MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS!!

CHRISTMAS

You may notice through the next couple of posts that they are somewhat mixed up in order.
We chose to have our Christmas together here before we came back to Alabama, so Santa came to our house on Thursday night and we opened all of our gifts on Friday morning ("Christmas Morning"). This worked out good and gave us a chance to have Christmas together as a family!

COOKIES AND MILK FOR SANTA

I think Emma thought that Santa would be really hungry! She is really piling on the cookies for him! I think she ended up eating 1 before we were finished!
Emma is making chocolate milk for Santa! She had to taste it to make sure it was just right before we could leave it for him!

"CHRISTMAS MORNING" AT OUR HOUSE

Emma was so excited about this make-up vanity that she played with it forever before she even realized that there was another present in the room!"A picture is worth a thousand words!"
Emma was totally amazed at all the gifts that she received on Christmas morning!

WE LOVE OUR LITTLE GIRL

We were all so excited on "Christmas Morning" at our house!

CHRISTMAS EVE EVE

We had our Christmas with my mom's extended family on Christmas Eve Eve! We all gathered at Aunt Tanya's house!

We were all really glad that Josh was able to make it down for Christmas! He is a working, college man now so it's sometimes hard for him to get home!

Emma was extremely excited to see him!
Look at these eager kids! The kids exchanged gifts with one another, and the adults played "dirty Santa". We had the best time!

CHRISTMAS EVE AT NANNA'S

We spend Christmas Eve at Nanna's house each year! Nanna had surgery on Wednesday so we were extra thankful that she was home and well for Christmas!

Emma is always excited to get to play with Carson! They have such a great time together!
Emma and Carson playing with Emma's new baby Alive doll! This doll does it all, it's almost like having a real baby in the house!

CHRISTMAS DAY

We spend Christmas Day with Jason's extended family on both his mom and dad's side.

Jason's family always gathers early Christmas morning for breakfast at Nonna's house! Nonna makes us a great breakfast!
We enjoyed lunch at Suzi and JJ's beautiful new house in Oneonta!

LAST STOP OF THE DAY

Our final stop of the day was Christmas at Mimi's house with my immediate family. Emma was absolutely exhausted after a long day of visiting, playing, and traveling from one place to the next.

Emma finally worked up enough energy to open her gifts at Mimi's house! Shortly afterwards, she crashed! A peaceful ending to a pleasant, but oh so rushed, Christmas day!

WOW! EMMA HAS BEEN BUSY!

It looks as though Emma has been really busy this past month at preschool!

She made all of these ornaments, and she even missed 1 whole week due to sickness!

These are the things that a mom will treasure for life!
Emma is so excited about the ornaments that she's made! I think she really likes school!

CAN WE PLEASE OPEN A PRESENT!!!

Emma has been great with the Christmas tree this year. She hasn't bothered the ornaments or really even messed with the tree!

The presents have been the challenge this year. She has looked at these wrapped boxes long enough, "Can we please open just 1?"
This past week Emma has rearranged the gifts under the tree almost daily. She even opened one up while I was in the shower yesterday!
This is so exciting! For Emma, it is only 1 more night, night until we can open our gifts!

(We use night, nights to count down to things lately, she seems to really understand better that way.)

SICK BABY GIRL

Emma has been extremely sick this week. We have made 2 trips to the doctor since Monday. She has double ear infections and the upper respiratory crud. On our trip to the doctor today, she had to get 2 "noodles", this is what she calls shots. Hopefully she will begin to feel better soon. She finally began to rest good today once the shots kicked in.

SASSY'S NEW HANGOUT

Sassy loves to get up in the middle of our Christmas tree! So far, she hasn't turned the tree over, but we do have some flat spots, and there are some presents that have claw marks on them. I think she is rebelling because we got the dog!!

LUCY'S 1ST BATH

Emma and I giving Lucy her 1st bath!

Emma is such a good helper!

She will be one clean pup, because Jason has already given her another bath this weekend!

MARY AND BABY JESUS

We have always talked to Emma about the true meaning of Christmas, but I think this year she is grasping the concept. This morning she asked if she could dress up like Mary so she could take "Baby Jesus" on a trip.

EMMA'S 1ST HAND-MADE ORNAMENT

We added this special ornament to our tree today!

This is the 1st hand-made ornament from Emma. She made her "jingle bell" at school on Thursday !

THIS IS FOR AUNT TANYA

Now that Emma is in school, she loves to cut, write and glue (excessive use of glue)Emma worked very hard this morning, with a little help from mom, to make this beautiful picture that she wants to give to Aunt Tanya. It will be a few weeks before we can get it to you Tanya, (plus it may take that long for the glue to dry), so I wanted you to go ahead and at least see it!
Of course no job is finished until the lipstick is reapplied!!

THANKS MIMI AND PAPA

Mimi and Papa sent this cute little pet carrier to Emma so that she would have something to put Lucy in if we took her out or for when we are traveling.
We have yet to carrier her out anywhere in it, but Emma has carried her around in the apartment quite a bit!

Thanks Mimi and Papa!

HOW SWEET IS THIS!

This is what the rest of my family does while I post pictures to the blog! It's quite chilly over here tonight so they are bundled up. I think they are watching Twister! Emma loves the tornado movie! Lucy is just happy to be here and to be close to someone!

WE LOVE THIS DOG!!!

Our babies resting peacefully together!

I think this little dog is the best investment that we've made in a long time. She is such a sweet and loving pup! She and Emma play and get along so well together. Lucy loves to snuggle with you when she sleeps. They have both played hard today, and sacked out on the couch about 5:30 this evening!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS

Emma and I have been very busy this week trying to finish up the decorating, and getting presents wrapped. I love to see a Christmas tree with presents under it! Like the song says "it's the most wonderful time of the year". I would have to say that it's ONE of the most wonderful times of the year. In my opinion, you can't be summer!!

The Shell Family Christmas Tree

LET'S ROCK AND ROLL

Emma picked out this rock and roll costume as a prize for being such a good girl for me while we Christmas shopped on Monday!

Emma is performing her rock and roll act on stage! She is such an entertainer!!

OUR NEWEST FAMILY MEMBER

Since we have moved into our apartment, Emma has begged us for a dog! There are several big dogs in our complex and then our neighbors got a PUG! Emma fell in love!! She would cry at night for that little dog, so Jason and I decided to get her a dog for Christmas, and she chose to get a PUG.

This is Lucy!! She is such a sweet little thing! I took her to the vet today and she only weighs 2.4 pounds. She is a very loving puppy! I think we made the right decision!
Emma loves Lucy, and I think Lucy loves her too. She lets Emma do just about anything with her.
Lucy loves to sleep! She doesn't get much of an opportunity with Emma around, but she takes a nap every chance she gets. She loves to lay in our laps and sleep. I think we have already spoiled her and we've only had her 3 days!

WHAT A GREAT WEEKEND

We had a wonderful weekend visit with the Glassco family. We met them on Saturday afternoon at Stone Mountain, and spent the evening at A Stone Mountain Christmas. This was absolutely great! (There are pictures from this posted below). It was set up like a Christmas wonderland. The girls got to make cookies in Mrs. Claus' kitchen; they wrote letters to Santa Claus; we watched several different kinds of Christmas shows; we watched a Sing A long laser show on the side of the mountain; there were lights galore. I am probably missing some of the things that we did, but because of the crowd we didn't get to ride the train around the mountain. We were a little disappointed about that.

The girls were absolutely exhausted when we left Stone Mountain, so they slept all the way back to our apartment. Once we were back, they all woke up, and were ready to play! I think it was about midnight before we got them to lay down for the night.
Sunday Morning we took the girls to the big playground to play and then took a trip to the mall for the girls to ride the choo choo train.
We are so glad that we got to visit with The Glassco's!! Thanks guys for coming over to spend the weekend we us! We had a great time!

PLAYGROUND FUN

We chose not to go to church on Sunday morning and we took the girls over to the "BIG PLAYGROUND". This is one of Emma's most favorite places in town, so we take everyone there when they visit if the weather permits. The girls had a wonderful time! We were exhausted from trying to keep our eyes on them as they ran and played.

Emma and Macey stayed right with each other the whole time.
The girls had a blast playing in the sandbox. This playground really has it all!
For some reason all of the kids love this bulldog. Anytime you walk by it there is a kid climbing on it. Of course, these 4 had to have a turn!

THESE DADS ARE SUCH GOOD SPORTS

Jason and Mark (a.k.a Marker at our house) enjoyed themselves this weekend! Dad's sometimes have to do things that they might not be too excited about to start with, but they end up having a great time!

MOMMY AND GIRLS

No girl can truely appreciate the bond between a mother and daughter until she becomes a mother herself. Emma is such a blessing to me and I love her more and more every day that passes!! I cherish these moments while she is young because she will be grown before I know it! Christina (A.K.A. Ms. Stina at my house) and her girls!

EMMA AND MACEY

Emma and Macey always have fun when they are together!!

SUCH SWEET GIRLS

These 4 girls were super sweet on our trip to Stone Mountain. I know that these girls will remain friends regardless of where each family is located because we as parents will make sure of it!! We are blessed to have good friends like the Glassco's!!

The girls had the chance to talk with Mrs. Claus after one of the shows. Because there was such a large crowd, we never got a chance to talk with Santa Claus. We saw him in the parade as he went through town but that was it.