My little chatterbox!

Here's a video I took this morning of some of the words that Anna Kate says. Now, they may just be babbling to you, but this mommy thinks they're precious! Enjoy!

Bedhead!

This is what I found when I went to get Anna Kate up from her nap yesterday...

A very giggly girl...

With some very messy hair!

10 months old today!

Wow, Anna Kate! You are 10 months old today...double digits! We feel like you are growing up right before our very eyes. Every time I go get you out of your crib in the morning or after naps, I feel like you've grown just a little taller and look a little more like a toddler and less like my tiny little baby. As you grow physically, know that the love that your daddy and I have for you grows every day too! Here are some things you have been doing this month:

~ You are doing a great job pulling up and walking around the living room while holding on to the coffee table or the couches. You still are wanting to hold on pretty tight, although I did see you let go for a few seconds a couple days ago...you promptly sat right down once you realized you weren't holding on to anything!
~ You are starting to really understand some of the things that we say to you and can even follow a few simple instructions like, "Put the block in the box," or, "Go open your drawer" (your special drawer in the kitchen).
~Speaking of kitchens, you have a new kitchen set given to you by some good friends and you absolutely love it! You love to open and close the refrigerator and the cabinets, and you love to play with the dishes and play food. You're not really quite tall enough to see much of the sink or the stove, but you sure try!
~ You have started to actually participate at baby storytime at the library every week. You wave hello and goodbye at the right time during the "Hello" song and the "Goodbye" song and you clap at all the right times during the rhymes that we do!
~ You LOVE playing "Pat-a-Cake"! Your favorite part is when you get to "roll" it. You roll your arms like the football sign for false start (or is it offsides?), except it's backwards!
~ You still wave hello and goodbye to everything and everyone that we pass by. Lately, every time we walk into the living room, you wave hi to the Christmas tree!
~ You are starting to communicate better with us at the table. You are beginning to learn the sign for "all done" (waving with both hands), although we're not sure if you're really doing it because you're all done, or if you're doing it because you just like to wave, and doing it with BOTH hands is TWICE as fun!
~You still love to go to the park and swing, although lately you have been wanting to do a little more than that. You love watching the big kids run and play on the playground, so I thought I would let you do a little exploring. You are having a great time climbing on the steps and going down the slide (with just a little help from mom and dad).
~You love to talk on the phone with your daddy and you love to play phone with just about any object! It is so cute the way you hold things up to your ear like a phone!
~ You now have 6 teeth! You have all four across the top and two on the bottom. You got them all out of order, but now it looks normal again!
~ We are starting to see a little bit of a strong-willed personality coming out in you! There are two items that for some reason you have grown very attached to and when we take them away, you would think your world had just ended: your purple sippy cup and your toothbrush!
~ You are still a very sweet little girl and love to give us hugs and kisses!

Anna Kate, your daddy and I love you more than words can say and we treasure each day we get to spend with you. You have blessed our lives in more ways that we thought possible!

And here are your pictures!

1 month old

Two months old

3 months old

Four months old

Five months old

Six months old

Seven months old

Eight months old

Nine months old

Ten months old!

The Christmas Spirit

Anna Kate occasionally has very sweet moments when she is very giving and wants to share everything. Lately it's been her paci. Now, you have to understand how much this child loves her paci. We do have a rule that she is only allowed to have it when she's sleeping or when she's snuggling (or in the church nursery!). But lately she has been wanting to share her paci with her mommy and daddy. I guess she thinks that if she loves it so much, we must love it too! Here's a video for you to see! (Sorry if you think it's gross...it's just a little baby slobber!)

The Perfect Christmas Tree!

We really wanted to cut down our own Christmas tree this year and thought Anna Kate might really enjoy the experience, so after a little online research, I found Pa Pa John's Christmas Tree Farm about 20 miles from us. So we loaded up Anna Kate, a tarp, and some rope, and headed out there!


Driving out there we really had to go through the boonies, and there were multiple times when Luke doubted that there actually was a Christmas Tree Farm (though I had done my research!), but we found it right where I said it was! Anyway, the owners were so nice and we had lots of fun walking through the rows of trees picking the perfect one. We felt a little bit like Goldilocks and the three bears...

This one is too big...


This one is too small...



But this one is just right!

You may still think that this one is too big, and in fact it is 10-11 foot Leyland Cypress, but we have some pretty tall ceilings and decided to go for it!

So Daddy got out his saw and went to work!


Anna Kate thought he needed a little help...


We may just have to make Pa Pa John's Christmas Tree Farm an annual family tradition!

It's that time of the year!

Time to send out Christmas cards! I am super excited this year because we'll be doing family Christmas cards for the first time! I know that you can do Christmas photo cards before you have kids, but we just never got around to it. Now that we have Anna Kate, though, I decided that I really wanted to do it this year. And thanks to Shutterfly, we are getting them for free! They have a promotion for bloggers going on right now where if you blog about their Christmas cards to help them get the word out, they'll give you 50 free photo cards. We have used Shutterfly before on numerous occasions to get our digital pictures printed and they have always done a great job. In addition to just getting prints of your photos, you can have lots of different gifts made - like calendars or coffee mugs, for instance! We have also gotten some flip books made for our parents of lots of Anna Kate pictures. My mom can keep it in her purse and have it ready whenever anyone asks about her grandkids!

Anyway, back to the Christmas cards, Shutterfly has TONS to choose from (805 different ones to be exact), so there's something for everyone. They have all different designs, colors, number of photos you can upload, etc. And, something I really like, is that they have a good number of religious options that talk about Christ's birth and that he is the true reason for celebration. It's definitely going to be hard to pick which one we will use this year! So what are you waiting for? Go check them out here: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow! I have so many pictures and so much to blog about today because we had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving week with two of my siblings and their families! My brother Stephen and his wife Rachael and their little Leah came from FL, and my sister Sarah and her husband Dustin along with Wesley and Cooper came from DC for the week. So we had 6 adults and 4 babies 2 and under all under one roof! We had so much fun watching all the babies play together, eating a great Thanksgiving dinner, watching football, doing some Christmas shopping, and just spending time together. Here are some of the MANY pictures we took of the occasion!

The kids loved going to the park together and we caught this classic picture of them on a park bench. Wesley is being so sweet holding Leah's hand whereas Cooper on the other hand is trying to steal Anna Kate's hairbow!



Here's another sweet one of Wesley and Leah playing together.


For Anna Kate's first Thanksgiving she wore her adorable turkey onesie and hairbow made by my friend Christy. I realized a few days before Thanksgiving that she didn't have anything to wear with it though, so I thought I would try my hand at sewing (without a machine, mind you!). It took me a while, but ended up with a decent looking skirt, I think!




Here's Luke being a good host and carving our lovely turkey!


Sarah and Rachael and I all put our efforts together and made all of our family's traditional Thanksgiving side dishes and desserts. Here's a picture of all of our hard work!


And here's Anna Kate ready to dig in to her first Thanksgiving feast!


Somewhere in the midst of all of the Thanksgiving excitement, Wesley got a hold of my camera and decided to hone his photography skills. Here are some of his best efforts:

A self-portrait...


And, his own toes...


Every morning we let the babies lounge around in their jammies for a while because they were just so darn cute!


Saturday, of course, was game day for the Seminoles v. the Gators (aka my sister's school v. my brother's school) and then also the Clemson tigers. Here are the kids ready to cheer on their favorite teams!


And just to get you in the mood for the next big holiday, we took a picture of the whole group of us in front of this lovely Christmas tree!


We sure missed Mom, Dad, and Andy, but we had a wonderful time with you all and hope you'll come again soon!