Merry Christmas from us!!!

Our Family Christmas 2010

Last night Essie and I "baked" some cookies to leave out for Santa...yes they are break and bake...I was tired!!! She didn't mind, though she was just so happy to be able to help!

 After Es was in bed Travis went to work putting together the cozy coupe we had ordered for her.  It was a PAIN to put together!!!

 Essie slept until 9:15 am!!! YES...NINE FIFTEEN! I was wide awake trying to be patient for her to wake up for a long time! She slept like 14 hours last night! She was a happy girl this morning!

 We set the video camera to capture her reaction to her car and gifts.  It was precious! I cannot even describe how much her big excited grin melted me to pure butter!

 She's been wanting one of these for a long time!

 Opening her stocking which was 100% Elmo.  It had Elmo cups, personalized cd, book, and boo boo buddy!

 She opened all her gifts on her own...

 and said "WOW" "OHHH BABY", etc.

 I could've watched her open these all day.  Her excitement was so contagious!

 Look at that sweet face!

 Me and my baby girl!

 After gifts we got dressed and went to eat lunch at O'Charleys...Essie does NOT usually do well eating out but she was soooo well behaved.  She played stickers and colored the whole time without one single fit.  It was like her gift to us!!!

This evening we are going to stay home, heat up some chili, and watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation! Sounds like an amazing time to me!!!

Christmas in Pine Bluff...

Saturday morning we loaded up and headed down south to Pine Bluff for our Christmas with Travis' family.

Sunday morning Travis' parents had their turn to light the advent candle at church so Essie and her cousins Nate and Kennedy went up their with them.  She didn't last long in church before she had to go to the nursery! She was WILD!!!

 After church Sunday we all loaded up and headed to Little Rock for lunch and to have family portraits made.  All the kids chipped in to get family portraits made for Trav's parents.  We went to a really pretty park to have them made and I think they'll turn out great! It was coooold though! Then after that we headed back to Pine Bluff for the church's Christmas program.  Both of Trav's parents are in the choir and we went to watch them perform.  It was a beautiful program and Essie was able to stay the whole time (even though she clapped and yelled "yay" after each song and hollered for Peepaw several times!) Then afterwards we got to exchange gifts.

Essie opened this doll up first and was soooo cute.  It cries and she would rock and bounce it to make it stop! She was just so excited about it! I cried watching her open gifts and get so excited.  Once she realized she was going to get more than one she kept saying "more" and doing the "more sign!

 Travis's sister Tanya got Essie this pink leather couch for her bedroom...how CUTE is it? It even opens up and has a ton of storage! She looooooooved it!

 We came home today and Essie was happy to be back home.  We gave her one of her gifts...I ordered this cardboard cottage online and had NO idea it would be soooo big.  I'm not sure what we are going to do with it now.  But Essie loves playing in it so we will have to find somewhere to put it! We are doing our family Christmas here tomorrow before we head out again so I will update tomorrow! We are excited to see her reaction and need to get busy putting some stuff together!

Done.

I have been mia from the blog lately..mainly because we have been so busy getting everything done this week...the cookies, the vinyling, the shopping, etc.  And it's DONE!!! We are so relieved now.  So here's a small recap of our life the last week.

The other afternoon I heard Essie cackling like a crazy woman.  And this is what I found.

We also let her open a present early...she's been wanting a pillow pet for soooo long.  She squeals when she sees the commercials.  She runs straight to them at the store.  So we let her open hers early so she could take it traveling.

My parents left this gift at our house for her as well and we let her open it as well...She loves to torment the dogs with it.

Here are a few more pics of the goodies we've been working on...

And a few of my classroom Christmas party...which was a BLAST!!!

Soo...we are officially beginning OUR Christmas family time together...we are going to be beginning our annual tour of Arkansas during the next two weeks.  I'm sure we will be very, very, very thankful for the portable DVD player and our massive collection of ELMO dvds to keep miss priss satisfied in the car. 

Oh and to update...my school's 'biggest loser" competition ended yesterday.  I was the pounds winner but a lady I work with won the percentage of weight loss! I was happy for us both! And Travis may have a job opportunity coming his way...please pray hard for this.  It could be the answer to our year's worht of praying!

Happy Birthday Nana

cookies, cookies, and cookies (did I mention cookies?)

So I never thought I'd say that I am SICK of cookies! Our lives have been overtaken by cookies this weekend.  I had a ton of orders for Christmas cookies for this coming week (in addition to 2 batches of coffee punch, one Christmas cake, and 18 cupcakes).  We started in baking Saturday...baked 8 batches of cookies...8 batches of icing...used up 16 sticks of butter.  110 cookies in all...mostly the LARGE cookies...like 4 inch cookies.  We didn't got to bed last night (this morning) until 3:30 am...but then Essie woke up and kept us up until 5am so we got VERY little sleep! Whew!

The puppies are waiting to be decorated...

And some of them decorated...

And this is what Essie did while we were baking...those are stickers and flashcards everywhere!!!