Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas "season"! I say season because it lasted almost a week! We were able to spend time with family and friends and celebrate the birth of Jesus! We started our Christmas Season on Thursday evening with Jody's mom Teresa. We got out our fancy Christmas dishes and I cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables and an apple pie for dessert, with a little help from the girls! We had a fun time watching Teresa open presents from our family. She was also our gift deliverer for family in Tennessee, saving us a lot of money on postage! We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house in Garner (a short drive under 1 hr). We always eat a nice dinner, have dessert and then open presents! The girls had a blast and we didn't get home until after midnight! Christmas morning we were woken up early to Emma telling us she couldn't get her doll clothes on her Barbie, already playing in Christmas presents she received from the night before! The other two woke up a little later around 7:30am, no early Christmas risers in our house! We opened up our presents, to the girls, Jody and I and later Christmas afternoon we went to my grandparents house to eat Christmas Dinner. We ate, opened more presents and had fun just spending time with my dad's side of the family! Wednesday afternoon Teresa came over and brought more Christmas presents, this time from family in Tennessee!

This Christmas we received a lot of nice things and everyone was very generous. We hope that you were able to spend time with your family and friends this Christmas Season. Our prayer as we start a New Year is that you recognize our Saviors' birth and the impact He had on this world with His life, death, resurrection and the promise of eternal life He gives each and every one of us if we only ask Him!

Carolina Ballet Presents the Nutcracker

Last night we had the privilege of attending the Nutcracker Ballet. We've had the opportunity to go every year since Emma was born and every year it is just as spectacular! This year we went with my family. Just a girls night this year with my mom Paula, sister-in-law Diana, Grandma Audrey, aunt JoDee, Emma, Anna & myself! The girls loved getting dressed up in their fancy dresses, hair bows, purses and pearl bracelets & earrings (early presents from Wanka & Papa). They looked so cute! Emma & Anna loved the ballet, the dressed up performers, beautifully decorated sets, music, the whole bit. During intermission I couldn't get the to stop spinning & twirling to go to the bathroom! The girls were so wiggly before the show began and really tired after it was over so the pictures are at a minimum :-(

My Grandma & Aunt JoDee
Wanka & her grand-girls

Aunt Diana & her nieces

Wanka C with her great grand-girls!

I did get one with my girls too! Lizzy would have been a great addition to this picture but she is way too "busy" for the ballet! Anna talked almost the entire time asking "what he doing?" or "why they do that?", very inquisitive our Anna and doesn't miss a thing!

Our Little Cuties!

Check out our little elves. . .

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1509368120

Who knew. . .

that putting up Christmas decorations could get someone so excited that they fall over face first into the cement! Lizzy did just that today and scratched her nose, forehead and cheek :-( Still pretty happy though as you can see from the pictures!

Really what happened was she just fell down, just as clutzy as her mom I guess?

Sisters

Here is a side by side comparison of Emma & Anna in the same exact outfit around the same age on our front porch swing! There's about three years difference between pictures. I thought it was neat to see the differences and similarities between the two!

Tennessee Turkey!

We headed back to Tennessee for Thanksgiving this year. Jody's family is in Johnson City, which is about 5 hours from here. Not too bad of a trip there, mostly because we drove at night so the girls would sleep! The girls spent some time raking and playing in the leaves with Granny and some cousins, inspecting "forts" constructed by Cousin Ian and Uncle Matthew and just running in the cool mountain air! We visited Jody's grandparents on their farm, where we hopped on a 4 wheeler and had some fun! We had a chance to visit Papa J (Jody's dad) at work! The girls had a blast looking at the hellicopters up close and having Papa J tell us all about them! We spent Thanksgiving lunch at Jody's mom's side and Thanksgiving Dinner at Jody's dad's side. The girls of course ate tons of great food and had so much fun playing with cousins! We had a great time just spending time with family, I can't believe how fast these kids are growing! We also had a chance to visit Dollywood with Jody's side of the family, it has become a family tradition to go the day after Thanksgiving. They are only a couple of hours from Dollywood so the trip was easy but boy was it cold!!! The girls were able to ride some rides, eat candy and sweets and ride the train. We left Tennessee Saturday afternoon and took our time, we were glad to be home, but miss family. It was a great trip but we do wish we would have had more time to spend with family :-( Check out some of the pictures we took while we were there. . .thanks Savannah for letting us borrow your camera! By the way, what's your blog address?

Stir Crazy. . .

The weekend brought sickness to our family. Lizzy started with an icky nose (a lovely shade of yellow and green) Saturday so that meant I had to stay home from church :-( Monday I started feeling bad and wasn't able to go to my ladies bible study that evening. This morning Anna woke up in a bad mood and layed on the couch all day. She laid down for her nap (regular time 2:00pm) after lunch at 12:30pm and is still not awake! I'm feeling better today and boy do I need to get out! So in my stir craziness I had this crazy idea. . .the girls love to cook with me and none of us have aprons. I started looking through my fabric to see about making an apron for myself and stumbled upon some fabric and ribbon I've had for quite some time. There wasn't enough for an adult apron, but plenty of fabric for child size aprons, so I thought I'll give it a try. Here are some pictures of one of the aprons I created today! I'm not a great seamstress, but I do love to create things!

This one I call my "chicken apron", the chicken is a pocket as well as decoration. Emma is such a good little model! I made a few others, more plain. I'm going to tackle an apron for Lizzy next!

Jody's been bugging me about trying to sell all my "creations" for years, I think I'm starting to warm up to the idea. What do you guys think?

Bubble Tape

Emma's new favortie candy is Bubble Tape. You know what I'm talking about, "6 feet of bubble gum. . .for you, not them"! My parents got Emma and Anna both some a week or so ago. Anna is too small to be alone with Bubble Tape so we took hers away and mistakenly left it in the van. Emma found it and the story is she hid it in the backseat among her crayons and marker pouch. We didn't realize this however until Friday morning! You guessed it we found a wad of gum in Emma's hair.

The funny thing is Jody made her spit gum out when we got home before she went to bed (she fell asleep in the car). The only thing we can figure is she had 2 pieces, lost one and decided to get more, not paying attention to where the first gum may have gone. We didn't realize she had gum in her hair when we put her to bed, she didn't either. Emma is a mover so it was good and stuck Friday morning. I tried some remedies and nothing really was working so I decided it had to be cut. Jody kept telling me to try other things, but there is a limit as to how much time a 4 year old will sit still and have their hair pulled over and over again! I had also cut her hair a few weeks ago, about 2-3 inches because it was looking straggly! Which was making the situation even worse! I think Jody was more upset than anyone about the impending haircut.

This is a picture of the hair I cut out, thought you all might want to see exactly how much and how long some of the pieces were!

She is now sporting a shorter more layered look. I had to really layer it so we wouldn't have to cut it above her shoulders! I like it and Emma does too, that's all that matters!

I should have gotten a picture of Jody crying. . .

Bible Character Night at AWANA

Here are some pictures of the girls before church last night! We had AWANA and the girls were supposed to dress up in costumes with a bible verse in mind. Emma was a butterfly after Genesis 1:24-25 . Anna was a ladybug after the same verse in Genesis 1:24-25. And Lizzy was a flower after Psalm 103:15. They were so cute! They are all sitting by their pumpkins on the front porch they created last weekend with Papa and Wanka! Jody did a great job with taking their pictures, I do have to say our kids are very photogenic too!

Can you guess which one is for which girl?

Doctor Visits!

Anna went to the doctor last Friday for her 2 year check-up. She weighed in at 25lbs and was 33.5 inches tall. Basically she was just under average (50%) for height and about 25% for weight, head circumference was about 25% too. She is doing very well, her pediatrician couldn't believe she was already potty-trained and amazed at how much she is talking. She puts together really long sentences and uses "I", "me", "mine", etc. And there are very few words you can't understand. All three girls had to get flu-shots too. Anna and Lizzy took them like pros, barely crying at all and Emma got the "mist", the kind they put up your nose. Hopefully these shots will prevent "the flu" this year! I took these pictures last week of the girls.

Thumbs, are they really that important?

So I went to the doctor yesterday to see what's up with my thumb. I was doing yardwork Sunday afternoon, and I remember whacking it really hard on something, but was busy and didn't stop. It started bothering me that evening but not enough to warrant me taking medicine or me even remotely thinking I needed to go to the doctor. For those of you who don't know, I don't take medicine unless it is absolutely necessary. I don't know where this came from but I just think if I can handle the pain I will unless it gets too worrysome. Of course it continued to hurt and I noticed I wasn't using it. Jody finally convinced me to go to the doctor Tuesday night after I had to take some tylenol because it really was hurting a lot and he even convinved me to put ice on it because it was still really swollen. So I made an appointment fo Wednesday afternoon so Jody could watch the girls and I could go by myself! The doctor immediately said he thought it was broken and I was shocked??? He put this "thumb splint" on it, which now I look like I broke my wrist or arm. He sent me to x-ray where they of course made me put my thumb in many hurtful positions to get some pictures. After my x-rays I was told the doctor would get back to me either last night or right away this morning, so I wait. I guess he was worried because I took so long to go to the doctor and I may have to go to an orthopedic doctor. I am hoping he was wrong about the break and I just whacked it really good. Either way I have to keep this arm thing on, length of time dependant on the x-ray results :-( I now believe thumbs are very important and I can't live without mine!

How could I forget?

I forgot to tell everyone that our little Lizzy is walking! She took her first steps a week or so after her 1st birthday and since hasn't seemed to be in a rush to get up and go! She is a whiz at running along furniture, to and from furniture and around things, I can't believe she doesn't fall more? She looks kind of like one of those matchbox cars going around the track really fast and suddenly jumps the track and crash! She figured out last week how to stand up from sitting on the floor without holding on to anything and decided that this walking thing could be beneficial! She would stand there on all fours, (by all fours I mean hands and feet) for a while and then up she would go, quite amusing. She is a climber too, many times I find her standing up on a stool (not holding onto anything and usually on the very top) quiet as a mouse just looking at me grinning! Of course I have to act as though nothing is wrong or she'll get excited and fall off :-( She is such a fiesty little thing and so funny to see walking! You know when they first start walking and they can't move their hips yet, they kind of saunter like a cowboy. I'll try to grab an action shot so you all can see!

Froggy, Froggy, where's your home?

This evening right after Jody and Emma got home from church I noticed a small frog jumping through the kitchen. We have 2 dogs that go in and out a lot during the day so I didn't think much of it, it must have just slipped in. Of course I sent Jody in the kitchen to catch it where he quickly realized it wasn't an ordinary frog! Apparently it's a tree frog that can jump and climb very well. My friend Katie had frogs for a while and we immediately thought of her. Jody spent the next few minutes chasing it through the kitchen, into the dogs crates, onto the girls book shelf, in the living room, back in the kitchen and then to the back door where I took these pictures! It was a pretty cool little frog. Emma of course loved it and Anna would have been petrified if she would have seen it and went running and screaming "Mommy, my scared" (A whole other story of why she is scared to death of frogs). An eventful evening. . .

2nd Birthday Pictures!

The birthday theme was "Strawberrycake" in Anna terms!

Look at those eyes, she really wanted cake!

Her tongue was really enjoying that icing!

Mommy & Daddy, hugging the new 2 year old!

Our goofy family! Anna received a lot of nice gifts including a beauty salon and the bike she is riding, both in the picture! Emma always makes funny faces in pictures now, thanks Uncle Josh!

I love this picture, she had a sequin on her face and she smiled at me with food in her mouth, yuk!

Anna Virginia

Two short years ago at 7:52am, I gave birth to our second beautiful baby girl! Anna Virginia was 3 weeks 1 day early and came in at 7lb 1 oz and 20 1/4in long. Anna is such a joy in our lives and we couldn't imagine our lives without her. She is the most laid back of the Livingston girls, but lately has been showing us her independance! She is now a big girl and was potty-trained earlier this week!!! A far cry from her sister who was 3 years old! She talks all the time and we actually understand her! Lately she is obsessed with brushing her hair and carries a brush around with her alomst all day including in the car and when she takes a nap or goes to bed! We are having a birthday party for her this evening so I'll get some pictures on here as soon as I can!

Cinderella's Castle!

While we were at Disney we had the privilege of visiting the inside of Cinderella's Castle! They have renovated the Castle since the last time I was there to include a dining area so you can eat with different characters and a suite for a lucky family to stay in! Here are some pictures we took with Cinderella, we were able to eat breakfast with Belle (Beauty & The Beast), Fairy God Mother and Princess Aurora (pictures coming soon)! The girls as you can imagine loved it and we had a great time eating yummy food! Each girl received a magic wand and a wishing star as well as the professional pictures! My brothers even went with, they had a good time too even though they won't admit it! Here's an addition to the original post. . .

Cinderella's Castle was incredible, every girls dream place to live! Here's the inside of the dining area. I didn't get pictures of the windows, but they were stained glass that were of course floor to ceiling, you might be able to see them in some of the pictures? You entered the castle (reservartions only) and received an invitation for your meal (breakfast in our case). We first met Cinderella and had our pictures made, then walked upstairs to the dining room. We sat down at one of the many tables where we were served an all you can eat breakfast (it was so yummy)! The characters came out a little while later after we had a chance to eat so they could sign autographs and take pictures! At the end they had a wishing star (sword in the boys case) ceremony where each girl received a wishing star and a wand. They had to make a wish and close their eyes and when they opened them there were flashing lights all around that reflected the light, it was pretty cool.