Santa came to visit!!!!!

 Lots of goodies in our stockings!!

 Santa came to visit!!

 Anisten is going to check out all the goods! ...... She's making sure she doesn't get told NO like she has every other time she's gone this direction!

pulling all the toys out of her stocking. Good thing she's in to this " digging " thing. This was right up her alley!

" OH mom! Are all of these for me???"

 

 " Thank you Mommy for the RIBBON!!!!" 

 This is baby heaven! Stacking rings, blocks, stacking cups.. oh my!

 Some jammies and of course LSU gear from Aunt Tonya and Uncle Mark!!

Anisten got Daddy some mountain dew jammies! And suki is just loving that bow around her neck!

 Really they are loving this snow!! .... Dont worry they got gifts too some HUGE bones with meat on them...

We had a wonderful Christmas, as expected! It's so much more exciting when you have a small one. I am actually a little sad that it's over. Christmas morning she woke up about 8am and we fed her and then opened gifts! Then after she was all tuckered out, she went back to sleep and Dad and I made some ( left over) ham, eggs and grits with coffee for breakfast and enjoyed the morning off together. He had to work that afternoon. I'm very thankful he was able to spend that special morning with us!

As you can see, she got LOTS of toys! She got some books, a blanket, leggins and stockings, a baby, stocking full of stuff and of course some ribbon! :-)

Dad got some pj's, a rubix cube, a small snow globe ornament with his name in it, a scarf, and a few other little things that he likes, in his stocking.

I on the other hand RACKED UP! I got this fancy little " net book" that i'm using now, andrea bocelli cd, my chanel perfume, an extrememly cute togo coffee cup stuffed with instant starbucks coffees! And of course a few other little things.

I'm very proud of my husband for making such an effort this year and going way out of his way to find things that I love and will enjoy! It was very special. We will never forget. It will always hold a special place in our hearts. I'm also beyond grateful to have the perfect mate to share all of these beautiful memories, and traditions with.

Last but not least, Thank you GOD for sending your only son so that we might have life. Happy Birthday Jesus!!

Holiday Cheer!

There is only 2 days left until Christmas!!! I've been so excited for this year. I know that we will never forget this one.

I have some pics just from the past few weeks of doing Holiday Cheer!

Here, we have Anisten helping Mommy wrap.... of course she wasn't content with her own paper, she wanted mine. And my tape, and my scissors.... So I finished the wrapping project while she was napping! LOL. She liked when I gave her paper, but she realllllly thought it was cool when she could unroll the paper herself..

We went to the Christmas play at Passageway. It was the plot to destroy Christmas again. Everyone did a wonderful job!

Haylee is singing...

 The Cast.

This is me and miss wiggly pants watching the play...

We have already had our Christmas with the Collis' We had a great time. We all exchanged gifts with each other and of course they got a few things for the baby. That was the funnest trying to get her to open her gifts. Of course she liked it for a minute and once we got it opened enough for her to see what was inside she was more curious. I didn't get a picture of her actually opening it, or the gifts b/c she insisted on being in my lap for the remainder of gift giving. But aunty Lissa has some we will steal!

Of course when we sat down to open our gifts she decided she wanted to help us too. ..... Once again being the center of everyone's attention.

 She's hanging on to her Uncle J, I think she see's the soft spot he has!

 Scotty is opening his starbucks gift card!! His fav!

 Jonathan and his Harry Potter in blue ray..

 Melissa ( in mid sentence might I add!) with her ZEBRA shoes... Yes, a nice touch from me... :-) Well with her ever growing baby boy, I have to keep things girly around there!

We had a great time. We watched the greatest show on earth " Big bang theory" and ate devil oreo balls!

So finally... I'll show some pics of my " baby " tree. And gifts.... We have a 6 foot tree, which was plenty big enough for our 900 sq ft. duplex. Now that we have such tall ceilings it looks like a baby tree! We will be purchasing a 9 or 10 foot tree right after the holidays when they are half off! But none the less we put that baby up and made her sparkly and blue with a bright star for the top and presents galore to match!

Ignore my " NO CURTAINS" ...... It's only been a year, give me some breaks! hehe.

 I may not have a million dollar gift in these boxes, but I sure had fun decorating them! Yes, you do see some boa furr in the present on the left.

I tried to be creative with my gift wrapping this year.

Like this gift here, I made the flower for her hair and it's also her topper to her gift.

 This one here, is the gift, but inside the tulle bow, is another gift on top.... Also, we did wallet size pics as our " tags " and just stuck them to the gifts with the person's name on the back so they would have a little pic of " the campbells" for their fridge or something...

Well I have to definitely brag on my husband! ----- He not only is BUILDING a new team at work and getting things in order and dealing with new training, and agents, and hours all that too boot.... but he is also doing a wonderful job at home. He will come home and just take the baby from me to relieve me so I can have time to cook, or wrap presents, or take a bath or something non baby related for a little bit. On his days off, he's been doing his shopping, and keeping the house up. I hope that this Christmas he gets everything his heart desires! Well, maybe not a 73 inch tv we don't have room for it yet.... HAHA... But really we have been working great as a team to get through the Holidays together with as little stress as possible.

My family has been a wonderful help as well. Thank you to everyone who has been helping me with the baby while we get our schedules adjusted and through the Holidays! I love you all, and hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas. Enjoy your families and be thankful for them. Not everyone has what we have, and most that do take them for granted.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! 

Counting down.

We're on the COUNT DOWN! 7 Days til Santa comes! :-) Things have been so much fun, I haven't been too stressed. We're able to do something for everyone. It may not be much, or a lot in dollar value, but rest assure that it was very well thought out and it's from the heart!

Having my husband home in the evenings is a big help. He is here right in time to relieve me from my mommy duties, while I start dinner. We get to eat together every night, and go to bed together every night. It's amazing. We thought out all of our Christmas gifts together, and I shopped for most of them. But we're able to wrap them together. We make a great team, he wraps, I decorate. It's my favorite! There may not be a huge gift in the box, but I like to make it pretty and do what I can to surprise you. This year I have been thinking so much about what Christmas used to be like when I was growing up. I've even had some conversations with other friends about how we felt on Christmas eve. Our different traditions and memories and such. I've decided that I want to do away with how we've made things now.  I want to create wonderful memories. It's not about the fancy gifts. It's about the thoughful-ness of the act of giving. The family, and traditions. I want my children ( and myself) to have wonderful memories when they are adults.

We had some friends over and made a " ginger bread community" ( one of the traditions in the making!) Isn't it a cute little community? --- I had my house eaten. HMPH. I am going to let someone build it for me next year and I will decorate it! Kinda the same with the gift idea. hehe. All in all it was great fun. We had a blast with friends too.

My little elf is getting excited to. She just doesn't know what is coming her way!

I'm hosting my first " holiday " event here. Again, another tradition I would like to start having.

I have the Campbell family coming over on Christmas Eve. I'll be making my first HAM! Along with candy yams, whipped cheesecake, and oreo balls. I'm excited to do this and hopefully will be able to do this every year. This way on Christmas day we can just go to the big family get togethers, and we will have our Christmas morning to ourselves as a family.

christmas this year

This year, Christmas has a whole new meaning. I am so excited, and now understand why parents get so much thrill out of doing Christmas each year. I have already had fun getting stocking stuffers, and little gifts here and there for my baby girl. I know that she wont remember, and I know that she will get sooooo much but, I think that I am really more about creating traditions, and memories.

Some things that I would like to keep in tact for Christmas and raising a family are

I would like to each year go through toys and clothes to give to kids who don't have anything. ( Salvation army, etc) and I want my kids to be a big part in giving these toys away.

I want to, as a family, pick an angel off of the angel tree to go shopping for each year.

I want to do away with ' lists " I want it to be like it was in the old day when we were all just so surprised.

I want to make sure that my kids know that Christmas isn't just a holiday where santa comes and brings gifts. I want them to know the real reasons for Christmas. That we are celebrating the life of our redeemer. With out him, we are nothing.

I want to enjoy the music the whole season. This year, I really have. I have a channel in my car that has some amazing artists on it. I want to go and buy some of their cd's after hearing their Christmas music!

I want to implement traditions. Like Christmas eve dinner. And Church services. Making ginger bread houses etc....

I have about 75% of my shopping done. I still have some to do. I didn't ask anyone this year what they wanted. I wanted to be creative, and thoughful. I may not be able to give gifts that are worth $200 each, but they are all well thought out. Not one single gift this year is thought-less. Even in the wrapping, I spent lots of time being creative.

So much more to look forward to! I have to go- But I'll do a part 2 and put up some pics of the tree and such....

Our first long road trip.

This Thanksgiving we decided to go and see my family in Louisiana. It's been so long since we've been down there just to visit. We had a BLAST!

We decided to leave at 10:30 pm on Tuesday night to drive through the night, with the hopes that the baby would just sleep through the night. She had a hard time going back to sleep and if anyone said anything or anything it would startle her. So the ride down there was a little rough. We were so happy to be there the next day!

GOOD MORNING Louisianana!!!!

When Anisten woke up, we were in another state!

She finally got to meet all of her crazy cousins! And her aunt Tonya and Uncle Mark. She got some good food for Thanksgiving. ( for some reason, I didn't get any shots on Thanksgiving) Uncle mark decided to give her an oreo. I closed my eyes and walked out! From what I hear, she enjoyed it!

We went the next night to Landon and Leah's house to spend some time with them. As soon as we get there Landon takes the baby away from me and goes to the pantry to look for something for her to eat! He pulls out a pack of fig newtons and is like, " can she have this?" I figure, it's better than oreos!

 "Braden, can we catch some toons??"

 Joshua and Scott

 Leah Claire, and Scottie

 We're not sure.

 We decided to go outside and jump on the trampoline.... this turned in to UFC fighting matches.

 

We also got to see some other family that lived about an hour away. On the other side of the family. My cousin Amanda and her babies were so cute! Ashlyn is 5 months old, Hannah is 3 and Connor is almost 6. They were fun. Hannah just followed Anisten around wanting to hold her!

Well..... what is this? Another... Me???

 But your binky looks better! And my Mommy plays this game with me!

It was so much fun just being out in the country again. It's like living 15 years ago. Family is such an important part of life down there. Everyone is so close and in touch all the time.

The food was outstanding! We had so much food that we ate on it the rest of the week. Oh it was good! We stayed with my cousin Josh, who lives right around the corner ( walking distance) from Aunt Tonya where mom and dad stayed. So there for a few days the baby would just sit on our lap to drive around the corner.

We left at like 5 pm to head back home on Monday. This seemed to be a little better of a choice with the baby. She slept a little bit better on the way home.

Before we left the state of Louisiana we had to stop by a sugar cane field of course to get some fresh sugar cane!

All in all we had such a great time. We were ready to be home and back in our schedule and own bed!!!

Oh and we don't talk about the many games of spades that were played..... That's all I'm sayin!