
• She learned to clap and for a few days straight, that's all she did. She still does it a lot, but seriously - DID NOT stop clapping after she learned it.
• She's very timid with things and does not branch out of her comfort zone too easily. She will if I'm with her, but if she's trying to pull up or something, she will frequently look to me for reassurance or touch my leg and then go back to whatever she was pulling up on. I guess all I mean by that is that I think she's a little timid or nervous when it comes to moving around or doing something new. If she falls, she looks right at me to see my reaction before she knows if she's ok or not.

That's all I can think of right now. She's just wonderful!!