Christmas Eve

We returned home on Christmas Eve around lunch-time.  Mom and Smith got to our house shortly afterward.  Before we knew it, it was time to head to church for the children's service.  If our son wasn't such a wild man and could stay still for more than 2 seconds at a time, we would have enjoyed this service much more, but I'm still happy that we went and tried out the children's service.

When we got home from church, we decorated sugar cookies.  We all know that Santa needs some pretty cookies to keep him going all night!

Afterwards, Sims got to open his Christmas Eve gift, which we are hoping is the beginning of a Christmas Eve tradition.  We want to give him a Christmas book every year that we can all read before going to bed.  Since this boy loves his books, we thought he would like to have a growing collection of Christmas books to read every year.

That pretty much sums up our Christmas Eve.  It seemed much more busy than it seems while writing this.  Go figure!

Christmas Update

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We definitely did.  For the past 10 days we have either been visiting family or had family visiting us.  It has been busy and exhausting, but we have loved it!  Before Christmas we spent some time in Charlotte with Jason's family.  We had our Christmas celebration on Christmas Adam, which is what my family calls the day before Christmas Eve.  This was just the beginning of many days of Sims opening presents.  I was worried that he was starting to expect a present every day!

Sims and his cousin Zack loved entertaining themselves with a doll stroller.  Sims amazingly fit into the stroller, and Zack raced around the house pushing him.

Sims also enjoyed pushing his elephant around in the stroller.

This was such a cute picture of Zack that I had to include it.  Look at those beautiful blue eyes!

Our time in Charlotte was low key and relaxing, but it went by very quickly!  On the morning of Christmas Eve, we rushed back home to go to church that afternoon.  I'll post about that tomorrow.

Another Santa visit and other Christmas stuff

On Friday, the art museum had a Christmas event for children.  Santa was there, of course, and Sims was much more comfortable this time.  We even got a silly smile out of him!

We even decided to get a family picture with 'ole Saint Nick.

They had a jazz trio playing Christmas music, and Sims loved dancing to it.  He was so serious while dancing.  A little girl came up to him at one point and wanted to hold his hand.  He gave her a look that said, "Can't you see that I'm dancing here?"  It was sweet and funny.

We spent the rest of the weekend putting the final touches on the holiday decorations and baking cookies.  I think Jason took a picture of me baking for proof that I actually made them.

I'm so glad that the house is decorated, and we can now enjoy it!  I love our Christmas tree.  I feel that the tree should go all the way to the ceiling, and this year we actually had to cut some off the top for it to fit.  In other words, it is perfect!  Here are a couple of pictures.  I will hopefully post more later.

Visit with Santa

Last night, we finally got to visit Santa.  I was very unsure about how Sims was going to react, but we have been preparing for this for a while now.  We've been reading lots of books about Santa.  I've, also, tried to talk about Santa, explaining what to expect on Christmas Day and why Santa comes to visit.  Obviously, it worked!  Sims did great on Santa's lap and waved hello and goodbye to Santa.

I'm so glad that Sims did better than I ever did, considering there are no childhood pictures of me on Santa's lap.  I was scared to death of him!

Jingle Bell Jog

At work on Friday, a group of the staff participated in NC State's annual Jingle Bell Jog.  Our group was the Rockin' Reindeers, so we tried to dress the part a bit, while keeping warm in the 39 degree weather.

It was a 2 mile walk/run (our group walked), and we were the only non-student group participating.  We're planning on doing it again next year, and I'm in charge of picking the team name.  Luckily I have a year to think of something good.  Knowing this group, we will need to have a name that easily lends itself to costumes.  I'm thinking something with Santa in the title, and we can all wear Santas hats?

So many stuffed animals, so little time

Lately, Sims has wanted to spend time in his crib with a pile of his stuffed animals.  It all starts with him picking up my old doll.  He will hug it, then he gestures that he wants it put in the crib.  Then he will try to climb in the crib to be with the doll, so into the crib I put him.  After that, he gestures for each of his stuffed animals to come in the crib with him.  He thinks this is great fun!

That is until he realizes that he has run out of the stuffed animals within view.

Don't worry about this poor little boy though.  He has more stuffed animals in our living room and others strewn about the house.  There is no stuffed animal shortage at our house!

Sims meets Isla

Finally! Ond Sunday, Sims got to meet his newest cousin. 


The proud grandmother with her 2 grandchildren

 I knew Sims would be happy to see Isla.  He loves babies and is very sweet to one of my childhood dolls with which I let him play.  He always hugs and kisses the doll, and so it was no surprise when he wanted to kiss Isla.

What I wasn't sure about was how he would react when I held Isla.  Jason captured the moment hilarously!

He walked right up to us and immediately wanted to hug her!  Before we could stop him, he was pulling her head close to him to give her a big hug.  Thank goodness babies are flexible!

Alex and Neely seem to be taking parenthood in stride.  Neely was all dressed and looking beautiful!  I think I was still wearing my pajamas all day, when Sims was 2 weeks old.

Isla is such a cutie-pie!  We all just love her so much!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

We were very surprised, when we looked out the window after lunch on Saturday, to see it snowing!  We had heard that it was going to snow overnight on Saturday (Sunday actually) but nothing was going to stick. I didn't think much about it. You know, if I don't see it, it didn't happen, right? 

Not only did we get to see it snowing, but it stuck!  We got about an inch or so, and the roads were fine.  It was really the perfect weekend snow experience.  (During the week, the perfect snow would have involved the roads being covered so I couldn't go to work.)  To take advantage of this, we went to Bond Park.  The town of Cary had a winter wonderland sledding area set up for the weekend, which involved homemade snow on the big hill.  Do you see the irony here?

You can see the sledding hill on the right.  There was even a group of guys playing football in the snow.

Sims seemed to have a ball.  So much so that he didn't want to stop to get a picture with me, but we finally got one.

I don't remember if we have ever had snow during the Christmas season.  I could definitely get used to it!  I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Fallen Leaves

When you have a ton of deciduous trees in your yard, autumn usually means a lot of work.  Every year we kind of dread all the blowing and raking of leaves, but this year we have someone in our family who feels very different about this.

This Sunday, Sims had a big 'ole time out in the leaf piles!  At first, he was cautious, but we could tell that he liked it.  The next thing we knew, he was having a blast.



Singing and doing the motions to Sims' favorite song "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee"



I think that Jason had as much fun as Sims.  This definitely changes our perspective on all the fallen leaves in our yard.

Thanksgiving

We visited Jason's parents in Charlotte for Thanksgiving.  We had lots of fun and enjoyed spending time with his family and eating wonderful food.

I think Sims' favorite thing was hanging out with his cousin Zack.

It was a short trip, unfortunately, but we'll be back soon.  Christmas will be here sooner than we think! 

Speaking of Christmas, my house already has some of our holiday decorations up, and I love it!  Sims has a tree in his room, and we have trees in the dining room and kitchen.  We're going to go get our big tree on Friday.  I think I've gone Christmas tree crazy!  But it's great!

More of Isla

As promised, here are some more pictures of my new niece Isla.
 

Isla with her dad

Isla with her mom

Finally home

It's hard to believe, but Sims still hasn't met his new cousin yet.  He had a runny nose, when she was born, so we didn't want to subject Isla and her family to all his possible germs.  Then this past weekend, Jason thought he was coming down with a cold.  This weekend Sims will have to meet Isla, even if we have to keep him in a bubble!  I bet she has changed so much since I last saw her on Wednesday!

Baby Isla

If you have been wondering why I haven't posted any updates this week, here is why.  I have a new niece! 

Isla Morgan Pollard was born on Monday at 3:00 pm.  She was 8 lbs. and 20.5 inches long.  Everyone is doing great.  We are all enjoying being with this beautiful little baby!  What a sweetheart! 

I will post more pictures soon (or after Thanksgiving.)  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Autumn Weekend

We didn't make it to the homecoming parade on Friday night.  Jason played golf that afternoon and got home later than we had planned.  We still tried to make it to the parade, but all the roads were closed nearby.  Since it was already halfway over, we decided that parking a half mile away wasn't going to work.  Oh, well, there's always next year.  We ended up going to eat Italian food with the whole family instead, so that makes up for it!

Saturday we all got up and met Alex and Neely for breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Since the weather was so nice and we were close to the airport, we decided to all go to the observation park and watch the airplanes.  I think this is Sims' favorite place in the whole world!  All the excitement wore him out.  When we left, he fell asleep before we were out of the airport.

Mom and Smith left after lunch on Saturday, and we didn't have any plans.  We spent the afternoon outside hanging out, and Sims helped Jason do some yard work.

Anyone notice that grass?  What a difference a month and a half makes, huh?  Remember the desert we had?  It's gone!  Now we have a lush, green lawn.  Thank goodness for a good lawn company!  (Now, let's pray that we can keep it through the summer drought.) 

Who can say no to this face? This was obviously when I put the camera down to pick him up.

Sunday was filled with church and a church dinner for families with children under 3 years old.  It was really fun.  Sims is getting old enough that he can go play, and we don't have to hover over him every moment.  We can actually spend a little bit of time talking to people.  I feel like we haven't had a chance to catch up with our friends from church recently, so it was great. 

I just had to show off my favorite tree this time of year.  This red maple beauty is one of my favorite things about autumn.  The fact that the top of the tree broke off during a (possible) tornado, while I was sitting in the car 20 feet away, doesn't make me like it any less.  I know that it may not be the prettiest tree during the rest of the year because the trunk is broken at the top, but this red totally makes up for it.  We have lots of trees in our yard, but the others just don't compare with the color of this baby.