A Beautiful Christmas

Let me start off with a couple pictures I forgot that I had...Aunt Tweet & Gia
came to visit us while I was still on maternity leave.  Gia is 8 months younger
than Ella but catching up to her in height really fast!  :-)
Ella still has on her pj's but Therese & Gia brought her the cute
shirt for her birthday gift.   

They were so cute holding hands and playing/arguing over who gets
which baby dolls.  Girls...gotta love them!

Therese is about to have her hands full with two babies around mid-January!!!

Poppa Joe and Naner came to visit the weekend before Thanksgiving and to meet
their newest grandson, Parker.

Naner lovin on baby Parker.

Chad came to visit a while back too but I overlooked my
memory card with these pictures on it.

My sweet babies...

Ella does really well with Parker most of the time. And like I have said in a previous post
she gives him at least 100 kisses and hugs a day.  

Parker will already be 3 months old on Jan. 11th!  I can't believe it!

This one is one of my favorites! 

 Let's see...Parker is about 10.5 lbs. now and is about to be 3 months old. 
He talks to us all the time and we thought Ella talked a lot! 
He is smiling all the time and that just makes our hearts smile!
He loves loves loves watching Ella and when she talks to him.   
He is completely content when she is around him and carrying on
conversations with him and with herself.  He almost rolled over from
back to tummy last night on the magic carpet.  He is eating about 4 oz.
per feeding (I only know that since I because of what Mrs. Scott tells
me obviously and since taking him and Ella back to Mrs. Scott's house
he has been sleeping for about 6 consecutive hours at night!  I just need
to feed him a little later and he'll probably sleep until I have to get up for work. 
He has been getting hungry around 8:30-9pm and I always try and hold
him off until at least 9pm but I need to try and hold him off til 9:30 or 10pm. 
Now during the holidays while Chris was off and then I was off for one of
those weeks, Parker was waking up in the middle of the night at 1:30am
and then at 4:30am every night without fail.  So, I asked Mrs. Scott if she
sprinkled some magic sleepy dust on him because after the first day back
he slept almost all the way through the night.  It's gotta be the schedule.
He is just on a better schedule there where we would be running around and
 feeding him whenver he wanted.  Partly because he had a little cold during the
holidays so I wanted to nurse him as much as possible.  Speaking of nursing him,
I love when he bats his beautiful long eyelashes at me while I am nursing him. 
He gets this shy smile on his face [with boob in mouth] and then he's got me
wrapped around his little finger and it's all over!  He is still in our room in the
bassinet/playyard with a lot of clothes piled all over it but we are hoping to
move him to his crib in his room upstairs pretty soon. 
Probably when he makes it all the way through the night. 
Things we notice about him...he is super duper strong! 
Chris would play "push" with Ella where he holds them and then lets their little
legs push on his tummy and he holds them over his head.
Well, Parker really does push off Chris' tummy and pushes hard! 
His gas pains seem to be getting better and less. 
He is definitely more content on his magic carpet, in the bouncer
with the lights, music and dangling toys and just sitting in your lap
than he used to be.  In other words he can just chill for longer periods
of time now.  He has been using his hands to hit the dangling toys on his
bouncer and magic carpet now for a couple weeks and the music
comes on as a result of him hitting them. 
Smart boy! 
He is doing really great and we couldn't ask for a sweeter baby boy! 
We are so incredibly blessed with both our babies!

 

Oh and he sticks out his bottom lip almost every time he's about to cry...and I love it!

gas pain...

oh and now he is "all better" as Ella would say...

A couple weeks back, one of my best friends, Densie, had an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" Party. 
Chris and I went for a couple hours while Granny watched the kiddos and we had a blast! 
It was hilarious and of course I always love seeing my friends!

The boys...Chris didn't have his sweater yet.  Amanda and Roc weren't there yet with it.

me and Jeanner

The newly engaged couple, Leah and Troy!  Congratulations to ya'll and
we can't wait to celebrate this special day with ya'll!

notice captions on the picture...amanda, me, and leah

Granny and Ella on Christmas Eve eve with everyone on my mom's side of the
family over our house for our annual gift exchange. 

Parker

Carl and Parker

He was knocked out most of the night!

Ella got a cute little doggy piggy bank that barks when you add money.

Granny, Ella, Ethan and Poppa

Love this picture of Ella & Ethan!  We had a little photo shoot with them...lol

They could definitely be brother and sister!

Ella in just one of her pairs of Christmas pj's.

This was Christmas Eve when Chris' family came over and we had Chili and tamales! 
Ella, Sofia and Roman who did not want to have anything to do with my camera that night!  LOL

Here are a couple pics of our Christmas decor...this is our playroom
Christmas tree (Ella and Parker's tree) which can be seen from
the street through the window.  I've always wanted a
Christmas tree in a front window. 

This was our charlie brown Christmas tree that had holes in it and got dry really fast 
no matter how much it was watered. 
But, it held up through Christmas and all the festivities.

Our stockings hung on the mantel with care...

All the Christmas cards and beautiful pictures of our family and friends!

Pawpaw was serenading us on Christmas Eve with the soothing sounds of the guitar. 
Parker enjoyed it and so did I!  He is an awesome musician just like Chris! 
Hopefully Ella and Parker will be musical in some way or another. 
Speaking of musical, they have music appreciate time every day at
Mrs. Scott's house since all 5 of her own kiddos play multiple instruments. 
We love this!

Ella's new pony/horsey that Grandma and Pawpaw bought for her.   
This was the main reason they stayed at our house on Christmas Eve
was to see her reaction to it on Christmas morning which if you scroll
down to the end of this post, you'll see a collage of
pictures of her reaction...it was priceless!

Aunt Jojo

My new boots hanging with my stocking...

Christmas morning kisses from my honey...

Ella finally got to wear her new coat and hat from Grandma and
Pawpaw from her birthday. 
Chris and I said she looked like English royalty with the scottie
dogs on it and all...LOL

Love this picture!

Aunt Leah and Ella on Christmas day.

Big E

Chris and Poppa

This is the beanie that Chris wanted and I got him for Christmas. 
It's the new Houston Texan's sideline cold weather hat.

Poppa and Uncle Blaker

Granny and Parker

Granny, Parker and Poppa

This was Blake and Leah's gift to Granny & Poppa.  Blake made it!

Poppa and Parker.  They definitely resemble eachother!

After a wonderful shrimp, sausage and crawfish gumbo for lunch,
Chris passed out and Ziggy climbed up in his lap to snooze with him. 

Ella took a nappy nap too.

Parker and his Great Grandma - Nana

love this picture too!

Stella...already wearing the outfit we bought her for Christmas which was 18 months!!! 
She is only 10 months old!  Chunky monkey!  :-)

This was a quick snapshot of us at Tracy and Jesse's Christmas Cocktail Party where
 I set up my studio equipment and did a "crazy booth" set up...it was hilarious fun!

As mentioned before ...here is Ella's reaction to her new pony from Grandma and
Pawpaw for Christmas.  As for Ella, she is just amazing in our eyes!  We started her potty training
the Monday after Christmas and it has been going pretty good.  She has her accidents
but for the most part, if we put her on the potty, she goes. 
She still has not completely learned to tell us before she goes. 
It's usually, "Mommy, Daddy, I go pee in my panties," as she is going. 
She'll get the hang of it though.  She is very proud of her big girl panties
and I have pictures to show it.  I'll post those next time along with her potty sticker chart. 
Since going back to Mrs. Scott's from the holidays, she has been passing out either
on the short ride home or right when she gets home.  She looks like a hurricane hit her...
those boys must be wearing her out all day! 
(There are 4 boys at her babysitter's house excluding Parker. She is the only girl most
days at least until Mrs. Scott's daughter gets home from school.) 
Oh and one thing I forgot to mention a while back that I wanted to remember
forever is that Ella says "boobie dancin" when I am pumping. 
I pumped quite a bit the first month or so...a lot more than now, and Ella would come over to
me and lift my shirt and watch as the pump worked it's magic and sometimes she would even
 dance to the sound it makes!  So, anyways, she would say, "Mommy's boobie dancin"
and this would mean that I was pumping.  Kids say the funniest things.  She been singing
patty cake, ring around the rosie, of course twinkle twinkle little star, jingle
bells and you are my sunshine.  I can't get enough of her singing...and did
I mention dancing!  She still loves to dance!  She asks me to turn on some music at
least once a day so she can dance. We dance together a lot and and we "shake our
booty." In the bath, I say "wash your body" just like the new blackeyed peas song,
"rock your body" and she gets up and shakes her little hiney! 
I need to get that on video during her next bath for sure!  Well, that's it for now but you
know they'll be more soon! 
God Bless and have a great rest of the week!