Candles in the windows!

We mostly hung out at the house today. It's so cold and not fun to take a baby out in the cold. It was a little easier last winter when she just wore sleepers and I could bundle her up in the infant carrier. I am trying to take it easy because it's still hard for me to do too much.

I finally got a few new candles. We have more windows this year so I had not put the candles out yet. They look so pretty in the window. Tomorrow is the luminary night in the neighborhood. We are really excited to see all the houses participate.

Happy Birthday, Sheila! We hope you had a special day. Birthdays in Charleston are always fun. Evie is waving Happy Birthday to you!

Carl went to a hockey game tonight so my mom and I took Evie out to dinner. This is very rare since she does better during the day. She took a late nap so she was ready for some excitement. We decided to try Brick's. I was a little nervous when we walked in because it was dark and the tables had white tableclothes. There were several other children in the restaurant. Evie did great. She loved looking at the other kids and she enjoyed her bread. She wanted to share her bread with the waitress. My mom told Evie that we all get our own food when we go out to eat. HA! Evie tried steamed red bell pepper, hamburger and had her usual favorites of cheese, goldfish and yogurt. She did great! The key to a successful dinner out with Evie is to go early and take lots of food! We stopped at Chick-fil-A to get peppermint milkshakes. Have you had one? They are so delicious. Almost, as good as the peppermint latte from Starbucks.

Stay warm! It's 20.7 degrees here in Nashville. I cannot believe Carl has moved me to the frozen tundra! This is the coldest place that I have ever lived. He asked me if I'd like to move to Florida. Might not be a bad idea after all.

Evie says NO to HO, HO, HO!

We have had a nice week relaxing at home. I have had more sleep this week than since before Evie was born. It has been so nice to have my mom here helping us out.

We went to lunch at the Puffy Muffin today. It was delicious. Evie had her first kids meal. It was a chicken tender with fruit. YUMMY! She loved it and just finished the leftovers for dinner. She even tried to feed her Nana some of her toast. So sweet!

We all took Evie to meet Santa tonight. She was NOT impressed with him at all. Evie enjoyed waiting to meet Santa. She loved the decorations and Green Hills is supposed to have the most realistic Santa. Evie just does not understand the excitement that everyone has for the man with the beard. She freaked out! It took a few minutes to calm her down and then she took a little snooze. We will try again next year but I am sure we will enjoy sharing this picture with Evie when she is a little bigger. Maybe Evie and Santa will hit it off next year!

Sleeeepy!

My surgery went well! Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. I am feeling much better than expected just sleepy. Let's hope that continues. Evie did great with Nana while I was gone. That's the longest that I have ever been away from her. She learned some new things today and is really standing a lot! My baby is growing too quickly!

Another cold day!

Evie woke up a little earlier than I'd like - try 5:15. That is early - luckily she went back to sleep! I put her down for a nap. Then Carl and I went to early church, it's difficult to go normally because Evie needs her nap. It's so much easier to go places without her but of course we missed our little sweetie.

We came and she was awake playing with her Nana. They had all kinds of games going such as Salvation Army and bell games. Nana taught Evie to drop her bell in a papertowel tube so she could then find it. Evie LOVES this game. I think we have a new way to entertain her.

We went out to lunch at Puckett's in Franklin. YUMMY! My mom and I both had the pulled pork and Carl had the fried chicken. Evie had pulled pork, green beans and sweet potato fries. I was starting to worry because she chose black beans over fries yesterday. However, she seemed to like her fries today. I would NEVER choose black beans over fries.

Evie came home to nap and then we went to the grocery store. Publix is so nice and it is a shopping experience. However, it is so expensive! They have some things that Kroger does not have so we are lucky we have so many choices.

Carl put a few lights outside our house and trimmed our shrubbery. We are surrounded by lights so we have a lot to do if we want to catch up with our neighbors. It is so festive!

Evie has had so much fun playing with Nana. Evie will be bored when it's just us with her because we do not play with her nearly as much as Nana.

Carl and I headed to Target after Evie went to sleep. We got there and noticed that we did not have any money with us! That makes it pretty hard to get anything but that's okay it was still nice to get out for a little bit.

Think of me in the morning, I am having some minor surgery. We are expecting it to be fairly straightforward but I may not be blogging for a few days. We are so glad that my mom was able to come stay with us for the week to help me recover and to take care of Evie.

Lights everywhere!

Evie had another great night! YAY! We were so excited to go pick up Nana at the airport. Evie was so happy to see her Nana. We went to Gaylord Opryland to look at all the beautiful lights. It was amazing. They did a great job. All of the greenery, flowers and decorations were just perfect. I could not believe how big the trees were. I would love to go at night to see the lights. Maybe next year when Evie can stay up a little later.

Evie fell asleep in the car - amazing! That shows you how tired she was since usually when someone is back there she just plays. We took Carl to get his truck. Luckily, it was a small problem and it is fixed. Evie and I took Nana to the Factory. It looks so pretty decorated for Christmas. There were lots of people there. They were having an Open House at the antique store and they had a man playing beautiful Christmas music. It was the perfect way to get in the spirit of Christmas. My favorite childrens's shop was having a 30% off sale and I found a cute dress for Evie. I decided that we did not need it since we already have one smocked dress for next Christmas. Evie's clothes arrived today from Juliane Orginals. Precious! I LOVE them and she is so reasonably priced. Check out her site to see her fabulous line of clothes and gifts.

We played with Evie all afternoon. She is getting more fun each day! Evie learned how to put her shapes in her shape sorter today. I have a hard time getting her to play with toys because papertowel tubes and Tupperware are so much more fun. We rode around our neighborhood to look at the decorations. Evie loved the lights at this house! Trust me the pictures does not do this house justice - the house is lit and decorated like you would not believe.

Evie went right to sleep. She was tired since she had such a short nap. Maybe she will sleep late in the morning.

Twinkle, Twinkle!

Evie had her flu shot today. We have been on the waiting list for over a month. On Monday, I called again and they told me they had changed the procedure. They no longer had a waiting list and I needed to check the website daily! Thank goodness that I called. Otherwise, she may have never gotten the flu shot. She cried for just a few seconds and then she was fine. We ran a bunch of errands after her appointment: Target, gas station, UPS store, and Kroger. That's lots of getting in and out of the carseat and she was great. We were so busy and got a lot done.

We came home and she seemed a little fussy so I put her down for her nap right after her lunch. She was whining a little which reminded me that she had not nursed since 6:30 this morning and it was 1:00. That's the longest she has ever gone in the daytime. We were just so busy! Clearly, between that and the pearl incident, I am no longer in the running for Mother of the Year. I cannot believe that I forgot to feed her and even more so I cannot believe she was not letting me know that she was hungry! At least I know, she can go longer stretches which is great since she does not do bottles. Sippy cups are working great but that's a lot of work. I gave Evie a sippy cup of whole milk this week and she happily drank it. Great news except she then developed a bright red rash on her sensitive little face. Evie may need a little more time before drinking cows milk so we may try soy milk.

After nap, we went to take Carl's truck to the shop. His truck is brandnew and goes to the shop more than my Jeep. I better knock on some wood since I rolled over to 100,000 miles today. Luckily, his car is under warranty so let's hope they fix the problem this time.

We had a busy night at home getting things done around the house. Evie keeps us running in circles . . . literally all of the time. She has slept through the night the past three nights so we think sleep training was successful. It was not even that bad compared to when I tried it in September. She never cried that long and we are all happier now that we are getting more sleep. Doesn't she look precious in her twinkle pajamas? They were a gift from her Nana and Ipop last Christmas before she was born. They seemed so BIG back then but they her perfectly.

Our tree has lights but no decorations. There is a huge mess in our living room that Evie just loves to play in. I am feeling very behind on my house. There is so much to do to keep things going from day to day and now I have to add making my house festive for the holidays. Thanks goodness there is always tomorrow!

At least she has good taste . . .

We had another interesting day! Evie decided to eat one of my Mikimoto pearl earings that Carl gave me as a wedding present. I was putting my contacts in and Evie was crawling around my room. She got really quiet so I decided to go check on her. My earings had been on the nightstand where I have put them every night for the last 4.5 years. They were not there anymore and one beautiful little pearl was sitting in front of her. Obviously, I was very worried about her so I called the pediatrician. They told me not to worry and that yesterday a baby swallowed a Barbie shoe. That made me feel better and she mentioned that Evie had good taste eating my very best pearls. The nurse told me to watch her diapers and I should be able to retrieve my lost earing. You better believe I will try to retrieve it too! I LOVE those earings!

We went to the post office and there were about 50 people in line and one person working! I am not kidding! Then, I remembered the electronic stamp dispenser and they even had holiday stamps! PTL something went right! Carl needed stamps for his Christmas cards for work and we needed them for our personal cards too. Mission accomplished and we even made it to Kindermusik on time!

Evie was so excited to be at Kindermusik. She really likes it! You should check out a class in your area. Evie and I have tried a lot of classes and this is our very favorite. One of the songs today was Jingle Bells with little bells for the babies. It was so sweet. I even got a little teary that I have a baby to share the magic of Christmas with this year!

Evie was ready for her nap so she hit the crib after lunch. I got busy taking care of a bunch of stuff around the house. Don't tell but I napped during her morning nap so I had a lot to catch up on.

Carl got home and we went to get our tree! It was cold but so much fun! I bundled Evie up in her precious little hat that she got as a baby gift! We have never laughed so much looking for a tree. It has been rainy and yucky so the trees were a little hard to handle. Carl was worried about his new shoes getting dirty and I was trying to keep Evie warm in the 36 degree weather! We found a great tree! Can't wait for Evie to see it with all of the beautiful lights. She will make our Christmas so special!