Christmas Time Is Here

I don't mean to totally skip Thanksgiving. We actually had a wonderful Thanksgiving and it's one of my favorite holidays. We spent lots of time with both sides of the family and everything went smoothly and we had so much fun. Elliana was very happy to spend so much time with her cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and well, most of all her cousins ;-). Unfortunately though, I forgot my camera once again and I have nothing to show for it.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year though. The day that we get to break out the Christmas music and put up all of our Christmas decorations! We also enjoyed some eggnog while decorating. I think eggnog is one of Ellie's new favorite drinks. :)

This is the first year that Elliana really got into it. She had so much fun helping us decorate the tree and yesterday morning she plopped herself in front of the tree just to sit and stare at it. There's nothing like seeing Christmas through the eyes of your child. I really can't wait to see how she reacts to everything else that comes with the holiday season this year.

I put most of our Christmas decorations on the blog last year, but here are some pictures that I took yesterday and I just wanted to share them.

This is the Christmas pillow that sits on our couch.


Here is a view of our stockings. Elliana's is my favorite. Probably because it was handmade by my sister Courtney.


Here is our manger scene and angel candle holder. Oh yeah, and that bowl usually has some sort of Christmas candy in it. You've got to love Christmas candy too.


You can't tell from this picture because Elliana is only half-smiling, but she was so excited to take a picture in front of the Christmas tree.


And of course I can't go without mentioning my new Christmas design. My sister Jenn did another amazing job! I LOVE it! I have to hand it to her, in the midst of waiting for her 4th child to arrive, she's still finding time to let her creative juices flow and crank out some amazing new designs. Thank you SO much Jenn!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and that you get to enjoy some time decorating for Christmas too.

Princess Mischief

This is a story about our little mischief maker, Elliana Faith.


Doesn't she just look like trouble? Ha!

Yesterday, my morning started out as usual. I put on one of Elliana's favorite DVD's on the computer in our office so I could take a shower. Our office is very close to our bedroom where I shower. I got her settled and told her I was going to take a quick shower. She barely pulled her eyes away from the computer and said "Okay Mommy".

So, I stepped into the shower. A few seconds later, Elliana walked into our bathroom and shut the door behind her. No biggie I thought, she's done this before. She usually finds a way to keep herself occupied (without making too much of a mess or getting into trouble) until I finish showering. We have a glass door on our shower so I can see what she's doing.

I watched as she grabbed a washcloth and played with it for a while. Still, all of this was very typical of Ellie. Then, I heard the toilet flush. She's had fun flushing the toilet over and over again before so I thought nothing of it.

By this time, I was finished with my shower and as I stepped out, I heard Elliana's little voice say "Help Mommy, towel!" I looked around the bathroom floor. I didn't see the washcloth Elliana was playing with moments earlier. I looked at Ellie and she was pointing at the toilet and again she said "Mommy, towel. Help towel!" I looked at her and asked "Ellie, did you just flush the towel down the toilet?" She looked up at me with sheepish eyes and said "Yeah".

And because I know my Ellie, and I know how she is such a good communicator, I knew she was telling the truth.

I panicked at first, then I reached into the toilet to see if I could feel the washcloth (which totally grossed me out by the way). I couldn't feel it. I tried flushing the toilet. It flushed just fine. I thought this was interesting. I flushed a few more times and every time the toilet flushed just fine. I thought "Wow, I guess the washcloth will just pass through okay". We went on with the rest of our day and I didn't think about the washcloth again.

Then came last night. We were finished with dinner so Caleb took Elliana downstairs while I made some brownies. He instantly called for me to come downstairs. Our basement was flooded. We knew right away what was causing the plumbing to be backed up and the water to fill up our basement.

Today we had a plumber come out. Guess what they told me the problem was? That's right, a washcloth was clogging everything up!

As Caleb and I went to bed last night, we said to each other "Some day, we'll laugh at all of these Ellie stories". Here it is just one day later, and I'm already smiling to myself. Our Elliana is such a character, and she is constantly keeping us on our toes.

19 Weeks and still a mystery

We had our 19 week ultrasound yesterday evening.

Baby was not very cooperative. It's legs were closed so the technician felt that she didn't get a very good look to know what the gender is. Also, baby's face was facing the placenta so we didn't really get to see it's face. I was a little disappointed that baby didn't cooperate because I felt like we didn't get to see any of the fun stuff (for example, the face, the feet, the hands, the gender, etc).

The technician did write down her guess, but she stressed that the guess was not 100% accurate. We're still going to go with our plan to reveal the guess on Christmas day, but we're not going to completely count on it and we'll wait to buy anything gender specific until there's another ultrasound. Due to the fact that we already know I'll be having another C-section, we also know that I'll have another ultrasound or two. I guess maybe this baby is meant to be a surprise after all.

However, I should stress that we saw all of the really important stuff. We saw all of the vital body parts and organs, and the baby was happy to show us it's healthy heart over and over again. We got a really good look at the strong, beating, 4 chamber heart! :) The heartrate was in the 140s. Baby was measuring at 19 weeks and 1 day. Right on track! As much as I complain about not getting to see the "fun stuff", I am SOOO much more thankful that we got good news and that we got to see that baby is healthy! That's all we really hoped and prayed for.

Here are the 3 pictures they sent home with us:




So, until Christmas or another ultrasound, we don't know who this baby is. But we do know that he or she is healthy, and we love him or her so much already and can't wait to name him or her.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures and a Give Away!

First of all, I wanted to start off with the give away. Many of you are familiar with the cooking/ baking blog that my sisters and I started about a year ago. Well, we were contacteb by CSN stores to give away a $35.00 gift certificate for any of their products. Make sure you head on over to our cooking blog if you're interested in winning some great home accessories!

Yesterday our friend (and photographer) Becky gave me a CD of the rest of the pictures from my maternity/ family photo shoot. I know I've said this 100 times, but she is so unbelievably talented! It's like my sister Jenn said, there are so many fantastic pictures that I don't know how I'm going to choose which ones to print.

Here are some of the pictures that I arranged in a few different collages. Unfortunately, the collages seemed to cut off some of the picture and they really don't do the pictures justice. I was just looking for the best way to get most of the pictures on here. These are not all of the pictures that we received, just some of my favorites.

I can't believe the way Becky was able to capture Elliana's smile at it's best. I LOVE these!



These are some of my favorites of us as a family.



I love to watch Ellie and Caleb's relationship. They adore eachother!



Some favorites of just me and Caleb.



And here's some pictures that I couldn't fit into the collages:





Becky, I don't even know how to thank you for the amazing gift you've given us in these photos!