A Look Back at 2010

January began with 2 crazy kids about to embark on the most exciting journey of their lives! There were showers being planned, a growing belly, cravings consisting of fruity pebbles and chocolate hostess donettes, and the first of many hair bow orders off Etsy!

February brought the CRAZY blizzard of 2010, the Vancouver Olympics, CRAZY contractions, a triage visit, and bedrest filled with lots of movies and internet shopping with the kitties.

March was full of more baby showers, completing a nursery, DAYSHIFT!!!, lots of cleaning, washing tiny baby girl clothes, and more contractions!

On the 2nd day of April we were forever changed by the birth of the most precious gift, Reese Elizabeth. That month is a blur filled with late night feedings, sleepless nights, reflux, but the most joyful feeling I have ever felt in my life. We even squeezed in Andrew and I's birthdays!

May kicked off with Megan's wedding and ended with a first plane ride to Auntie Babs internship in St Louis. I also was honored to celebrate my first mother's day.

June was highlighted by a first road to San Antonio to celebrate our 2 yr wedding anniversary and Fathers Day, first time to swim, mommy going back to work, and Reese meeting her great Grandmother.

July involved a fun filled trip to the lake, a 4th of July party for our little firecracker, and a first playdate to the mall.

August included trips to the pool, our baby starting an in-home daycare which ended up being one of the biggest blessings in our lives, Reese's first movie at the drive in, and a first night in the crib!

In September we took the littlest Ranger's Fan to her 1st of 3 games and Reese sat up for the first time! We also enjoyed some more playdates!

In October Reese celebrated her 1/2 birthday and enjoyed her first trip to the zoo, 1st Halloween, and tried rice cereal!

We were abundantly blessed in November and hosted our first playdate and celebrated Thanksgiving multiple times with all the family. Oh and let's not forget our experience with hand, foot, and mouth disease!

We ended up the year with a magical December. We saw the lights on the tree and Santa through Reese's eyes. We enjoyed a first trip to Six Flags for Holiday in the park!

2011 I don't know how you can possibly beat 2010, but somehow I think you will!!!

Christmas Day Again!

So apparently Santa made 2 stops at our house this year! Probably b/c one very good little girl lives here!

The morning started off pretty rough. Lots of crying, the first runny nose of her life, and more tylenol for her fever. Reese refused to take a bottle from Auntie Babs and only wanted mommy. We ended up stripping her down to her diaper and that was honestly what helped the most. That and putting on her new Baby Noah dvd which she watched without blinking in my lap. Once she was in bed for her morning nap we decided to open presents so that when she got up we could all just focus on her.

Sisters in front of the tree with Jack and Mr Lilly. Apparently Mr Lilly needed a bath at that time Jack thought.

"Kids" in front of the tree

Reese is awake now and VERY refreshed after her nap! No fever and ready to open presents!

Modeling the cute hat front Will's mom and frame.

My little bow baby...

Reading one of her new books

Of course Aunt Kelly got her some bangles which she LOVED!

I love this face!!!! Melt my heart!

Playing with her Laugh and Learn Door from Nanny and Grampa!

She's a little monkey and likes to do stuff with her feet!

Playing with the basketball hoop from Auntie Babs and Unkie WiiWii

Grampa got Nanny and Reesie matching shirts! So cute!

We cooked a brisket for 4 hours and had that with green bean casserole, holiday potatoes, and homemade rolls! Soooo good!

I wish that Reese hadn't been sick, but I am so thankful that I was off work so that I could take care of my sweet baby while she didn't feel good! I still think she had a fun time though! We ended up taking her to the pedi that next week where it was determined that she had something viral that was almost out of her system. She is back to her normal happy self now! We are so thankful! All in all, Reese's first Christmas was our best Christmas yet!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning finally arrived! There is nothing quite like feeding your precious baby in the glow of your Christmas tree on Christmas morning. Simply magical!

We put her down in front of the tree and let her go to town! She just kind of played with the presents at first and then grabbed one and started ripping at the paper! It seemed like she wasn't her normal happy self. Still happy, but not AS happy as she normally is first thing in the morning. She had a slight temp so we gave her some tylenol and just let her open/play with her presents at her own pace.

Daddy showing her how to play with the fridge toy we picked out for her

Helping me open my present from Andrew- a photo printer!

Helping daddy open his present from us- a bike trailer for her to ride in!

She was getting really overwhelmed with everything and we could tell she wasn't feeling well so we put her down for a long morning nap. I caught this pic of Andrew playing with his new toy! He was so excited about it!

We gave the boys their stockings to "open".

They immediately went to town and ripped open the treat bag and played with their new toys. I love including the cats in Christmas!

Reese got up and I gave her a bottle and then we changed her into some cooler clothes b/c that girl was burning up!

She was much more interested in playing with the packages the toys came in instead of the toys themselves!

That poor baby just didn't feel good, and she let us know it!

I "made" us grilled cheese and soup for lunch. Reese had mummums and yummy yogurt.

Reese continued to go downhill the rest of the day. Her fever kept going up and she kept getting fussier so we did our best to keep her cooled off and happy. That involved lots of holding and cuddling which we were more than happy to do for her. She had an early bedtime that night. My parents and Abby and Will came over that night. We cooked some dinner and played some games and then called it a night! Santa was coming back to our house for round 2!

Christmas Eve

Ok! I am finally going to attempt to blog the most wonderful Christmas ever! I was so blessed to be off Christmas Eve and Day to be with my family for my baby's first Christmas! I am lucky to have a job that takes being a new mommy into account when making the schedule! On Christmas Eve we got all dressed up to head to Azle to spend the day with Andrew's family. I had so much fun dressing Reese up in her little Christmas dress. Little miss had some rosy cheecks that day, which ended up being a precursor to her first cold! :(

We took a few family pictures by the tree before heading out.

Reese with Grammee and Papa

She loved these little dancing penguins.

Cousin pic! Can't believe there are 5 now!

After a delicious lunch of chicken salad croissants and lots of chips and dips, it was time to open some presents! Reese dove right in and went to town!

She got this awesome learning walker from Grammee and Papa and has loved playing with it!

Josh showing her how to work the ball popper toy she got from the Sneads.

Playing with her cute little pots and pans set.

She was not crawling yet, but sure was trying! She's trying to go steal little Emily's present!

I had SOOO much fun just sitting with her watching her open her presents! She really loved pulling tissue paper out of bags.

Look at that sleepy baby sitting in her daddy's lap! Grammee was reading some books to the kids.

We were able to make it to the 6pm service at our church. I was hoping to get to the 4pm one since Reese goes to bed at 7, but we didn't even leave Azle until 4. We chose to sit in the back in case we needed to make an emergency exit to the crying room. I just didn't want to put her in the nursery on Christmas! I wanted her with us! She did soooo good! We had to do lots of distracting with crackers, books, toys etc. She was OBSESSED with the candles though. We had one that hadn't been lit yet so we let her play with it and she would NOT quit licking it! Once we all stood up to light our candles and sing Silent Night she went a little wild. She wanted to eat the paper thingy that came on the candle and disintegrated it within a minute so we had to confiscate it. She was NOT happy about that and started hollering so we opted to not light our candles and just sway in the back with her.

Once we got home we did a few little traditions that I could not WAIT to do. This was when the magical feeling of Christmas really started to overcome me. It brought me back to when I was little! We had her open some Christmas PJ's from us and put out some milk and cookies for Santa. I can't wait to do even more next year like write him a letter and put out food for the reindeer!

Opening her pj's...

Reese and I posing in our Christmas jammies!

She was so intrigued by the cookies! She kept grabbing them and throwing them! I made my Gramma Pulver's sugar cookie recipe that I make every year. It doesn't feel like Christmas without them!

We fed her her night time bottle and tucked her in. Then Santa came!!! I busied around making sure the house was perfect for the next morning! The boys were very interested in the presents under the tree. I hadn't put any out yet since I knew they would be completely demolished by the time Christmas rolled around!

Andrew and I made homemade pizza and watched some shows on tv! It was a very relaxing night!