Our Christmas Tree

Saturday night when we were sleeping our Elf, Scott, as he has been named, put up our tree! Gracie couldn't believe it Sunday morning when she woke up that little elf worked so hard all night to get our tree up. Of course he saved the fun part of decorations for Gracie and Mallary to help with.Our silly Elf

This is what Gracie found Sunday morning

mallary hanging her Baby's 1st Christmas ornament

Gracie hanging her new ones

I will post the other tree later. I refuse to put the radkos, polonaises, and waterford ones on the big tree that they will not leave alone. I've noticed already that my ornaments seem to be moving around. I pray this tree will make it through the season. Mallary loves to grab the branches and Gracie keeps getting in trouble for touching it with her hands, so now she is touching them with her nose. HA HA HA!

Also, on another note, Alan and I have never had an artificial tree. Even through college and while we were dating we always, always, always got a real tree. My parents had this pre-lit artificial one that was only 2 or 3 years old that they didn't want anymore so we decided we'd try it. I wasn't sure I was going to be into this fake thing. It took about 2 minutes to get this tree put up, plugged in and ready to decorate. Wow, that was awesome!

RoLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

TIDE ROLL!!!!!! We are eagerly anticipating this game today and I am hoping that the Tide can make it 12-0 for the year! What a great season for my team! We are so sick this weekend, but hopefully we can enjoy the game.

and in honor of the game here are a few pics of something you won't likely see today...Alabama and Auburn fans being best little buddies!

Happy Thanksgiving

Gracie is thankful for (in this order) Santa Claus, Jesus, God, my sister, my daddy, and mommy.






Mallary is thankful for bottles, things to chew on, mommy and sleeping in our big bed.




I am thankful for my sweet girls and my family!

9 months old

Alright Mallary, Here we are a day late again! I swear we will celebrate your birthday on your actual day and not a day late!

You are a monster which is what we have started calling you! You climb all over us and growl/laugh. It's so funny. You are wild and into everything. We put you down on the ground and you are off. I put you down the other morning so I could load the dishwasher and I turn around and you were gone all the way to our bathroom sitting in the shower! You were there in about 30 seconds and it's about the farthest spot in our house you could have gotten!

You still only say Hey when someone comes in the room and wave to them. You apparently have no desire to talk or else Gracie and I do it all for you. You continue to cruise around the furniture and pull up on everything.

We have tried "3" foods. Lets put it this way...think back to how much you hate cereal when we tried it - this is 10x worse. You do not want anything with the slightest bit of "chunk" in it. You gag, cry, make faces, spit it out and slap our hands away. So you will continue eating "2" foods and your bottles.

We will update your stats later and I will add some pics later today.

What we're doing....

We all have colds, it's rainy and cold here today, so this is what we are doing this morning....

Drinking Hot Chocolate

And watching this!

It's beginning to look like christmas

and that would indicate I am decorating for Christmas which I am not....yet. I have started shopping - check some off my list! I am looking for some new Christmas CD's and super cute ornaments for some swaps - if you see some let me know where. But, in the spirit of the upcoming holidays - I received 2 different Christmas surveys this week...so I thought it would be a good blog post for everyone. Copy this and share on your blog too. I'd love to read your traditions and memories.

Hot chocolate, apple cider, or egg nog? Hot chocolate and Apple Cider!

Turkey or Ham? Alan’s fried turkey

Decorations on the outside of your house? Yep, white lights on the bushes, garland, red bows and lights on the rails of the porch and wreaths in the windows.

Snowball fights or sledding? Any snow please! But definitely snow ball fight!

Do you like hanging around the fireplace because it's warm? Sure if we had one

Do you enjoy going downtown shopping? Sure in Decatur, Bham, ummm, not so much!

Favorite Christmas song? Seriously, all of them. My girls and I sing jingle bells all the time – as in year round!

Favorite Christmas movies? Christmas Vacation by far my fav!

When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music? Before Halloween

Stockings before or after presents? Before!!

Carolers, do you listen to them? I would if they came to my house!

Do you read the night before christmas? Yes before the girls go to bed and then we put out cookies for santa

What do you do after presents and dinner? Clean up, lay around, open up gifts from their packages, sometimes a movie.

What is your favorite holiday smell? Christmas tree pine scent, clovey spice scent

Favorite Childhood Christmas memory? Making cookies with mom and Elaine, peeking over the stair rail to see if santa had come, decorating the tree, going to see Santa at Brookwood mall.

Favorite Part about winter? When the weathermen hint at the chance of snow and gets everyone overexcited about the flurry we might get!

Ever been kissed under mistletoe? probably

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Paper if possible

Real tree or Artificial? Real

When do you put up the tree? 1^st weekend of December

Do you like eggnog? gag

Favorite gift received as a child? everything

Easiest person to buy for? Alan and the girls

Do you have a nativity scene? yes

Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail

Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Nothing, as in, no gift. Thanks Alan.

When do you start shopping? October, but have gotten things earlier before.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? yes

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? cookies

Lights on the tree? white lights

Travel at Christmas or stay home? both

Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? yes

Angel on the tree top or a star? A bow

Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? christmas morning

Favorite ornament theme or color? We have a radko tree and our tree of ornaments like our hallmark ones we get each year, colored balls, ornament swap ones, etc.

Favorite for Christmas dinner? Beef tenderloin and potato casserole.

Party Pics

How we celebrated!

To continue the celebration of Gracie's birthday - on Friday she had a class party at school. We made sugar cookies that were little circles this time and put 3's on them in yummy frosting for the special snack. We had a backyardigans theme for this one. Gracie took all her school friends a little goody bag and they wore backyardigan masks.

On Saturday, we had a big day. When Gracie woke up - she requested pancakes, so she dined on those and strawberries. Next was the Auburn game so we had to watch that disaster for Daddy. Then it was off for big time fun!!! We went to Huntsville to Build-A-Bear. Gracie built her bear, picked out a sound, filled and fluffed him, picked out an outfit and then named this black bear with it's nurses scrubs FRENCHY! Ha! (We really love the Fancy Nancy Books and there is a dog named Frenchy in one of them). Never in one million years would I have imagined this would have been the bear that she built!

Anyways, after we built our bear, it was time for dinner. Gracie's choice....she wanted cheeseburgers, french fries and ketchup. We were happy to oblige her request at Cheeburger Cheeburger. She also scored a chocolate milkshake in there to wash down her meal as a birthday treat.

We came home and much to her surprise there were presents from mommy and daddy to open. She had opened meme's and aunt elaine's earlier in the week and forgot she was supposed to get more! She got games, play doh, jammies, a dr. kit, puzzles and some arts and crafts goodies.

And last but not least, this guy showed up....more on him later!

Happy Birthday Gracie!!!!

Happy Birthday 3rd Birthday to my Gracie!!!!

Gracie, I tell you all the time how much I love you. You are so funny and so much fun. You have turned into a little girl instead of a toddler. You are so incredibly smart - and that's not just coming from a proud mommy - everyone from friends, to your teachers, to strangers in stores comment on how well you speak, what a large vocabulary you have and how all the words are used correctly, how polite you are and your nice manners and even your ability to throw out some spanish now and then! Mommy and Daddy are always so so proud of you.

Our walls are full of your beautiful creations. You bring home such wonderful art work from school and are so happy to hang them up and show everyone that visits our house.
Your favorite things books, puzzles, memory game, cartoons, singing and playing outside. You love all your friends at school and church. You are a fabulous little dancer doing your ballet, tap and acrobats. You sing and enjoy your music class and all the activities our teacher shares with us in class.

Your favorite foods, when we can get you to eat more than a bite or two are macaroni and cheese, cheese burgers, apples, strawberries, deviled eggs and strawberry ice cream. You love chocolatte (our word for chocolate milk), but you must still drink soy milk as you have a really sensitive tummy.

Your are totally potty trained during the day - and you are even waking up at night telling us when you have to go some nights - so you are almost there! That is so wonderful.

You are so loving and always want to play with Mallary and make sure she is included - I know this will change one day but for now you are a great big sister and watch out for her.

We love you so much. We are so proud of you. Happy Birthday to you!

P.S. we recovered the pics from your party and the camera is still drying! I will post pictures of all the fun you have had to celebrate this week later tonight or tomorrow. We have a super fun day planned today for you too!

The Party with No Pictures

Well this is the start of birthday week at our house for my Gracie. We had her super fabulous party for her Decatur friends, but sadly there was a camera incident with some water that wiped out my memory card. The camera is still a little wet, but appears it will be saved just needs a little more drying. I don't think that words could even express my devastation over losing the pictures. So this will be very wordy for us to at least have the memory of our wonderful party celebrating "Gracie McRee is 3".

Her party was this week. Her guests included: Abby, Towns, Cate, Sarah Laine, William, Sam, Anna Kate, Mary Emma, Anna Catherine, Mallary and Andrew and MeMe, Aunt Elaine and all the moms. The theme was based on her invitation - a cute 3 layer pink, orange and green whimsical cake and her turning 3. I recreated the cake on the invitation for her actual birthday cake.

We set up a children's long table and chairs in the living room. All the decorations were pink, orange, lime green and turquoise. The children got to make frames with stickers, color and have snack mix in paper cones from the cute little stand Alan made for a centerpiece. Alan also made a clown for the front door to welcome your guests and the clown could hold balloons. Gracie loves balloons so we had several around for her to enjoy!

They all had a blast playing and coloring and checking out all the toys in Gracie's room.

We also all had lunch. The children dined on Gracie's favorites - mini cheeseburgers, mac and cheese and fruit while the grown ups had chicken and pasta salad.

We all sang Happy Birthday to Gracie and she put on her super cute Birthday hat and had the yummy cake and ice cream. The party favors were homemade sugar cookies with a big 3 in icing on them and cake pops! Instead of flowers around, we had vases with big gingham paper 3's and cake pops.

In the scheme of things - losing a few pictures is not the end of the world and we still have a school party on Friday and her actual birthday on Saturday that I will be purchasing some of these for!!


More birthday posts to come...I love my sweet girl and hope she remembers this wonderful party!

Halloween Week

Holy smokes - what a busy week!!! But Oh so much fun!

Halloween Party

We had so much fun at a Halloween party given by several of our sweet friends. We had so much fun visiting with all our friends in their costumes and having a nice afternoon to play.

Trunk or Treat

Wednesday night we participated in Trunk or Treat at our church. Gracie was really excited to get some candy and play with Abby.

Pumpkin Carving with Da Da

Dada carved our pumpkins on Thursday night. Gracie wanted hers to be a "scary" one and Mallary's to be a nice one.

Halloween Party at School

Friday was party day at school! We had so much fun eating our lunch and cupcakes, having a "ghost hunt" and pin the nose on the pumpkin!

Trick or Treat

This year we went to Bham so that we could trick or treat with Andrew and go to MeMe and Chief's house. Gracie got lots of candy and had lots of fun going to the doors and saying Trick or Treat, Thank You and Happy Halloween at every door!

Ready to Stroll!

Gracie's candy!


The sheep trying to take some of the candy!

I said I want candy too!!!
(this is what happens when we aren't looking!)

The morning after halloween. She grabbed the bonnet
and wanted to wear it. She knew she was hot stuff in it!

3-0!

As my birthday card this morning said "With deepest sympathy on the loss of your 20's" Yikes!
Anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to ME! I received lots of sweet cards, messages, some little happies, and a big shopping week when I was in Ohio with mom and Grandma. I hope my 30's are as fun and exciting as my 20's were. I'll post some pictures later of our little party tonight as well as try to catch up on Halloween. I never knew Halloween week with a 2 year old and 8 month old would keep us as super busy as it did, but never have I ever enjoyed Halloween as much as I did this year!