Christmas

I have to say this year has been one of my favorite Christmases.  Cecilia is at the age where Christmas is really fun for her and we got excited just watching her.

 

Christmas Eve, we had dinner and opened presents at my parent's.






 

 

And we ended the night like always at our church's midnight service.

 

Christmas Day, Cecilia gave Brent and I the gift of sleeping in.  It was greatly appreciated!

 

My parents, brother and sister-in-law came over that morning for breakfast and to watch C open her gifts.

 

She got lots of fun goodies that keep her busy all day.

 

Christmas night, we headed to my Nanny's for more food and presents.

 

We've had lots of fun so far and there is still more to come!  Up next, my Granny's and Brent's family.

Tis the Season...

to be sick!

 

We've had a pretty awful/sleepless/snotty week but it is the holidays and they wouldn't be complete without C being sick.

 

She woke up Tuesday not feeling well and had a slight temp.  We kept her home and when I called the school to let them know, they informed me that they had to send a bunch of kids home on Monday for fevers.  Fabulous. 

By Tuesday afternoon she was fine and bouncing off the walls.  I still kept her out of school on Wednesday just in case and C enjoyed the day with my Nanny.  We thought all was well until yesterday.

 

2 hours after dropping C off at school, I get a call to come get her.  She had a coughing fit that didn't end well so she had to go home.  Que my dad to the rescue.  He was able to stay with her until I got off to take her to the doctor.

 

They ended up testing her for both RSV and the flu.  Thankfully both came back negative!!  Music to my ears!  The doctor said she just had a bad cold.  YAY!!!!  Well not yay that she is sick but yay that its nothing major.

 

With this good news, we were able to go to my friend, Kelly's house.  She was a having several of us over for dinner because a good college friend of ours, Ryan, was stopping in town to visit.  We haven't seen Ryan in 10 years and we used to have so much fun with him.  He and Brent played college baseball together and we all lived in the same dorm so we did lots of memory lane walking.  And we learned that after 10 years things haven't changed with us.  We used to sit in our dorm room laughing and listening to Ryan come up with the most off the wall stuff.  The kid is crazy and we have missed him dearly.

 

And we weren't the only ones having a good time.  Cecilia had the time of her life!  She was running around chasing the 2 dogs that were there, playing and talking to anyone that would give her a few minutes.  She was even giving the guys there the time of day which never happens.  I saw her reading with my friend, Abby's husband, she was playing a hiding game with Kelly's husband and then was playing with Ryan.  Kelly kept saying 'yeah she is really shy.'  Seriously, I don't know what was up with her but she was Ms. Social.

 

It was so nice catching up with Ryan and getting to hang out with everyone before the holidays.  Thanks Kelly for hosting such a fun night!

Our Weekend

I can't remember when we've had a busier weekend where we didn't have actual plans.  We have run ourselves to death this weekend.

 

Saturday was spent running a thousand errands, all 3 of us getting haircuts, and shopping for an angel tree child we picked up as a family.

 

One of the errands was a trip to my Nanny's house to pick up the curtains she has been working on for C's room.

 

I was pretty excited to finally get them back and hung in C's room.  I think they look pretty fabulous!

 

I bought a shower curtain, had her cut it in half to make 2 panels then had her add ruffles to the bottom to make them long enough.

 

 

 

They are so cute and make the whole room!  Brent even commented on them (in a good way) which HUGE!

 

Her room is seriously becoming my favorite room of the house.  She is even spending a lot more time in there.

 

Sunday after church, we made yet another trip to town to do more shopping!  Thankfully Target was our only major stop.  I love to shop but hauling around a 30 pound kid and getting her in and out of her car seat, wears a person out.  She was over it by Sunday too.

 

Thankfully, we were home early and spend the rest of the day relaxing.

 

 

Well they relaxed.  I had another fight with my Christmas tree.  The day after Christmas I'm having a huge bonfire.

She Rocked It!!!

Last night was Cecilia's school play.

 

 

They put on a pretty cute little play and all the classes get to participate.  Cecilia's class sang Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.  She has been singing this song for the past month and boy did it pay off!

(she is the one front and center)

 

Girlfriend rocked the stage!!! 

 

She was the only one from her class that sang and it was the cutest thing ever!  I got a video but it didn't turn out as well as I hoped.  Of course you can't hear much because her classmate screaming at the top of his lungs for his mother.

 

  Exit stage left please.

 

I had told her that if she did good and sang, that we would take her to get ice cream afterwards.  It was the first thing she asked about when she got done!

 

 

She deserved it!

 

 

Brent and I are so proud of her for getting up there in front of all those people and doing as she was told.  She was pretty proud of herself too!

I'm 2 seconds from chucking it out the window

I have declared this is the last year for us to have a pre-lit tree.  They are completely worthless and drive me NUTS!!!

 

First off it takes both Brent and I 30 minutes or more to figure out the right plug in combo for all our lights to come on.  Second, random strands of lights decide to go out.  One going out at 10pm the night before I had Alicia and Emily over at the house and had NO spare lights.  Really!  I had to take down 60% of the tree, turn the stupid thing around and redecorate.

 

Over the weekend, I got some spare lights from my mom and put them on only to find out they were 2 different colors!!  Who knew there were 2 different shades of clear lights.  Mom swears you can't really tell so I'm just going to deal with it.

 

Then Brent and I were sitting on the couch the other night and all of a sudden it gets a little darker in the room.  We both look towards the tree and find this...

 

 

Seriously?  The whole top of that stupid tree is out!!!  If I hadn't been so involved in a book, I would have yanked that tree down and chucked in the front yard!

 

What's even worse is now I'm in the market for a new tree and have mercy I hate shopping for a new tree.  But you can bet your sweet hiney it WON'T be a pre-lit one!

 

I'm thinking of getting a little crazy and buying a white one.  Brent tells me he has always wanted a white tree so I just might make the boy's dream come true.

 

Little Helper

Saturday my dad was raking the leaves while Cecilia and I were down hanging out and asked if C would want to play in them.

 

 

She wasn't sure at first so I took off running with her and jumped in.  She loved it!

 

 

We started throwing the leaving up and then I started tossing her in by herself.

 

My dad moved on to a different pile so C could still play.  Well her playtime didn't last much longer because she decided she needed to help Pap.

 

She "helped" him move his trailer to the road so they could load the leaves up.  Then started grabbing handfuls and putting them in the trailer.

 

 

 

 

She even helped out with the raking. 

 

 

She was so cute out there helping my dad.  She would come hang around my mom and I for a minute then tell us she needed to go see Pap.

 

And apparently she did such a good job that she got a little moola at the end of the day!

I've become a major slacker in posting and I really hate playing catch up on so many days but that's life.

 

On Thanksgiving, we started our day watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and stayed in our pj's until after lunch.  After showers, we headed to my parent's for Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's side of the family.  I was super awesome and documented the whole thing...NOT.  My camera stayed in my purse the entire night and I didn't get a single picture!  Good thing I bought that new camera to document our lives.

 

Friday, Brent had to work so C and I stayed at home and chilled.  I'm not much of a Black Friday shopper but decided I wanted to go out later once all the madness settled.  My parents offered to come hang out with C so Brent and I got a date night!  Sweet!

 

We went to dinner then hit a few stores.  Just as I had hoped, the stores were clear and we were able to get 95% of our Christmas shopping done!  And I still got all the deals I needed!  I even managed to shop for our Christmas angel for work.  Score!

 

Saturday, we decked the halls at the Miller house.  Or at least got started.

 

 

Cecilia is really into Christmas this year and is fascinated with our Christmas trees.  This year is going to be really fun at our house!

 

And I'm enjoying our nights on the couch with just our tree lights on.

 

Oh and look at me, I even have some gifts under the tree already.  They just need bows.

 

While Brent and I were shopping on Friday, we noticed that our mall has a little train for the kids to ride.  Being the awesome parents we are, we took Cecilia to the mall on Sunday to ride.

 

She was beside herself!  I got volunteered to ride with her and she thought it was the coolest thing ever!

 

 

She talked about it the rest of the day.  We might have to go back and get Daddy to ride too!  :)

 

We had a really nice long weekend and looking forward to Christmas festivities coming up.

Early Thanksgiving

This weekend, we loaded up and headed to Muncie for an early Thanksgiving celebration.

 

 

 

Cecilia had so much fun playing with everybody.

 

She was fascinated by Shaffer and I even got her to sing to him!

 

Her and Nora were so cute together!

 

They played, they laughed and they danced.

 

Cecilia was not very happy when it was time to say goodbye but we promised her it wouldn't  be long before our next visit.

 

Diva seemed satisfied with that answer.

 

Sick Day

Tuesday, Cecilia and I had to take a sick day.  She had complained to my mom off and on all Monday that her belly hurt but never got sick.  She was pretty restless through the night and by Tuesday morning I could tell she wasn't 100% so we stayed home.

 

 

And this is what we did most of the day.

 

We laid around watching movies and C took a nice LONG nap while I caught up on some work.

 

Thankfully she was back to her ole self Tuesday night.  I'm hoping that this will be our last icky germs until after the holidays.

Weekend Warrior

Brent labeled me the Weekend Warrior this weekend.  I had a goal set and I was bound and determined to get it done.

My project:  Cecilia's Room Redo.

It started on Friday night.  I moved the furniture, move C's mattress to our room and started trimming out the walls.  C was a little excited about the mattress move.

She has bounced and played on it all weekend.  I will be remembering this for a rainy/snowy day.

Saturday morning, I hit the floor running.  Brent had to work later that day so I HAD to get it done before he left.  Mission accomplished but not without some blisters.  Yikes!  Her room isn't completely finished.  I have a few more accessories to get, shelves to hang and curtains to hang but I'm over the biggest hurdle.

I love how it turned out and C is pretty happy too.  She made me a little nervous yesterday when Brent asked if she liked the pink or blue walls better, she said pink.

Thankfully after it was all done, she loved it!

And because I thought C should have a little fun of her own, we made cupcakes while we waited for the paint to dry.

She loves being in the kitchen and was proud of how they turned out.

My hands are blistered, my back hurts but my project list is getting shorter and that makes it all worth it.

Trick or Treat

Cecilia's Halloween started at school.

 

 

Everyone was to wear orange and black and the day was filled with games, crafts and tons of junk food.  Each class at school hosted a different activity and the kids had a blast!

 

On Halloween night, we headed down to Franklin to trick or treat so that my family could see Cecilia.  We typically just trick or treat in my parent's neighborhood which consists of 8 people I've known my entire life.

 

 

Cecilia was super excited about trick or treating.  We worked with her on knocking on doors and saying trick or treat but when it came down to it, she wouldn't do it.  Not even at my parent's.

 

 

 

She still managed to rack up and got so excited every time we left a house with candy.

 

Brent went along to play driver since it was so cold.  He also managed to play paparazzi.

Look at that window.  Does that not look like a ghost?

 

 

 

My grandmothers came over later to have dinner with us and to see Cecilia.  She was bouncing off the walls all night!  I wasn't sure she would ever go to sleep.  I was dead from putting on a show at each house since Cecilia played mute.  Maybe next year she'll go as a Mime.

 

The main thing was she had a blast and thinks Halloween is the greatest thing.  We are still talking about trick or treating and she is in awe that all that candy is hers.

 

Halloween kicks off the season of holidays and I can't wait!