It's A Party

Right before Christmas Elizabeth Magee and I attended a birthday party for a child down the street. Her mama went all out and it made me really excited to begin planning Elizabeth Magee's party -- which is coming up in less than 2 months!

The cake was made by some bakery in West Memphis....I already forgot the name.....but it was very good and beautiful too!

"One" shaped sugar cookies with pink icing were the party favors. The mat on this picture was signed by the party guests....a really cute idea that I've seen at wedding receptions but works great for birthdays too!

Beautiful flowers.

The birthday girl (center in pink dress) and her guests. Please notice the adorable pink sparkle tom in the front of the picture. Also notice that Elizabeth Magee is only wearing one UGG. At the party, she had had her UGGs for less than 24 hours. During this picture I realized she was missing one....we found it on the sidewalk about halfway between our house and the birthday house...also notice the super cute 4 month old on her tummy!

It looks like the birthday girl is telling Elizabeth Magee, "you'll be one soon and it's so much fun" or "your daddy is going to be super mad that you lost your new UGG."

Joyful

Our Christmas was absolutely joyful. We were honored enough to get to host our families for Christmas Eve. I'm hoping we started a new family tradition. My grandmother has already determined that we will all be gathering at my house again next Christmas Eve for more lasagna and good times.

We started the evening with a few drinks and then church....then came back to our house for some lasagna, wine, and champange! If you've never made the Pioneer Woman's lasagna it is a must have receipe. I'm sure you can google it or find it on her blog...

My grandmother and Oliver's dad....two peas in a pod if you ask me!

Two granddaddies? I'll take it.

Aunt Sis got EM ready for bed while we were at church......Elizabeth Magee is going to have a rough week after all this attention!

Christmas morning we woke up to Santa......Santa brought a shopping cart and Net supplied the "God-Awful Tacky" babydoll (Net's words -- not mine).....but she also started EM's silver pattern....so we will forgive her if this ugly doll is in every picture for the next 6 years :)

After Santa, we started our trip down I-55....four stops later we got home around 10:00 p.m. and took down the tree!

Stop 1. Stopped by to see Olivia and Beckett's Santa Clause -- they racked up big time....I'm glad Elizabeth Magee isn't old enough to be jealous of all their toys! Right about this time (9:00 a.m) we realized we left Oliver's brother in Memphis. Opps.

Stop 2. Stopped by my parents house....sadly I got no pictures...but surely my mom will email me one or two??? Luckily they had saved us a few sausage balls :)

Stop 3. Williams' Family Lunch. Despite this picture, Elizabeth Magee loved her great-grandfather....she untied his shoe laces for a solid 30 mintues under the table while the adults ate lunch!

Babbs and her grandchildren and one of great granddaughters!

Stop No. 4. Poppy's and Dee's house for Christmas dinner, more presents, and lots of love :)

Today, we celebrate somebody else's birthday! Our niece, Olivia, turned THREE.....

Pretty in her pink tu-tu!

First semi-decent picture of these three cousins in 10 months!

My Favorite Picture from the party......aren't they precious?

2

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Christmas Cheer

I've been off of work now for a whole week and enjoying my staycation to the fullest. The biggest thing we've done is gotten Elizabeth Magee's bump removed, then went back yesterday and got the stictches out. We are on the mend and with all the "putting my baby asleep" behind me.....I FINALLY feel in the Christmas spirit!

We haven't been all down and out though......we've been to a 1st birthday party.....and to a Christmas open house at this pretty house:

Doesn't that fire look delightful? If I could change one thing about my living room....I'd make my gas logs wood burning......but speaking of my fireplace....we've loved everyone of the Christmas cards we've gotten. I got about 90% of our cards out before Oliver's computer fell off the coffee table, smashed, and took with it my Christmas card list.....so not sure who didn't get sent out yet...opps!

Stiches out! Harder to get this little one to sit still for a picture these days...she is one busy little lady.

Aunt Sis is here and we made a Gingerbread House yesterday......it was maybe not quite the best activity to do with a 10 month old.....but we had fun and the finished project didn't look to awful:By the way....this was the first time EM has not been even a tiny bit fooled by who Aunt Sis really is.....until now there has always been a little, "Are you my mother" look in her eye.....not this weekend.....she will not be fooled.....

Biscuit, Aunt Edi, Olivia, and Beckett came to play last night....

Playing with cousin Olivia...I think Elizabeth Magee is going to be just as into pink and all things girly as Olivia......

Biscuit can't get a picture with all three grandgirls to save her life....but 2 out of 3 isn't bad!

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Post-Op

Very last picture of the bump. I swear I kinda miss it! Elizabeth Magee was a trooper. She hardly cried at all. Little Rock Children's Hospital is wonderful -- although I hope we never have to go again! Elizabeth Magee loved the scrubs, and the nurses, and all the cords. The hospital allowed me to scrub in and go to the OR and hold her while they put her to sleep. This was really important to me because with my c-section the only thing that freaked me out was that the hospital wouldn't allow Oliver to be in the room when I got my numbing gas.

The whole procedure took less than an hour and the hospital gave us one update so the time passed quickly. We also had a waiting room full of friends and family....which helped to pass the time.

Post-op recovery room. Elizabeth Magee woke up not crying --- all the nurses were very impressed. I didn't cry until this stage!

This picture was less than 3 hours post-op -- up to her old tricks and crawling all over the hotel room.

This morning we had a little scare. Elizabeth Magee woke up with a very swollen left eye....so we packed up and went to the emergency room. However, the doctor wasn't concerned and sent us home pretty quickly. So far, so good. Thank you for all the prayers, visits, calls, texts, messages --- we truely feel the love you have for our little bit.

Nice!

Eloise has the Plaza. Elizabeth Magee has the Capital Hotel. We are staying in the very fancy Capital Hotel for EM's surgery -- special thanks to Oliver's aunt for getting us this amazing room!


The Christmas Tree in the lobby is huge....I wonder how many 100s of yards of beautiful ribbon make those bows....I wonder who decorated it....I bet it took two days!

I took some pictures of our very nice room before we unpacked....it looks nothing like this now.

Are we the awful parents who moved the crib into the closet? Yes....poor baby is having surgery tomorrow and spending the night in the closet. We almost left her in the room to go down to the lobby bar for a drink but decided that might be illegal.....

I want this bathroom in my house...it would probably take up most of my house....but wouldn't it be nice?

FAO Schwarz Toys

Surgery is at 12:10 tomorrow. We are nervous and excited. Keep us all in your prayers! On another (happy) note, I forgot to post this picture earlier this week. Oliver went to NYC last week and brought back the big sheep puppet for Elizabeth Magee. Last year when we went to NYC we got her the Mopsy bunny at FAL Schwarz.....back then all we knew is we were having a girl. This year Oliver knew that we had a girl that LOVES anything that looks like a lamb or a sheep or a yellow rubber duck......just a few of her favorite things at almost 10 months!

Gearing Up

She wants a taste of my clemintine every day. And she makes this face every day. How cute is this face?

In other news, we are gearing up for our surgery in TWO days. Oh my......I'm not ready and then I'm ready. I think the dread is going to be way worse than the actually surgery. Keep us in your prayers!

Hanging Out

Our little one is getting quite big! We lowered Elizabeth Magee's crib this weekend -- she is getting more mobile by the hour. She loves to "play" in her crib before we go get her up -- but I was getting nervous that she would tumble out so we went ahead and lowered it all the way!

Elizabeth Magee and Oliver got some good sofa time this weekend -- we survived his trip to NYC but so excited to see him!

Our supper club used to be all adults and one child. The one child was very well behaved and now she is "in charge" of all the babies....you can see sweet Caroline in the middle of the babies.

These two love love love each other.....neither one of them is going to know life without the other -- which does my heart good :)

A Few Favorite Things

Yesterday I was in Garden Ridge and a woman stopped me to ask if I liked the gift she picked out for her daughter. She said her daughter looked about my age...since I still get asked for an id in the wine store and at least once a week a bailiff asks me if I'm an attorney I'm guessing her daughter is actually younger than me...but anyway...it got me thinking about my favorite things that I think would make an awesome gift for any girl:

Cook's Country magazine. Oliver's grandmother has given this to me for the last several years. I love it. Oliver loves it. Most people who come over and pick it up love it. It has great 30 minute receipes and fancy things like, seven layer cake receipes.

Top three favorite book ever. For sure my favorite grown up book. My brother-in-law introduced me to Pat Conroy and I. Love. THis. Book. It would make a great gift for anyone over the age of 17. The price is $10.88 on Amazon....can't beat that!

Favorite coffee table book. Oliver gave me this for my birthday a few years ago. I love it. I rotate its place in the house. It's been in my bedroom since we moved but as of last week is back to the coffee table. The cost is now $124.00 on Amazon. I know Oliver didn't pay anywhere near that for it.....I wonder what the deal is???

My Christmas present to me from me. Isn't that precious?

Speaking of precious....

Elizabeth Magee can crawl from one room to another now. However, she cannot (or will not) crawl under the dining room table to get from the playroom to the living room....she instead gets to the dining room table and crawls around it......so sweet!

This was this morning....I can't believe her surgery is in a week and a day! Yikes!

Delta Delta Delta

I'm a Delta Delta Delta

Lucky person that I am

A real live member of the D D D

Brightest in all of the land

We are always out on campus and

we hold our standards high.......

Too much??? It happens to be a very poplar night night song in our house --- along with the candle light song....which I always remind Elizabeth Magee that her mother never got :(

This Year vs. Last

It's mind blowing to think how different this Christmas is than last. Mainly because of that middle stocking. So wonderful! Do you like her stocking? It cost a grand total of $6.00....$1 for the stocking at Pottery Barn Outlet on Black Friday and $5 for the monogram.....

I'm looking forward to spending A LOT of time with these two this month. December's going to involve a rather long staycation and I could not be more thrilled about it! In other news, we are gearing up for Elizabeth Magee's surgery --- two weeks from tomorrow! Yikes! After talking to the nurse yesterday, it looks like we are going to start around 3:00 p.m. and the surgery should last an hour. The doctor may be able to use dissolveable stiches....which would be wonderful because we would only have to put her to sleep once...not twice (they have to put her under to take the stiches out on Dec. 22 otherwise). SO please keep us in your prayers these next two weeks -- mainly for Elizabeth Magee's health because she can't have the surgery if she's sick! I know someone (Net) is going to comment that EM doesn't have shoes on in the above picture...I know...I know...but I promise for the last few days I've kept socks and shoes on those sweet feet!

I started looking back at pictures at where we were this time last year....Oliver and I took a mini-vaca to New York City for one last vacation.....

Then, we celebrated the marriage of these two.....so happy that Laura has been in our family a whole year...the picture is little b/c I copied it off of her facebook!

Can't wait to see what 2012 has to bring for us!