Christmas is driving me crazy

"F*%# You, I couldn't back up!"

This is what I heard when I walked out of Kohls the other day after some Christmas shopping. Really, people? Is that what Christmas cheer is all about? Kohls was a nightmare. Long lines of tired people holding mounds of, pardon my French, crap. I think that's when my tinsel became tarnished and the holiday lost it's sparkle.

*Sigh*

It's a good thing there is more to Christmas than gifts.

How refreshing that Jesus' grand entrance was so plain; our greatest gift wrapped up in a cloth, nestled in a feeding trough. We are very thankful for that this Christmas. It reminds us to simplify.

Poor Matt had a breakdown while we were at Target the other day and decided that instead of buying a thoughtless gift that the recipient could buy on their own if they wanted, he would donate the money to help others. I must confess, at first I was a little upset. My big plans for a day of fun holiday shopping with my two favorite people while sipping a festive Starbucks latte were fading fast. But, Matt was right and I'm so thankful that he brings new perspective to my life. Sometimes we need a little Grinchy-ness to bring us back to what really matters.

Well then I thought, what if we started doing this every year, for everyone?

Don't worry, we're not packing up to move to a commune and grow our own food, we're just trying to look at our values so we make sure we raise our daughter to see what's important...and what's not.

So we've decided officially that from now on if we have to buy gifts, we will bless our recipient with one that also blesses others. For example, some lucky family members next year will be getting awesome handmade gifts to help stop human trafficking from Not for Sale!

It's one small way we can simplify (no more trips to Kohls!!) and serve others while we remember the real reason for the season...Jesus!

One year

Our baby girl is a year old. Crazy! I can say that parts of this year flew by but the first part really was slow. It's been a year of joy, tears, laughter, learning, and tons of love and kisses.

We've watched our tiny baby grow into a beautiful, fun little girl. She's so smart and happy and she loves her mommy and daddy!

We had a great birthday party on Saturday. Friends and family were there even though it was Thanksgiving weekend. We'll probably have to have parties a week later from now on! Lilly seemed to enjoy the party and somehow knew it was for her :)

We were a little nervous about the birthday cupcake. Lilly can be really weird about food sometimes but she took several bites of that cupcake like a pro! It was so fun to watch! She opened presents and ran around the room after her cupcake sugar-high.

She has an owl theme in her nursery and I wanted to do the owl thing one more time before she gets an opinion and wants everything to be Elmo! So we had owl cookies, cute plates and cups, and handmade owl ornament party favors. (Matt helped, too!)

*The party was at our neighborhood clubhouse. We do not have a huge cow hide up on our wall ;)

Our baby girl is a year old. Crazy! I can say that parts of this year flew by but the first part really was slow. It's been a year of joy, tears, laughter, learning, and tons of love and kisses.

We've watched our tiny baby grow into a beautiful, fun little girl. She's so smart and happy and she loves her mommy and daddy!

We had a great birthday party on Saturday. Friends and family were there even though it was Thanksgiving weekend. We'll probably have to have parties a week later from now on! Lilly seemed to enjoy the party and somehow knew it was for her :)

We were a little nervous about the birthday cupcake. Lilly can be really weird about food sometimes but she took several bites of that cupcake like a pro! It was so fun to watch! She opened presents and ran around the room after her cupcake sugar-high.

She has an owl theme in her nursery and I wanted to do the owl thing one more time before she gets an opinion and wants everything to be Elmo! So we had owl cookies, cute plates and cups, and handmade owl ornament party favors. (Matt helped, too!)

Flannel sheets and Halloween pictures

If you don't have flannel sheets for the winter months, stop what you're doing right now and go buy yourself some!! For about 5 months every year we use flannel sheets. They make the whole bed feel squishier and softer AND it eliminates that shock of cold sheets when you get into bed at night.

Onto Halloween. Better late than never, I always say! We had a great time with our friends. It's always a blast to see the creative costumes. We were farmers with our little cow. My original idea was for Lilly to be a sheep and we would be Austrian sheepherders, but the only costume I could find was a German beer girl. Matt thought that would be an awesome costume, but it didn't seem family friendly ;)

Thanks to Melissa for all the pictures!

Potato sack race. Pictures speak more than words here.

And they're off!

Mike takes the lead but Matt's a close second!

And the winner is...Mike!

The girls race, too. The crazy cavemen wrestlers from Nacho Libre dominated!

11.11.11

Our girl is having a growth spurt. She's been eating so much better. And chugging her bottle like never before. I gave her a Gerber arrowroot cookie the other day and now it's her favorite thing. We have to spell c-o-o-k-i-e at times otherwise she'll whine and reach for the counter where I usually have the bag. We had to start breaking them into small pieces because she got so excited about it the other day that she stuck the entire cookie in her mouth. I guess she's been watching Mommy and Daddy when there's a bag of Oreos around :)

We had a great trip to Branson last weekend. Bought some clothes at Tanger and had the ultimate winter comfort food, homemade chicken pot pie, from Andy William's restaurant. Heavenly.

"Um, Dad? This bear is freaking me out..."

Being in a hotel with a baby can be scary at times because you're afraid you'll wake everyone up, but Lilly did great. She loved running around the room trying to get into trouble. Her favorite thing was the air/heat unit under the window. She would turn the knobs and put her face over the vent. I loved watching her goofy, snaggletooth grin when it blew her hair everywhere.

She's been very fun lately. We like to play hide and seek where Matt and I will jump out and scare her. She is very sneaky about putting things in random places. Today I started the dryer and heard a lot of banging around considering I only put soft clothes in it. I opened it up to find a wooden puzzle piece from her new puzzle in there. She put a sticky note in Daddy's shoe. I found her hair-rinsing cup from the bath in my shower.

( She has 6 beautiful teeth now!!)

Necklaces and purses are all the rage over here. She knows how to put on necklaces and when Aunt Lisa brought a huge sack of them to me Lilly had the time of her life digging through the bag and inspecting them all.

I had a profound realization yesterday that Lilly can understand what we're saying! She brought me her shoe which means she wants to go outside. So I said, "If you want to go outside bring me your other shoe because you need two before you can go outside." Well she marched right out of the room, found that shoe, and brought it straight back to me. I was so shocked and proud. We went outside right away!

Down on the farm

We've enjoyed spending Sunday afternoons at our friends' house watching football. Lilly and Cooper like to play together and she really loves trying to dive out the door of the inflatable jumper!

"Who me? Cute in these overalls??"

Sometimes we play outside and wait for Daddy to get home from work!

I just love this goofy grin!!

Date night: Razorback game

A big thanks to the grandparents for giving us the best date night ever! Free tickets to the Auburn game and free babysitting for 7 hours! Woo pig! My favorite part was walking from the parking lot (really far away) to the stadium. It's not very often that Matt and I just get to walk somewhere and hold hands!! There were soooo many people along the way. All dressed in red and white, tailgating, and yelling at anyone who dared wear blue and orange on our campus!

We had such a great time. It was fun to be on campus again and reminisce, eat some hot dogs, and watch a really good football game. Typically I have a hard time even knowing where the ball is during a football game. The players are very still and then they scramble around like crazy and I'm just trying to find who has the ball and Matt is hollering about some kind of play that didn't work out and then in 0.7 seconds they stop! Frustrating! But there was one play, where they were on the 3 yard line, and like slow-motion I saw every step that player took when he ran the ball down 97 yards for a touch down! It was awesome!

I've been working on my recipe collection and trying to get new ones and figure out a meal plan that rotates so we don't get bored with the same 'ol same 'ol. (Don't even mention spaghetti around Matt...)

So I started a blog that I'm hoping my friends will get excited about and we can share recipes! It's www.brandnewrecipes.blogspot.com Check it out and email me if you want to be able to post! Right now I'm working a meal plan that will use all of the ingredients I have instead of leaving open jars of things in the fridge for weeks and tossing out tortillas that are questionable. I'll let you know how it goes.

A new family tradition has begun. We will be going to the corn maze every year. Although it was a little hot, we still had a great time. Lilly petted the goats, we walked through the maze, shot a corn cob out of a pressurized pipe gun, and rode a tractor to the pumpkin patch!

I guess Lilly wasn't enjoying the tractor ride.

I think Matt looks super studly in his new flannel shirt!!

The end.

Walkin' Talkin' Baby!

She's on the move! Lilly can take several steps at a time now and walking is her preferred form of transportation. She's slow, but getting steadier everyday. She loves to walk holding our hands, too.

And the babbling has finally begun! She used to "talk" when she was younger and then all she did was blow raspberries so we're excited that she says "go go" all day long. I think "da da" will be next!

Caught ya, sock monkey!!

It's funny how she has such strong preferences at a young age. Why does she like Elmo so much? How does she know that Gerber Puffs are different from the organic Target brand? She's a smart cookie! She's getting better at Peekaboo and she's almost got Sooo Big down. Except it's kind of reversed right now. She will randomly throw her hands in the air and then we will say Sooo Big! instead of the other way around. She's training us well!

We went to the trail at Crystal Bridges this weekend. It was so beautiful! Can't wait for the museum to open!

Matt got pooped on by a bird.. haha!!

Fun times with GG at the Promenade!

I'm finally following the lead of my sister-in-law, Jill, and my friend, Lacey, who actually have a housecleaning plan/schedule. Jill has a fancy iPhone app that intimidates me but Lacey uses a written plan. I typed one up after looking at suggestions online. This is week two and I can tell a difference! The house is cleaner overall instead of the previously manic schedule of dirty for a week and super clean for one day. Just having one scheduled cleaning day and trying to keep up with daily tidying was kind of stressful. I would try to take a cup from the bedroom to the kitchen and find a pair of shoes along the way so I'd carry the cup and the shoes to the closet and see that the closet is a mess so I'd try to tidy the closet for a few minutes but find something that needs to be put in Lilly's scrapbook and then leave the cup in the closet and never get back to the kitchen to clean the dishes like I had started!!

But having a small amount to do each day is accomplish-able and rewarding. And I'll get stuff done, like cleaning windows and dusting baseboards that I never thought I had time for. It still needs some modifications and I'm open for recommendations! Thanks Lacey and Jill for inspiring me!

We tried finger painting! It was so funny to watch!

Here's the masterpiece! She gave it to Matt to take to work. Don't you think the orange blob in the top left looks like a bird?!