Miss K loves her Pawpaw Frank

We went out to dinner with my parents, my brother and his family and my best friend and her family the night that we got into town. My dad can sure make Miss K smile big. She had a meltdown shortly after this photo was taken, but I couldn't really blame her. We had been in the car since 7 that morning and didn't make it to Baytown until after 4. It was a rough trip.

We are going to have Christmas with my brother and his family tonight, but I wanted to post this cute photo of Miss K!

Just a quick stop in....

Not that anyone actually reads this.... We are in Texas until Saturday. We've had a great time, but we've been very busy. I saw my mother for the first time in more than 6 years. It was strange because she doesn't look like I remember. She will be going back to Tennessee with us when we leave. She needs to make a fresh start in life and I am hoping that moving away from where all of her problems started will really make things better for her. My dad and stepmom have gone crazy over Miss K. And my new nephew, Landon is such a doll. It's hard to believe that Miss K was ever as small as he was, but she was!

I won't get a chance to update this again until the first of the year most likely, so I hope the two people who actually read this have a wonderful New Year!

Dreaming of Santa Claus

I don't have the picture scanned in yet, but I will try and squeeze that in tomorrow between everything else I have going on. I got Miss K's photo taken with Santa before Thanksgiving...like the first week he showed up at the mall. The Santa kept trying to turn her head towards the camera and the lighting was bad and the picture turned out awful.... So anyway, I kept saying I was going to get it redone. I just never got around to doing it....until today. Good gravy! We waited in line for an hour and 45 minutes. She was happy and laughing and talking to people, but I could sense she was about to crash. I tried to keep her awake, but as soon as we got up to the #2 spot in the line, her head hit my shoulders and she was out cold. ARG! I tried to get her to wake up, but she was out. So, Santa took her and said that they have a special pose for the sleeping babies. So, I have the cutest picture of her asleep in Santa's arm with his finger to his lips in the "hush" position. It really is cute. I am not sure if it was an hour and 45 minute wait cute, but we HAD to have a Christmas picture with Santa!

I waited until Wednesday to get her Christmas picture done. We had our family one done the first week in November and I wasn't even sure I was going to do her a Christmas photo. Then I decided I need a Christmas photo. So, here is what we ended up with! They really turned out cute. She really is a cute baby. I know that I am biased, but I still think she is cute. I had a man tonight come up to our table at dinner and tell us that Miss K was the cutest baby he'd seen in a long time. I tend to agree.

Ms. Hollye, your tree has no balls....

Those are the words I heard from my friend's son. I about choked on my drink when he said it! But he is right. I have never been a fan of ornament balls for my tree. I love the look of the handmade ornaments. Mind you....none of them were made by me. They are mainly bought at fairs, little boutiques and where ever I happen to see one that I like. I do have one or two balls on the tree. A couple of hand blown ornaments and then the ornament that my mother in law bought for my late son Jonah. My tree in no way looks like most of my friend's trees. They have trees that look like they came straight out of a magazine. My tree has character and isn't at all fussy. And I LOVE it!

Just taking a quick break....

I am wrapping and finishing up a blank scrapbook for one of the Gymboree mommies to give to her hubby. She waited until the VERY last minute to decide to make this and then it got pretty late to actually to sit down and do it today. So, luckily I found an SEI kit at Hobby Lobby. The lady checking me out said that it was considered a scrapbook album and gave it to me half off! Works for me because I was buying THREE of them. They make great gifts!

But, I wanted to post this cute photo that I took of Miss K this morning. She was in a happy mood. She is such a morning person. I have no idea where she gets that from because I am a Grumpy Gus first thing in the morning. Brian would rather sleep the morning away and totally skip it.

One of my New Years resolutions is to take at least one photo of Miss K every day. She changes so much from day to day. I can not believe that she is going to be 5 months old on Christmas Day!

My husband is a digital scrapbooker!

But I don't think he knows it! I told my sister in law that as a gift to her and my brother, I wanted to make my new nephew's birth announcements. So when Brian got home from work this evening, I asked him if we could work on a project together. He did ALL of it! I showed him a "sample" that I found at 2Peas and he went from there. I sat in the floor wrapping presents and answering any questions that he had. I think he did an awesome job for someone who had no idea what the heck he we doing! What do you think?

The Lone Shoe

The Victim

The Culprit

Poor Miss K. I've bought her 5 pairs of beautiful shoes and the picture above represents the only shoe she has left. That's right....one shoe. Not a pair of shoes...just one shoe. Maxie has systematically demolished every pair of shoes and the mate to the cupcake shoe. I was able to save this one shoe so that I could take a photo of it and do a LO about it. I laugh at it now that I look at the shoe, but at the time, I was one mad mommy! My poor child is shoeless. I don't know what it is, but Miss K's shoes are the only thing that Maxie really bothers. She did eat a pair of PJs once, but I know why she did that. I can not figure out the shoe thing though. I need to get Miss K a pair of shoes before we leave for Texas. I just hate the thought of venturing out to the mall!

ETA: After I photographed the shoe, I went to check on Miss K. Maxie snatched the shoe and ripped it to pieces before I even knew what was going on.

I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner!

Miss K and I met Brian at the mall today to get some of our Christmas shopping done. We just have a few people left to buy for...the people that are the hardest to buy for. We still didn't get all of them done. Miss K and I will take care of those tomorrow. This is also the first year that Brian and I will not be with any family for Christmas. We made the decision before Miss K was born that she would always wake up in her own bed on Christmas morning. Brian and I are both children of divorced parents and every Christmas we were somewhere different. It was very hard on both of us. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day being shuttled around to every relative's house in town. I told Brian that it was confusing for me as a child. He agreed and said that he felt the same way. Even though Miss K will only be 5 months old on Christmas Day, we are starting our own Christmas Traditions with her and that all begins with her waking up in her very own bed, in her very own home in Tennessee. Am I sad that I won't see my parents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? You bet, but I want Miss K to have some stability in her life and I want it to start from the beginning. Besides, it will be fun to have pictures taken in our Christmas PJs in front of our tree opening our presents.

Here is a photo of Miss K and Brian watching Katherine and August opening their presents at our Progressive Dinner on Sunday night. She thought they were funny running around with all the paper from the gifts. We had a great time. Miss K got some great stuff. She got some MUCH needed footed sleepers from our wonderful friends Josh, Amanda and August. She got some bath goodies and a wonderful book called The Giving Tree from our awesome friends Rob, Jennifer and Katherine. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends like these two families and the fact that we all live in the same little neighborhood is just icing on the cake. I always know that if I need something, I can just call on them to help me out. I know that when the time comes and Brian gets transferred for work again, I will be very sad to leave Tennessee.

It's his 'man corner'!

Okay, my husband is a 'manly' man. He likes to hunt, he is into sports and loves to golf. I, on the other hand, am not ANY of those things. So, imagine my surprise when I found out the man I love owned a mounted bear head. A bear that he actually killed. I was fine with it as long as the bear was living in Michigan at his parents house. Then...on my wedding night, I open the door to my hotel room and found that bear head in the bed! Yep, you read that right! But that is a whole separate post in itself! Needless to say, in the six years that we have been married, that bear head has never hung on a wall of any of the places that we've lived. Let's be honest...who wants to look at that thing? I sure don't. It freaks me out everytime I look at it.

So, a couple of weeks ago we made the decision to finish our walk in storage area. It needed insulation and sheet rock. I'm lucky enough to be married to a guy who is handy around the house. So, we start the project. I make a joke and say, "hey...this can be your man room!" So, the Saturday that Scrap It was having their open house, Brian asked me to take Miss K with me so that he could finish the storage area. We were gone from about 9am until about 3pm. When I got home, I was eager to see how the room turned out. Well, he took my words to heart and hung up all his stuff. His bear head, his signed Red Wings pennant, his numbered painting that it worth a small fortune and the gun rack that his parents had made for him. (It just happens to match the wood on the bear head mount.) I laughed and said, "well, you finally got your man room!" He just glared at me and said, "it's my man CORNER!"

He knows when you are sleeping.... He knows when you're awake

I love this Santa. My friend's son is scared of him. I wonder if Miss K is going to be freaked out by him when she is old enough to understand who he is?!

He is always the first thing I hang up when I start decorating. (I'm still decorating!!!) He always seems to make me smile when I see him.

I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to get into the holiday spirit this year. I've got my CD player filled with Christmas CDs and they are playing constantly, but even that isn't getting me into the Christmas mood. Must be because the house is such a wreck and I am so unorganized. We are having a Progressive dinner with two other families tomorrow night. I am the dessert stop. I've not decided what to make yet. I wanted to make banana pudding, but my friend Jennifer doesn't eat anything with Cool Whip in it. What's up with that? I LOVE Cool Whip!

Well, I am off to get my house in some kind of order so that I won't die of embarassment when people walk into my house. I wish Santa would leave a housekeeper in my stocking this year. That's all I want. Well, that and a 26 hour day.

Football Overload

I don't know what it is, but Miss K is obsessed with football. She will actually cry if you move her away from the television when her 'stinky boys' are on TV. A couple of weeks ago I had gone somewhere and when I came back, this is what I found....Brian and Miss K crashed in front of the television after a morning of intense football watching. I couldn't resist, so I snapped a picture. I think she looks even more like him in this picture than she normally does!

Gymboree...it's not just a clothing store!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Gymboree clothing, but I think we like 'Play at Gymboree' a 100 times more than their clothes. Miss K has been going to Gymboree since the week before Halloween and she LOVES it. Not that she really understands what is going on, but she loves seeing all the babies. She loves Gymbo the clown, which freaks me out because I am a little weirded out by clowns. But, if she likes him, that is alright with me. She likes me singing to her and I sing those goofy Gymboree songs all day long to her! Wednesday was the last day of the semester for Gymboree, but it was also the last day that our favorite teacher, Miss Katherine, was going to be teaching. She is also a professional singer and had lost her voice several times over the semester, so she made the decision to stop teaching the Gymboree classes. I was crushed. So crushed that I almost considered not signing Miss K for the next semester. I wasn't overly thrilled with the girl who was going to be teaching the classes. Okay, I will be honest, I don't care for her at all. I don't know what it is though. Maybe I was just spoiled because Miss Katherine was such a great teacher and you could chat with her and it felt like you were chatting with your sister or your best friend. Wasn't that way with the other teacher. But, I bit the bullet and signed up for another 16 week semester. If we aren't happy with the way things are going, we'll try something different. But I really think Miss K needs to be in something like Gymboree. She seems to be a very social little girl...she gets that from her mother! She also made a couple of friends in the class. Kellen, a cute little boy, but he moved up to the 6-9 month class early because that boy was crawling right after he turned 6 months. Her other friends are Eisley and Morgan-Blair. Eisley isn't taking the class next semester. She is doing Baby Signs. We think Morgan-Blair is signed up for classes, but we aren't 100% sure. It's funny because as soon as we get to Gymobree and Miss K sees them, she starts laughing and making noises. It's almost like she knows who they are.

I took my camera the last day of class so that I could get a picture of Miss K with her teacher, but I totally forgot. But Brian, who had taken the day off and went to Gymboree with us, did get a couple of pictures. That's Eisley in the "canoe" with Miss K.

Hot Chocolate for Two

Someone on 2Peas posted some gifts that she was making for her neighbors. I thought they were a really cute idea. Cone bags with hot chocolate, chocolate pieces and marshmellows. She even posted the recipe for her dad's homemade hot chocolate. So, I thought, why not? I was playing Bunco with my neighbors that week so this would be a perfect gift to give the ladies. So, off I went to Kroger to buy all the stuff. Now, my first clue should have been when the directions said, "mix in a trash bag". My second clue should have been when I spent a small fortune on all the ingreidents. Let me tell you, I thought I would be drinking hot chocolate for YEARS! I only needed to make 11 cones for Bunco. So, I made them all up nice and cute. Made little tags for them and all. Brian thought they were really neat too. That was...until I pointed to the trash bag sitting on the counter. The conversation went like this...

Brian... why is the trash on the counter
me... it's not trash, it's hot chocolate
Brian... it's what?
me... hot chocolate, but let me explain
Brian... we just cleaned the pantry out YESTERDAY and there were 3 boxes of hot chocolate in packages! Why would you buy more?
me... let me explain..
Brian... and why in the world is it in a TRASH BAG?

So, I hold up the trash bag to show him exactly WHY it is in the trash bag. At this point, he isn't too happy....

Brian... HOLLYE!
me... but it's HOMEMADE!
Brian... I guess everyone we know and some people we don't know are getting a LARGE tin of hot chocolate for Christmas. Why did you make so much?
me... well, the recipe....
Brian... you could have HALFED the recipe!
me... but aren't they cute?
Brian... yeah, they are, but what are we going to do with ALL that hot chocolate?
me... I can make some for you to give away at work?
Brian... well, that might make a small dent in the "bag"

So, I took the hot chocolate cones to Bunco and all the ladies LOVED them. One of my friends wanted to make some to give away to people that she works with, so I told her she could HAVE some of my hot chocolate. Two days later I got an email from another one of my Bunco friends and she wanted to make them for the nurses that she works with. WOOHOO...I am getting rid of some hot chocolate!

So, last night Brian and I sat down and made 30 of the cones to take to work. He actually did most of the work. He scooped the chocolate into the cones. Then while I was making the tags, he put the chocolate pieces and the marshmellows into the bags. We got 30 of them done in less than 2 hours and that was with stopping and giving Miss K her bath and a bottle, me running to Walgreens for more marshmellows, chatting on the phone with a friend from Texas trying to make plans to get together while we are there, putting Miss K back to sleep after she woke up.... And we had fun doing it. I also scooped up hot chocolate for my two friends who wanted to make cones too.

But, I still have a small boatload of hot chocolate. It's stored in a large rubbermaid container...not a trash bag.

I'm a stalker. Is there a 12 step program for me?

I have to admit it. I am a stalker. A stalker of blogs that is. Chances are, if you've got a blog, I've probably stalked it. I love looking at all of the neat blogs of people I know and even people I don't know! Does that make me creepy? I sure hope not. And another thing...I never leave comments. That is, until yesterday. My friend Tracie (I think I can call her a friend) posted on her blog that she wondered if anyone was actually reading it. So, I thought, why the heck not, I'll post and let her know I read it. The sad thing about it, as much as I stalk other's blogs, you would think I would have an awesome blog. But no, I am a total slacker. Wow...a stalker AND a slacker. I really need to get in a program for this!

Off to wrap more presents!

Pregnancy and Photos

Saturday at Scrap It's (the most wonderful place on earth) open house, we had a discussion about taking pictures of your belly when you are pregnant. I was not a happy pregnant person, so I didn't want my picture taken at all! I had a baby shower and those were the first pictures I "allowed" to be taken of me. On Sunday before I went in to be induced, my mother in law kept pestering me to let her take a picture of my belly. I refused and she wouldn't take no for an answer. Finally, my father in law said he would take a picture with me. So..here is the result of that! It is an awful picture, but heck, I was 9 months pregnant!!!!

A Mommy Milestone

So, I've been looking for a MOPS group to join since Kennedy was born. I finally got in touch with someone and got all the information about the meeting. At the end of the conversation the nice lady on the phone mentions something about child care during the meeting. Thank goodness she couldn't see the look of horror on my face. I just casually mentioned that I wasn't sure I was ready to leave Kennedy just yet.

So, Monday comes and I am getting Miss K out of the car and I see another Mommy. I ask her if she is there for the meeting and she is so wonderful and helps me get everything together and shows me inside and takes me directly to.....the nursery. I panic. What do I do? Do I look like an over protective mommy and refuse to leave my child? Do I leave her and then chew my nails down to numbs worrying the whole time? What to do? What to do? My grip was so tight on the handle of the stroller I started to lose feeling in my hand. Have I mentioned yet that I've not really left my child for any length of time with anyone? The two ladies running the infant room were wonderful and told me that I didn't have to leave her if I didn't want to, but if I did, they would take wonderful care of her. I took a chance and left her and held back the tears as I walked down the stairs. About 30 minutes into the meeting I had to go check on her. I looked through the window and one of the ladies was bouncing her around and she was giggling. I didn't want her to see me and then get upset, so I went back to the meeting and enjoyed myself. When I went to pick her up at noon, she was all smiles. The whole experience was tramatic for Mommy, but didn't phase Miss K one bit!

I am just really starting to get into this whole blogging thing, so if anyone is actually reading this, I will start updating it more! Seems all of a sudden, I have things I want to say! Here is a recent picture of Miss K.

Pumpkin Kennedy

Yep, that is my child sitting in a pumpkin! My friend Melany gave me this idea. I lugged this 70 pound pumpkin home and got Brian to hollow it out for me and yhen plopped Kennedy inside. As you can tell from the photo, she is not pleases at all to be sitting in the pumpkin. In fact, she didn't smile at all, but cried toward the end, so Brian made me take her out. The really neat thing was, after we took the pictures of Kennedy, we carved the pumpkin up and and put it on the porch. It looked really great. But, it was so big that I had to put one of those large glass jar candles in it to get it to light up.