Christmas Pictures

So, I finally got all the 100's of pictures put on my computer, so I can load some up on here! Definitely will take awhile to pick my favorites, because goodness, Daniel is a cute little boy! :o) Check out my facebook page for MANY more pictures! Also, I'll try to get on here soon to tell you all about our 2nd stage of Christmas over at Scott's parents! We had a wonderful time, as you can tell by the pictures! :o)

These first pictures were taken Christmas Eve while Daniel opened his PJs and all the toys from us! He was such a happy little guy and LOVED the bows!








Here are pictures of my Christmas presents from Scott... An awesome, gigantic scrapbook bag on wheels, and a wonderful scrapbook supply shelf to put all my stuff on! I got him a big thing of tools for his truck... :o)





The rest of the pictures are from Scott's parents house... He got a rocking horse from his Grandma and Grandpa and LOVES it! :o)

8 months and 3 days old!!!

Dear Daniel,

Hello big boy! You are just over 8 months old now and Mommy can hardly believe it! Today is your very first Christmas, and it has already been an exciting time for your daddy and I as we watch you get excited about all the presents and things that come with Christmas-time! You are still not crawling forwards, but you have been crawling backwards for awhile now. Although, last night Daddy and I are pretty sure we saw you crawl forward a few 'crawls' towards some tissue paper, but I don't think you realized it and have not done it again! You are so funny because you get so frustrated since when you see something you want to go get you end up very far away from it because you try to move but you go further and further away! :o( Poor little guy! You have been rolling ALL over the place lately, though, so you seem to get to most of the places you want to go! The other day you 'found' the Christmas tree for really the first time since it was up! You rolled all the way underneath it and start kicking and hitting all your gifts (yes, Mommy had to make sure they were your gifts you were destroying and not other people's) and then you grabbed hold of the tree and shook it until the angel fell off the top. Lol. You were so cute I just had to watch you for awhile instead of taking you away from it! :o) Still as curious as can be, that's for sure! :o) You are our little Curious Daniel!



You are working a little more on pulling up, too... Now that there are more toys you things you want to get to you are realizing that if you pull really hard you can get taller! :o) Hmmm... OH, yes, another thing you are doing a lot now is sitting up from a lying down position, which you are VERY excited about! Before you would get so sad when you were stuck on your back or tummy because you loved sitting but couldn't sit back up. Now you even end up sitting up when we put you down for naps! :o)



My favorite new thing you are doing this month is saying Mama!!! I think you started around your 7 month 'birthday' or before, but silly Mommy never recorded the exact date. But, anyway, you say it all the time now and you really do know that it is me who goes with that name!!! I know you usually say it when you are tired or sad or just really want me to come get you, but it is so adorable and you can't even imagine how amazing it makes me feel! :o) You said Dada for the first time like two weeks ago, too, although you haven't said that as often. I think you do know that that is Daddy's name, though, because the times you've said it he was right there!



You love, love, love watching your daddy and Uncle Bryan work in the garage! Daddy and I were just talking about this yesterday, talking about how excited we are for when you are older because Daddy is going to build you a little workbench to put in the garage with him so y'all can build lots of things for Mommy! :o) It's definitely your favorite place to be, probably because you see your Daddy building so many things in there! You also enjoy me reading to you, and although you are getting a bit better with your anxiety when I'm not around, you still enjoy me playing with you the most during the day! :o)



As for how much you weigh, I'm not exactly sure. I'm pretty sure you have gone through a growth spurt in the past few weeks because you definitely seem taller again, but we haven't weighed you in awhile, so I'm not sure. :o) You love eating, that's for sure! You are eating two and sometimes three meals a day now, usually two or three 'ice cubes' of food a meal! Some of your favorites are sweet potato, squash, carrots, peas, pears, apples, avocados, and mango! Your least favorite has definitely been asparagus! ;o) Silly boy!



Well, you have been sleeping for almost an hour now! Hopefully that means you will be very rested when you get up so we can go over to Grandma and Grandpa's and open presents for Christmas!!! You are going to have SO much fun! ;o)

We love you lots and lots and lots!

Love,
Mommy

Merry Christmas One and All!

Merry Christmas! I just realized that it's been a VERY long time since I wrote on here... I can't quite believe how fast this month went! My little guy is already 8 months old and enjoying his very first Christmas! Right now, Scott is over at his parents' while I am home with Daniel to allow him to get a good nap before heading back over there to open gifts and enjoy a delicious lunch of ham, potato casserole, homemade rolls, green bean casserole and I'm sure some other yummy dishes! I can't believe it's Christmas AND it's warmer than 50 outside, but I'm sure it'll be a wonderful day! :o)

Yesterday, to start off the Christmas weekend, we went over to Scott's parents' house to play games and have a biscuit and gravy brunch with his parents and Geoffrey, who is in town. Bryan was working, but the rest of us had fun playing Dominoes and eating the yummy food! Then, we headed over to Amanda's where my other sister, Lelia, and her husband Wayne joined Amanda and us for pizza and The Farming Game (or whatever that is called). It was good to see them before we celebrate our Christmas together next week over New Year's. We had a fun afternoon there, and then headed to our church for the Christmas Eve service at 5 p.m. Debbie King, a good friend of ours, played the keyboard for the service and did a great job and we enjoyed sitting with the Kings, Burgesses, and Cunninghams, catching up with them before enjoying the great service! After that we drove over to Scott's parents' church to join his family for their Christmas Eve service... Yep, it sounds like we were very religious. ;o) But, no, it was just nice to be able to go to our church and still be able to make it to theirs which was good, also!

After getting home last night, we started our new tradition of opening up Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve, which was tons of fun! We took pics, so I'll have to post some on here once I get all the Christmas pics loaded. Daniel's little PJs are super cute. They say Baby's 1st Christmas and have reindeer on them! (He is actually wearing them today, because he wanted to be extra comfy!) He LOVED opening up his gift and playing with the bag and tissue paper so much that we decided to go ahead and open all our gifts while he was happy instead of waiting until this morning. I'm glad we decided to do that because he hasn't been so happy so far this morning, but last night he was so adorable! :o) We video taped it all, and I'll definitely want to watch it again! He go a laugh and learn table that makes lots of cool noises and will definitely be something to enjoy for a long time. He unwrapped part of it, but I had to do the most after he decided his favorite part of gifts are the bows. :o) Lol. He LOVED all of his bows and tried to open and play with his toys WHILE holding the bows! He wouldn't let go of them! After opening and playing with that gift a little while he opened his big blue tub of mega blocks, which look like legos but they are gigantic! :o) The tub is big enough for him to fit in so he knocked it on it's side and then worked on digging out blocks while crawling almost entirely inside! :o) (Oh, by the way... He is not crawling yet, although he was SO excited about his gifts last night that we were pretty sure we saw him take a few 'crawls' forward, which was exciting! He crawls backwards ALL the time, but just doesn't go forwards yet!) Although he was super happy with those blocks, we had to have him open his last gift, so we brought out his last one which is a noisy zoo thing, which he also loved! After that he played forever with all of his toys while Scott and I opened our gifts! I had gotten Scott some type of tools (can't remember what) and he got me a mega big scrapbook supply holder wheely thing! I'm super excited!!! :o) Then we just watched Daniel play for awhile until it was past his bedtime and we had to put away his toys so he could go to bed. It was hilarious watching him as Scott put away the blocks! Scott would put the blocks in and Daniel would pull himself up and try to start taking blocks out again! HE didn't want to stop playing! :o) Lol.

So, that's been our Christmas so far! Super excited for today!!!

Well, he is still sleeping, so I think I will go ahead and do my 8-month 'letter' to my little guy now... Got to keep up with what changes he has had this month!! :o)

MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Professional Pics!

I just put up some pictures on here that were taken by AH Photography a few weeks ago! :o) Aren't they amazing??? Anissa was the same lady who took pictures of Scott and I at our wedding! She is such an amazing photographer! We love all the pictures! Just wanted to share them with all of you!

Random thoughts of mommyhood :o)

I'm sitting here thinking I could probably take a nap but realizing that Daniel will probably not nap much longer, so I should probably stay up... But, anyway, as I'm thinking that, I began thinking about how much I am LOVING being a Mommy! I seriously couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life right now! :o) It's amazing how God always knows best... Even though Scott and I were not planning on starting a family when we did, God knew how much I needed little Daniel and how much I needed the feeling of being able to be a part of raising a little boy! We are doing Daniel's baby dedication in just a few weeks at church, and I'm really excited for it! I'm not sure why we waited this long, but it is cool thinking about doing it right before Christmas because this season always makes me so thankful for where we are and what God has blessed us with! I love the idea of dedicating our little ones to God in front of our church family because it is such a great reminder that Daniel is God's boy who has been given to us to take care of for now. That makes me even more thankful to God for how much he loves us by giving us our little boy! :o)

I just found out this past week that a friend from church is pregnant again and it made me miss being pregnant even more! Goodness, sometime I wonder if I'll be one of those women who wants to have child after child! I guess I'll find out after a have another one or two! :o) Anyway, I'm already looking forward to being pregnant again... I just know that Daniel would LOVE having a little sister or brother! He will be such a great older brother, too! Aahhh... But, enough dreaming! I am thankful for today that we have a curious little 7 month old boy named Daniel! He is a blessing to us and we wouldn't be the same without him! :o)