January
February
ok...it's taken me a while to post Christmas pictures. I have a couple of short videos as well. I have just felt so behind this holiday. It just never 'felt' like Christmas to me....and it still feels like it snuck up on me and then flew by. I'm sure a part of that is that fact that Whitney moved out to her own place in the middle of the holidays, so that made me a little sad.
On another note, Ana Kate was SO much fun on Christmas Day. She passed out everyone's presents and did such a great job! She has told me multiple times since Christmas that she loves her Christmas presents. Whitney also came back and spent the night here on Christmas Eve and Christmas Night, so we were all together and that was wonderful! My Mom also came over and spent the night on Christmas Eve. She enjoyed seeing Ana Kate open her presents we had a great Christmas dinner. I almost forgot to mention that we had a white Christmas this year...the snow is still on the ground and we're supposed to get more this week too.
Something I've been wanting to mention is that we didn't play up the whole Santa thing with her because we want to emphasize the real reason that we celebrate Christmas. I quickly realized you can't really escape Santa in this society....he's everywhere (even on the Dora cartoons every morning)...which make me even more determined to focus on the birth of Christ each year and to make sure that the meaning of the day is not lost in the commercialism of the holiday. So Ana Kate does know about Santa and is especially fascinated with the naughty list! I think this actually stems from another Dora episode where Swiper is on the naughty list....anyway, she likes to get the receipts when we go grocery shopping and now after she gets one she looks it over very intently and says...'This is the naughty list.' So funny! She also wanted to go see Santa at the mall, so I finally decided that it was ok....but it would be up to her. She kept saying she wanted to go and when we got there she looked at him and started crying, so we just let her ride the carousel in the food court instead. Later at our Christmas service at church one of the ushers was talking to Ana Kate and he asked her is Santa brought her presents. She looked at him and said, 'I didn't like him.' He thought this was especially funny and she got so much attention that night at church that she was quite hyper by the time we got home.
So here are the pictures of our Christmas weekend...enjoy! Just a note...the last pictures are from church and I was trying to get a picture of Ana Kate by the big Christmas tree. She was NOT cooperating and we finally told her we'd give her an M&M if she would pose and smile and you can see the smile she gave us....her super fake one...lovely. I did later get a genuine smile at home although she wasn't exactly looking at the camera.
So I was playing around with my blog design today and trying out some new blog header templates....and this is what I ended up with. I like the current look, but I'm still working on a couple of other designs, so it will probably change again soon. I was really getting tired of the old look, so this is a nice change. What do you think?
Not much other news....we've had a pretty slow week. Ana Kate had a fever on Tuesday, and I took her to the doctor, but it appears to just be a bad cold. She is still coughing and has a runny nose, but appears to be feeling better. She has been doing great sleeping in her bed and has been staying there all night! I have been rocking her to sleep since she's been sick and I wonder if that has helped her sleep better? Who knows...
I guess the biggest news around here lately is that Whitney is moving out at the end of the month. I can't believe she is already leaving home...seems like only yesterday she was Ana Kate's age. It will be an adjustment for all of us, but she's excited, so I'm happy for her. I think the plan is to move her in next weekend, so we'll see how it goes. Her new room is much smaller than her current room, so I really don't think we'll be moving much of her stuff. It should go pretty quickly. I'll try to take some pictures and post them once she's settled.
I only have a couple of pictures from this week, but I grabbed a couple of Amanda's pictures that were taken at her cookie exchange party last week. I'm always talking about how much Ana Kate loves going to Amanda's, so I thought I would add them....enjoy!
Ana Kate has been obsessed with trains lately, so we found her a train set last week and she absolutely LOVES it! A few days ago she asked to go play with it and after a few minutes I went to check on her and this is what I found...
Ana Kate giving us a fake smile.
Amanda & I. We tried to get Ana Kate in the picture, but she didn't cooperate. If you look closely you can see her laying in the floor behind us.
Ana Kate posing in the Christmas shirt Mommy made for her.
