January Phone Favorites

When did my little girl get so big!?! Daddy took us out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and Presley started buttering her roll all by herself! Then she started just eating the butter.... We did our best to limit it to one little patty.

Presley loves to wear her purple dress to church and she loves it when we sing songs that she knows. She's very happy to sing along!

We're not used to having an actual winter where you stay inside. We've had to use our imaginations to keep ourselves entertained. Some days we are cowboy superheroes...

...and some times we pretend to be Daddy.

Presley always loves to wear her "hemet" and this time she threw on a princess robe. She was very proud of herself and did a few spins for us to admire her beauty.

We like to paint---until the paint dries some and becomes sticky, that is.

And we love it when Daddy takes us to get milkshakes! Presley was perfectly content with her chocolate milkshake until she got a taste of my hot fudge and caramel Sunday. Then she wanted to trade.

Ringing in the New Year

After Christmas, Presley and I were excited to head to Florida to ring in the New Year! P was very excited to spend some time with Baby Tripp (who's just about as big as she is).

Gramma and Grampa Hart came up from Fort Myers to celebrate New Years Eve. Ashley and Jay very generously cooked us a fabulous shrimp and crab leg dinner and Ashley had lots of fun little surprises to make the holiday special.

She even rigged a balloon drop for our countdown to midnight (that occurred at 8pm).

Since Jeff was in Florida, I got my New Year's kiss from my favorite little person.

After a fun few days in Orlando, we headed to Tampa to spend some time with Grammy, "Dampafadder" (Grandfather) and Auntie Greer. Presley was more than happy to show Auntie Greer how to make her famous chocolate chip cookies.

We also enjoyed a fun morning at the circus! Presley was a little overwhelmed but, seemed to really enjoy the show! She especially liked seeing the elephants, lions and tigers!

It rained a lot of the time we were there and we were lucky to get in a little time at the park.

Tripp was a first-time park-goer and he quickly became a big fan. We sure do love that big guy!

No trip to Grammy's would be complete without an over-abundance of sweets. Presley got to help make pink, candied popcorn!

Our last day there the sun finally came out and we had some beautiful Florida weather. We happily took a picnic to the park and enjoyed some time in the sun!

It was a fun trip and great, and relaxing, start to the New Year. We're ready now for our favorite Florida people to come see our new home in Texas!

Our First Texas Christmas

Christmas this year was so much fun! Presley was really into it and it's hard not to catch a child's excitement during such a magical holiday! Plus it was our first one in Texas (without being with any of our family) so we had to make it great!

Christmas Eve we had a few final preparations to attend to. Presley and I made chocolate chip cookies for Santa...

…and Presley enjoyed some good Daddy time while I worked on dinner and finished wrapping.

We decided to keep with my family's tradition of having a nice, prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve.

Our menu included prime rib, twice baked potatoes, pear salad, and, of course, the 11-layer Christmas jello. Ashley usually makes this bad-boy and I was not excited to have to make my own this year. But, it turned out great and it's worth it because Jeff loves it.

After dinner we went outside to spread the reindeer food that our elf, Tinsel, left for Presley. We did this last year and spent a ton of time outside spreading the food. Clearly, that was a Florida luxury. It was so cold here that it was more of a dump-and-run effort.

We opened our Christmas jammies, read Luke 2 via FaceTime with the Peepers,

and put out the cookies and milk for Santa.

Presley took this job very seriously. No one goes hungry at our house!

When Presley was fast asleep, Jeff and I got up to make sure Santa had visited our house. He sure did!

Of course, all of the cookies got eaten!

Presley was so excited to see if Santa came. Daddy lead her out...

and she was so excited to see that he had definitely visited our house and left plenty of presents behind!

Jeff was excited about his Texas-style boots.

And I was equally excited about the beautiful handbag he picked out for me.

Jeff's big gift was a "power tower"--a workout station that will help him reach his fitness goals for the year. I've resigned myself to have a "formal gym" instead of a "formal dining room" while we are in our rental house.

We spent most of the rest of the day playing with all of Presley's new toys!

And she was so happy to wear the purple dress that Santa brought her. It was the only thing she asked Santa for!

I love this picture because she's laying in her "carriage" in her purple "cinderella dress" looking lovingly at her Flynn Rider doll (whom she has a crush on).

After naps, we were very glad to be able to join the Copeland family for dinner. It was fun to let the kids run wild, eat good food, and enjoy good company--especially since we didn't have any of our own family to spend it with. The Copelands have kind of adopted us and we are grateful. 

We had such a wonderful and relaxing holiday. I enjoyed the time with my little family to reflect and show my gratitude for our Saviors birth and begin some of our own Christmas traditions.