Kentucky- Part 1

Our first stop this weekend was to visit my Aunt Sharon (and Uncle Tom). Lily is really loving opening presents, and she is an expert at it now. She was super excited about this gift! Can you tell? Aunt Sharon gave her a Dora doll with the cutest purple pj's on. Lily loved this little doll. She carried it around with her all weekend long. Below she is giving her a kiss!

Aunt Sharon also gave Lily some books for Christmas, and she gave her an adorable outfit that she will wearing on our Christmas vacation. So, you will see it later this week.

Here, Lily is being her silly self with Baba.

Lily was completely in-love with Aunt Sharon's Nutcracker that played music. She kept asking Aunt Sharon to play it again and again.

Next stop.... Pop and Mammow. Come back tomorrow for pictures and videos!

One more thing...

Lily has had some visitors over the last few days to bring her some presents. I just had to post these pictures before we take off. I wish we would have taken pictures the other night of Lily with her Aunt Lella (Ruella). She gave her an Elmo computer and a small Elmo and Ernie for her to carry around. Lily loves her very own computer!!! Then, her Aunt NeeNah (Trina) came over to give her this present... Lily is getting really good at unwrapping things now....She sees Elmo, and she is getting very curious...

Finally, here is Aunt Trina with Elmo Live. Lily loves this! He is hilarious, too. Can you tell that Elmo is Lily's favorite Sesame Street Character.

Then, this evening, Mrs. Cindy- her babysitter and her daughter, Tessa came over to bring Lily a present and spend some time with her. They have missed each other!

Mrs. Cindy got her a God's Little Princess Dress Up Set. How cute is she!!!She was very excited to see Tessa again, too! They played together for hours!

Now, we really are taking a break for the weekend! Have a terrific weekend everyone!

Have a Blessed Christmas!

I am feeling so much better, my antibiotics will be finished today, and I am so thankful for this beautiful Christmas season. We will be taking a break from blogging this weekend. Please pray for our family. We just found out that Jamie will not be getting a Christmas Bonus, and he has to majorly cut back on his hours due to the new economy problems. It has finally trickled down to his place of business. On the bright side, he will get to stay home with Lily some which will be lots of fun! We are going out of town to see Pop and my Mom's family this weekend. Then, we are going on vacation for Christmas! We will be taking our computer with us so we will blog from our vacation locations! We have really been looking forward to this break with each other.
I know there are many of you out there enjoying this first Christmas with our little blessings from God. I know I can speak for all of us when I say that we are so BLESSED this year. It has been 9 amazing months of being parents! I could never imagine life without Lily. Praise God for our daughter, our wait since we ended up with our daughter sent straight from God, and the fact that every day is a gift from Him.
Always trust an unknown future to an all-knowing God! Merry Christmas everyone!

Seeing Lily in Action

Did you like this video of Lily singing to her stuffed elephants? Could you hear her say, "Here you go?" when she handed the elephant to Jamie. That is a sentence she is always using.

The next video shows you how much Cajun loves Lily, and the opposite is true, also.

Then, you can see Lily playing her favorite game of "hiding in the closet".

Lastly, you have to see her closing the closet when she is finished playing her game. She comes up behind us and closes doors for us constantly. She is such a sweetie and an excellent helper!

Lily's Purple Daisy Dress

Daisy has been a word that Lily learned quickly, and she loves to say it. She can spot a daisy a mile away. She is constantly saying the word and pointing just for us to realize that she actually has spotted one somewhere or on something. Lily has also figured out how to climb into our bed using the footrails or should I say her own personal ladder. So, here she is climbing up to get in her night-night place!

She is quite proud of herself every time she accomplishes this feat!

She was excited about putting her dress on. She loves the daisies on it.

Lily is still saying "cheese" and smiling for the camera!

Today is the first day I have gotten to care for my child without any help from friends or family. We have had a wonderful day together. I am feeling pretty good. There is still a lot more pain than I had ever imagined, but it is going away day by day. I am just so thankful that God has gotten me to this point. Plus, the first bill is in from my doc, and the insurance paid almost all of it! Praise God! We were still worried about having trouble since there was such a mix-up before my surgery, but as usual, God has taken care of it!

Lincoln Logs, Saying Cheese, & Christmas Traditions

I have a sister who is 11 years older than I am, so my Mom waited for years for a grandchild. For those of you who don't know, Mom passed away 8 years ago. But, every Christmas she would buy some sort of toy for me or Jamie that she wanted to be ultimately passed on to her grandchild that she was waiting for. We have the most beautiful set of Chinese Checkers (wonder if she knew something way back when?), stuffed animals, board games, books, toys, and the L.L. Bean Lincoln Logs you see below. This week, our television died. Great timing, right? Me at home with nothing to do but lay around- and Pop! the tv just died. Lily was very upset, and she doesn't even watch tv that often. Anyway, Jamie used to work at an appliance store, so he made a couple of calls and that afternoon, we had a brand-new, flat screen tv sitting in our den. It is beautiful! But, we have to wait until Wednesday for someone to come and properly place it on the wall on the opposite side of the room. So, our den is a mess. We decided to pull out something new for Lily to play with this evening because Lily loves this new tv. Seriously- LOVES it! She is mesmerized by the picture. So, even though we pulled out the Logs for Lily, Jamie really enjoyed playing with them. Example below: I could just say that Lily is a genius (which she is), but I will be honest with this one.

Lily loved the Logs. She especially liked the way they sounded as she threw them into the silver, tin can! Now, as I was taking pictures of this new toy, I said, " Lily- say cheese!" and I grinned really big at her. I was just joking, by the way. The picture below is what Lily did when I said it-

How precious is that smile!

Jamie and I have been waiting for years to pass on our Christmas traditions to our daughter.

• We will wear matching pajamas every Christmas Eve. This year, we got matching pajamas from Hanna Anderson. (And pictures will be on the blog, too!)
• We will continue our 3 gift tradition since that is how many presents that Jesus was given when he was toddler. It also makes every Christmas very easy to remember. We take pictures with each opened gift.
• On Christmas morning, we have a birthday cake for Jesus. This year, we will be getting a cookie cake from The Cookie Company to take with us on our vacation.
• We also have a time on Christmas morning where we talk about what we can do for Jesus throughout the next year. Those are His presents from us.
• We listen to Christmas music all the way to our destinations and sing together as a family. Lily enjoys this immensely. If only you could hear her sing! It is adorable!
• We always make sure that Jesus is the center of our celebration!
• This year, we did not put up a big Christmas Tree. We just have a small one. But, normally, we put our tree up on Halloween (since we don't celebrate that holiday).

We hope you and your family have a wonderful, blessed Christmas enjoying all of your family traditions!

Lily's Covers

Here is our laughing Lily as she crawled up into the chair in the kitchen with Jo-Jo the other night. She laughed and laughed about this while Baba was fixing her milk. This is Lily's new thing that she has started doing. For over 8 months, Lily has hated covers in bed. I mean seriously hated. But, now, she crawls into bed at different times of the day, covers herself up, and gets the remote. It is really cracking us up! Of course, she is totally copying what we do at bedtime!

She also likes to play peek-a-boo with the covers!

I am doing better. My temperature keeps spiking at least once a day, and I can feel it as I get warmer and warmer. But, otherwise, I am moving around better. I am not going to start trying to pick Lily up quite yet due to the infection. But, she is really learning how to snuggle with me everywhere I go. She especially likes snuggling on the couch while we are watching tv. She hasn't really been interested in tv until now. I hope that I am not the cause of this new fascination! Thank you so much for all of the prayers, and thank you so much to all of the wonderful people from church who continue to bring us delicious meals! They are very much appreciated!