Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with my Dad's side of the family at my Grandmother Mawmaw's house. We ate sub sandwiches and then commenced our gift opening. Dad and Little Bruce (that is what we called him when we were young because he is Bruce III) were the MC's and regulated the gift giving as usual. Addie ignored the "rules" and started passing out gifts, haha! We decided to do a PJ night so we'd all be comfortable. Once all gifts were opened, we played a round of Dirty Santa with fun socks and I have to say I am pretty darn pleased with my orange striped fuzzy slipper socks. We had a really great time and got some great gifts! I love our tradition of Christmas Eve with the Woody's, we always have a blast!

The headless bear is a funny story I had to document. Around 12 years back, Katie bought Mawmaw this bear for Christmas. This was when we would take our few dollars and Mom took us to the dollar store to pick out presents for our family. Katie, Scott, and I would excitedly shop around the dollar store, finding gifts for each person, and often came out with glass figurines. Mom has about a billion glass Santa's resulting from our shopping the the "tree". So we'd wrap up our gifts, and on Christmas Eve we'd meet at Mawmaw's for the Woody side of Christmas celebrations. Well APPARENTLY Mawmaw's got dropped at some point in time because Mawmaw opens her gift from Katie, pulls the bear from the box, and the head falls off and rolls across the floor!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! We all died laughing, almost peeing ourselves, and to this day, the bear sits in Mawmaw's living room on the TV, with his head propped on. We have a nice giggle about the headless bear each Christmas Eve.

Moving on...

Here is Addie opening her Ni Hao Kai-Lan gift from cousin Leo. (Leo is Bruce Leonard the IV). She was thrilled!

Addie presenting Leo with his first present...

Addie's fake smile

Addie opening her singing penguin from Great Grandmother Mawmaw. She loved it!

So she gave Mawmaw a sugar for it.

Then later that night Santa came to visit our house. Addie made out pretty good but Santa was a loser and forgot to fill her stocking that night, but luckily left the goodies at our house, so Addie got her stocking once we got home after celebrations Christmas Day. Oops.

Also notice our tree is once again leaning. This must be a tradition with us, because for the past three years it has leaned. This year we even bought a new tree stand to try to help things out as the tree always seems to be laying on the couch, and it helped some... but still crooked.

10!

So I have to brag on my little one for a minute. Addie has been counting for 10 since around her birthday but I could never get her to do it on command. Finally a few weeks ago she did it for Jarom and Mom so they didn't think I was nuts. Today I came up with a way to get her to do it for me when I wanted... a little bribery never hurt anyone... right?? Pink M&M's work wonders.

***BLOGGER IS HAVING VIDEO ISSUES (I checked their site)!!! Check newest post for video.

Addie had her two year check up last Friday and she made it on the growth chart for weight! I think this is due largely in part for her love of peanut butter. The girl is just like her Gramps in that she will down spoon after spoon of peanut butter. She loves the stuff. Her percentiles were: 1% weight, weighing in at 21.8 lbs, 37% height at 33 1/2 inches tall, and 21% head at 47 cm. The doctor was pleased with her growth and development and said they don't expect kids to count to 10 until kindergarten, yay Addie! Addie says the most ridiculous things now too... yesterday's was "I'm SO excited!!!" when we had to stop for a train.

On another note... I still haven't broken Addie from sleeping in our room. I know it is past due time, but she is in her OWN bed... just in our room. The doctor said for me to pick my battles, and that this one isn't worth fighting until Addie is a little more mature. I have to agree with her at this point. We will hopefully move soon and will revisit the issue then.

Christmas PJs from Nuna

It is nearly impossible to get a clear picture of these 5 all looking at the camera on a cloudy day without a flash! More to come.

The hunt for the perfect tree!

This post is SO late... Oh well. The weekend after Thanksgiving we always head out to the Christmas tree farm to cut a tree for our home. Addie loved it last year and this year was no different.

Addie picked out a "tree" (branch someone had discarded) and drug it all over the farm, looking for our car. Addie thought it was a big maze and we had lots of games of hide and seek at the farm. Notice the huge wad of chewing gum in her mouth. She begs for gum and chews it, then hands it to either Jarom or me when she is done...yuck. Jarom found and cut the "perfect tree" for Mom and Dad... ;) This little one is ALL about C-A-N-D-Y! She's definitely our little sugar bug.Happy to have our tree!

Pre-Christmas Fun

The Tuesday before Christmas Ashley and Maclane came over for some Christmas cookie baking. The girls were wild with excitement and after helping to start the cookies they were over it and wanted to play with the little kitchen in Addie's bedroom so we never even bothered icing the cookies. Here are a few pictures of our pretty little chefs.

And the week before we made a trip to the mall to get Jarom's hair cut. The lady at the hair salon asked Addie if she was going to go see Santa and so Addie was persistent after that about wanting to go see him. So after Jarom was done we headed down with me expecting Addie to be freaked about a stranger. We walked by Santa and stopped at the side to show him to Addie and he saw us peering and bribed Addie to come over to him with a coloring book which she snatched and ran back to us with. Then he bribed her with a hat, and she ran back to us again. Then I told her to tell Santa thank you so she walked back over to him and he asked her if he could pick her up and she agreed! She sat in Santa's lap while he chatted with her, then we headed home. It was a very slow day for Santa, but for that I am grateful because Addie got the time she needed to warm up to him and now LOVES to see Santa!

Here is Addie with her stash from Santa. Next time you see Addie ask her what Santa brought her and she will tell you a hat and a book. She has a great memory! Never mind the tricycle, barbies, and other fun things Santa left at our house! :)

P.S. Be sure to scroll down for my other recent post!

Five Years.

I started this post back on November 19th last year... our anniversary and totally forgot about it until I was scanning my blog posts today. Please excuse the poor pictures, my lens is not a macro but I wanted to document my new favorite thing!

I can't believe it's already been five years married to my hubby. Time goes quickly, but when I think back, it seems like we've always been together! Jarom and I decided not to celebrate until Saturday since he had school on Thursday nights. We went out to New Moon (woohoo!) and to Longhorn for dinner (YUM!). We had such a good time together, and realized we need more date nights. We often get caught in the shuffle of life and it will be a couple of months in between each "date".

5 Things I love about my Hubby

1. He is so laid back! Honestly, sometimes this irritates me because I can be so uptight about things, but MOST of the time I love it. He doesn't care if I serve him cold cereal or steak for dinner... seriously. He is so easy to please!

2. He is such a good dad. Addie adores him and he is wrapped around her little finger. I love how comfortable he's gotten with her over the last two years. He was so nervous to be left alone with her for the first year, but now he's used to it, and does a great job. I love our moments when we laugh together over something sweet Addie does or when he and Addie play "tricks" on me.

3. Jarom is such a hard worker. He works a minimum of 60 hours a week with his job and is going to school at nights to get his degree. I know it is so hard on him, but I love that he wants me at home with Addie and does what is needed to make it happen. I love my time with my little girl. I also love that he's worked school out so that most of it is online (the exception is math and sciences) so that he has more time at home with us.

4. Jarom is really creative and a big dreamer. I love that he isn't the type to be fine with a teeny house or a so-so job. He is always looking for ways to improve things. Jarom wants to have our "dream house" sooner than later, he wants to be in a job that requires less hours so we can have more family time, and he wants good things for us, so he comes up with ways to make these things happen and I love it. He is so much like his Dad in that they are always coming up with new inventions or money making ideas. I tend to me more afraid to take risks, so together I think we have a pretty good balance.

5. I know this is a little something, but it means so much and is one of my favorite things Jarom does. Every morning before Jarom leaves for work, he makes sure to give me a kiss and tell me that he loves me. Then he goes and kisses Addie while she sleeps and watches her sleep for a minute with a grin on his face before he goes. If Addie happens to open an eye while he is up in the morning he jumps on the opportunity to talk to her before he leaves (much to my dismay sometimes if we've had a late night, haha!).

There are so many other things I love about Jarom and our marriage, but those are just a few of my favorites.

Before on the left and after on the right!

For our anniversary Jarom upgraded my ring like he promised he would when we first got married. My other one wasn't in good shape and needed some costly repairs (including redipping it since it looks like yellow gold above when it was white gold) and was rather tiny (we were beyond poor when we got married). We got an amazing deal at Billy Mitchell Jewelers out at Diamond Hollow Farm in Moulton. It is about an hour and 15 minute drive from our house, but his price was about 1/3 of anywhere else we went (and trust me, we went to at least 6 jewelers and I shopped online for months). He apparently sells to places like Zales and Kay and he just recently started advertising (before he was only by word of mouth).

The detail on the sides of the ring is the same on the wedding band too!

I got Jarom his first Flight Lesson for our anniversary. He wants to get his private pilot license so I figure if I buy him a lesson for Christmas, his birthday, etc. he'll get his license before we are 50...haha! He'd like to be able to fly, so we'll see how the lesson goes and then consider more lessons after that. His new found obsession with flying came after a guy in our ward took him out flying and let Jarom fly for a few minutes. He had such a good time and got some fun sky pictures (that I'll post if I ever get my laptop back from my hubby- he's been working in Decatur the last month pretty much every day so I am stuck here with only my picture-less desktop).

Here's to another 5 fun filled years, followed by eternity!