A Few of my Favorite Things

Sophie with her Little People dollhouse

Sophie and her new doll

Sophie driving her new car

our family on Christmas Day

By Christmas morning, Sophie was feeling a lot better. It was really neat to watch her when we told her that Santa had brought her some things for Christmas. (Before Christmas she was worried about seeing Santa when he came to our house because she's scared of him.) Anyways, the main thing that she wanted for Christmas was a baby doll with a passy and a bottle. Santa brought her a baby doll and a Little People dollhouse and she loved both of them. She also got a cool tunnel system that's pretty big but will be fun to set up in our house some this winter. Thanks to Luke B. and his mom for telling us about the tunnel thing. Sophie also got a lot of other cool things for Christmas but one of her other favorites was a new car. It's nothing too fancy but she told us a few months ago that she'd like a car. I'm sure she would have loved one of the motorized ones or whatever but she is having a great time with this one that Nana and Paw-paw brought her. Yesterday Sophie said, "Mama, I'm in my new car. Take my picture." She's been riding around the house in it but I told her it will end up out in the garage soon! =) You can tell from the picture above that Paula is definitely getting closer to the due date-only 4 more weeks!

Christmas Festivities

Matt & Paula-early December before a Christmas party

Camden, Sophie & Kate at the park on a very warm December day

Martha, Sophie & Santa (AKA Uncle Phil)

Paw-paw, Uncle Phil, Nana, Aunt Martha, Sophie, Paula & Matt

I just thought I'd post a few random pictures together. Sophie loves to go to the park and play with her friends. It is really too cute to see Sophie & Kate together because their hair color is very similar and their coloring, plus they were born only 1 day apart.

Sophie had requested that Uncle Phil dress up as Santa Claus but when he made a special appearance at our house on Christmas Eve she was scared. She didn't want to go to him unless he took the beard off. The week before Christmas, Sophie felt terrible because she had a really bad cough. They said that it was a virus and she ran a fever for a couple of days. We were at the doctor the Friday before Christmas. I hated it that Sophie felt so bad because Matt's parents and sister, as well as his aunt and uncle were down here visiting us for Christmas. Well, that weekend, she started sleeping better and her cough wasn't as bad. On Sunday night though (after Matt's family had left), every time Sophie tried to lay down and go to sleep she started crying. We knew that something wasn't right. On Monday morning we could tell that one of her ears looked bad. We went back to the doctor on Christmas Eve morning and they said that the membrane of her ear drum had been perforated. They put her on an antibiotic. That afternoon, we celebrated with Paw-paw's side of the family at Uncle Mike & Aunt Shannon's. Above, is a picture from that night. Sophie was already feeling better once the pressure on her ear was relieved and we started the antibiotic!

Merry Christmas!

Here's Sophie who has gotten so big in front of our tree. It kind of makes me sad to see how grown up she is becoming. At the same time though, I'm really proud of her and I love being able to converse with her more and more. I can't believe (and yet I sort of can) that we are about to have another baby! It's harder to sleep, harder to bend down, etc. When I see the countdown on our blog page, I'm thinking, "Whoa, we are getting really close. Am I ready for this?" Anyway, it will be neat for Sophie to be a big sister. She is so nurturing with her baby dolls so we'll see how she does with a real baby who is demanding our attention.

So far, getting ready for Christmas (and including Sophie in some of the traditions) has been really fun. She was so excited for us to get our Christmas trees put up a couple of weeks ago. She loved being able to put a few of the special non-breakable ornaments on the bottom of the tree that I had saved for her. She also got to help me decorate our little tabletop tree. She has enjoyed getting to see the Christmas light displays around town, helping me to put some of the presents under the tree, doing an advent calendar, making cute Christmas crafts at school, etc. The not so fun part about December is that this is the 2nd time that Sophie's had a really bad cough and a fever where she can't sleep well. The timing wasn't great because Matt's family came in to spend an early Christmas with us yesterday and today. Oh, well. It's just one of those things I guess.

We visited a house in Nashville with a huge light display on Friday night. Sophie loved seeing all the lights and lawn ornaments.

Clark Griswold did the electrical work for this light display as shown in this photo.

Breakfast with Santa

Cheese! Come on, hurry up! I'm squinting and smiling as much as I can. I've even got my hands fisted!

This past Saturday, we went to breakfast with Santa at our church. It was our 1st time to go and so we were excited. So far this year, Sophie's been excited about Santa but then won't have anything to do with him up close. Anyways, we sang Christmas carols as a large group, had a light breakfast, and then the kids had lots of crafts to keep them entertained while we waited to have our picture made with Santa. It was pretty wild because there were about 500 people total! Kids, their parents, and a few grandparents. Sophie sat with her Mama for the picture with Santa & Mrs. Claus but she didn't cry or anything. Our picture just turned out OK. Of our family, Matt's the only one really smiling. We took the above picture of Sophie as we waited. She started out with a normal smile and then she just keep cheesing and squinting more and more! =)
This week, her cough and runny nose have returned so she's not feeling well.