Hollyhand House

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Our Annual Christmas party

   I have had a Christmas party every year (with the exception of last year since we weren't living in our house at the time) since I was in college.  I will say the parties have changed quite a bit since my college days with kids running around but its still so fun to get friends together during this time of year.  We decided to just have a few couples and their kids over this year...which is still a house full because of our growing families! :)  I do wish all of my friends lived close enough to come each year!! 
    We had tons of food!  My family always "over do it" in the food department so I guess I get it from them.  We also had a surprise visit from SANTA!!  The kids HATED him! Ava Kate and Lily grace were the only kids that sat in his lap without crying and AK doesn't count.  Lily Grace was so sweet and told him exactly what she wanted.  Some kids had nothing to do with him and wouldn't even come near him and the others just screamed for their life!!  Anna Riley kept saying "No, mommy! No, Mommy!"  He was great with the kids though and he went in the playroom and sang Christmas Carols with them and they all warmed up to him a little but we didn't try pictures again.  I figured we had traumatized them enough for one night!

All the kids actually sat down together to eat at the table.

I think Audrey made about 3 trips to get more food...
or maybe just cupcakes?!



Sweet little Talon!

Ava Kate with Miss Mandy



Lily Grace with Santa

Poor Chloe did not like Santa!
I do love this picture though!!

Talon also hated Santa...

Audrey looks like she was being
forced to sit!  haha


And once again, Santa is having to force another
child to sit in his lap!  haha...poor Emma!
Caroline was okay wth Santa as long
 as she could have her flashlight!
Anna Riley would not sit in his lap so we just stood by him!
She did reach over and touch his hat but we didnt get a picture of it!

Peyton and I felt bad that no one wanted their picture
with him so we got ours with him! :)

Courtney and her precious boys, Tucker and Talon,
singing Christmas Carols with Santa

Santa singing Christmas Carols with the kids

Lily Grace with Ava Kate...
she is so sweet with babies!

Talon checking out his future girlfriend!! :)


Monday, December 19, 2011

Baking Cookies


Anna Riley loves to help me cook, especially when we are baking cookies.  She just doesn't understand the baking process.  She gets upset everytime they go in the oven to bake! 

We usually make chocolate chip cookies but we made sugar cookies this time so we could ice them and decorate them with sprinkles.

Anna Riley got very sprinkle happy.  I had to keep reminding her to decorate more than one cookie!


Our finished product...pretty huh?! haha  I can't blame the bad icing job on the toddler even though it looks like she did that part too! 

Riley Christmas Lunch and a Triplet Birthday

The Riley side of the family (Riley's grandmothers family)  got together in Bessemer at the Bright Star for a lunch to kick of the Christmas season!  We never get to see all of Mimi's family, so it was great to have everyone together. 






That evening, we headed to celebrate Emma, Caroline and Audrey's 3rd birthday! Can't believe these precious girls are already 3 years old!!

Is it already Christmas??

Just like everyone else, we have been super busy around here.  I feel like I have been running a marathon since Ava Kate was born.  I do bring a lot of it on myself because I don't let things such as, oh having a newborn slow us down.  In the spare time I had to blog, I was working on another project that took up all my "blogging time" so now that it is finished maybe I can get back to it. 

Here is a quick recap of somethings we have been doing this month thus far.  I plan to do separate posts with pictures in due time. 

-We started the Christmas festivties off the first weekend in Decemeber with a Christmas lunch at the Bright Star with Riley side of the family (Riley's grandmother's sisters).
-We have had a three birthday parties this month (next year it will be 5 just in Decemeber!)
-Anna Riley has taken after her Mommy and loves to bake.  We have baked cookies a few times. 
-Anna Riley really liked looking at the Christmas lights this year!
- I hosted two Christmas parties in one week at our house.  One was for my Bunko group on a Thursday night and I had planned to have my month to host be December last Christmas so it was before I knew I would have a newborn.  SO...crazy me thought we would just have a small party that weekend too! Why not?!  haha...oh the things I do to stress myself out!  Both parties were great though!
-I have a new nephew!  Riley's sister, Amanda had her first baby on Decemeber 11th! 
-Anna Riley got her first haircut!!!  I can't wait to share the pictures!
-Becca, Zoe and Evan came to visit!
-We celebrated Riley's birthday with his favorite birthday meal...Spam and Mac and cheese! (weird, I know!)
-We have did a lot of painting and Christmas crafts.  Anna Riley LOVES to do the handprint crafts.  But, now everytime we paint, she automatically starts paiting her hands!
-We went to the Earnest Christmas party this weekened...complete with my Mom's famous egg rolls!!

Pictures to come....

Sunday, December 11, 2011

2 months

This post is just a little late.  As everyone else, we are crazy busy around here and blogging has been put on the back burner! Hopefully, I will get everything posted one day soon!
Look who is growing like a weed!!
Ava Kate is 2 months old as of December 6th.

-At her 2 month check-up she weighed 13.2. (95%) she and AR both gained exactly 5lbs from birth.  I will have to look up her length but it was 75%. 
-She just moved up to the size 1-2 diapers.  She wears 3 month clothes (some 0-3 and some 3-6). 

-She still has dark brown hair but is losing a lot of it.  It is still thick in the back.  Her eyes are like mine...kind of a hazel, blue/green color...not sure if they will stay this way. She has a small skin tag on the back of her ear lobe on the right side.   She favors her Daddy's baby pictures more to me than AR's did.  I will have to scan one in and compare soon.
-She has the cutest, skinniest feet.
-She has chubby little cheeks that are just the cutest!

-She eats 6 oz. every 3-4 hours during the day and only wakes up once at night and that time varies.  Sometimes its 2 or3 but the past several nights, I have fed her at 9:30-10ish and she slept until 5.  
-She usually has a fussy period around 8 or so at night.  This is getting better though!  The only thing that really soothes her then is standing up and patting her bottom!
-She was spitting up quite a bit, but she is doing better with that.  She does gag really easy.  If she doesn'tthe pacy, she will gag sometimes!!

-She is cooing and smiling all the time now.  She is really a happy baby most of the time.  I love her little expressions she makes!
-She likes her swing and bouncy seats but these definitely do not soothe her or calm her down if she is fussy.  They probably just make it even worse!  She does like looking at the mobile and little toys on the swing now.
-She is still in our room now and she sleeps on the boppy pillow because of the elevation.  I had AR sleeping in her bed by now but for some reason, I keep putting it off!  Hopefully, I will do that soon.
-She went on her first trip to Fairhope on Thanksgiving and did pretty well traveling.  Since we went from Berry, it took us an extra hour and that extra hour got us with both girls.  But other than that she did great!

-She is grabbing hold of things now.  When she lays on the changing table, she will grab my shirt.  
-She has a big sister that loves her so much!  She is constantly wanting to hold her and "rock rock" her.  Ava Kate loves watching her big sis!
-She had her first cold this month but was such a trooper! 
-She is such a cuddler and loves to be held.
-To save on time, I often put AR in the shower and Riley will bring Ava Kate to me and she gets in the shower.  She really likes it! 



Anna Riley at 2 months (left) Ava kate 2 months (right)


Wednesday, December 7, 2011

22 months

Anna Riley is 22 months old!  I can't believe she will be 2 years old in just 2 short months!! Wow, time sure does fly!! She is getting so big and doing so many new things these days...here are some things she is doing at 22 months old:

-She wears size 24 month and 2T and a size 6 shoe.  She wears either a 4 or 5 diaper. 
-We had to go to the doctor the other day to get checked out for a lingering cold and she weighed 28 lbs.
-I don't remember how tall she was, but she is always above average in her height!  She is always getting comments on how tall she is.

-She is very strong willed and impatient!! haha  Riley says the impatience comes from me!  She gets frustrated very easy!!  If things aren't done a certain way and in a timely fashion a meltdown is sure to happen! 
-She goes through spells with her sleeping.  She sleeps great most of the time but we have times where she either doesn't want to go to bed and cries and bangs on the door or she gets up in the middle of the night again. 
-She eats very little some meals and great some meals.  But she sure does love those cookies when she does eat good!  She will beg for cookies or cake! 


-She is so funny these days.  She is constantly making us laugh.  She is just starting to get into dressing up.  These were some of my old scarfs that I gave her to play with.  She wanted them all tied to her.

-She LOVES shoes!!  I guess she comes by it naturally.  She would sleep in shoes if I would let her! 

-She likes to watch me put on makeup and pretend that she is too.  On Thanksgiving day, we were running a little late because we were leaving from Berry to go to Fairhope so we had to make sure we were all packed so we were kind of running around and I had not noticed that she had gotten in my makeup.  When I went to put her in the car, I noticed that her eyes looked really sparkly and brown and finally realized it was my bronzer that she had put on!  It looked like someone hit her in the eye!! haha

-She loves to play in boxes...what child doesn't though?!  And those soap.com boxes are the best!
- When she wants us to go somewhere or get something for her, she gets our hands and drags us where shewants us to go.
-She is starting to like "pretend play"...she is constantly picking up pretend things off the floor to give to us and she will say "here you go, Mommy"... if we don't get it and do something with it, she will just keep giving it to you!


-For a while, she did not play with her babies as much, but they are back now! She loves all of them and is constantly pretending to give them food and sips of her drink. We still have the exersaucer in the playroom and she puts her babies in it to play. She recently got the little people nativity set and I caught her suctioning baby Jesus' nose out a couple of times!!

-Speaking of babies, she is all about her baby sister right now!  She wants to hold her a lot and "rock rock" her. She will say " want rock rock baby"...but she only wants to rock her in the little vibrating chair or the carseat!  I am afraid she is going to think Ava Kate is her new baby doll now so I have been keeping a close eye on them. Anna Riley has always did great and never tried to pick Ava Kate up or anything but she is all about being a little mother right now.
-Her vocabulary has really expanded this month!  She is saying more and more phrases...some of  the regulars are:  "give me that" or "give me that back" (we have had to work on this), "no" and "no way" (and she is usually shaking her head and hands), and recently she says "no ma'am (she says this to RIley as well) "hear it?" "lets go bye bye", "see you later", "want to play outside...car...phone, "there you go or here you go", "I want that." and so many more I just can't think of them all.  These are just the ones I hear the most.
-She is constantly saying our names...she walks around the house saying "Daddy, Mommy, Sissy!" 
-She has been able to count to 10 for a little while but would rarely do it.  Now she counts all the time and counts everything she sees.  But she usually starts at five for some reason!  She knows 1-5 not sure why she doesn't say it, but says 5-10 perfectly and every once in a while I hear a 13 in there?! 
-We have really worked on colors this month.  Last month she was only interested in knowing the color blue but now she knows blue, yellow, red and pink and sometimes green.  The other day she brought me one of the red ornaments that I let her play with and held it to my red pants and said "red, Mommy! red" 
-She also points out things she sees that are the colors she knows when we are going somewhere or if she seems them on T.V. or in a book.


-She would be snack all day if I let her! 
-She LOVES popsicle!  Most mornings, we I telling her no popsicle and its only 8am!!  At least now, I am buying sugar free!
-She also loves fruit snacks!  She runs to the pantry all the time and wants fruit snacks. 

-I let her play with my phone a lot especially while I am in a store.  I have realized that she is calling so many people!!  Sometimes she take my phone while at the house and goes and calls people.  She calls Riley and my parents a lot and will talk and talk and I will have no idea that she has called them!

-I call her my little tornado, because she literally destroys everything in her path!!  She is into everything right now!! 
-She really likes doing anything outside but she loves things that aren't toys like the lawnmower, our cars, golf carts, 4 wheelers. She just likes to ride on anything!!

-She loves her rain boots and calls them her "Paw Paw boots" because my Dad wears boots a lot so she thinks she has boots like him now...even though I don't think he would wear polka dots!

-She LOVES playing inside the car.  This would entertain her for a good hour.  She likes for you to close the door and just let her play.  She will say, "bye bye Mommy...see you later!"  "I go bye bye!"  We have had many meltdowns because she couldn't play in our cars at a certain time!




Even though she can be a mess sometimes and is constantly into everything right now, I couldn't imagine my life without this precious little girl!!  She means the world to her Daddy and me!  We love her SO much! 

Monday, December 5, 2011

Thanksgiving weekend in Fairhope

After filling our bellies, we loaded up headed down to Fairhope for the rest of the weekend.  For the past couple of years, my parents have been able to go down with us and Riley's Dad.  It is so great to have both of our parents there and boy does Anna Riley love all the attention she gets!!  I am pretty sure she wore them completely out! I did not take that many pictures for some reason.  And some how Mr. Doug managed to not get in any of them!



 
I would love to say we spent the whole weekend just relaxing but that was not the case! Mom and I shopped most of the weekend. The men were wonderful to keep the babies for us so we could do some Christmas shopping. We did not do the crazy mid night maddness, however we are the crazy people that go to Walmart at 9pm to get groceries on this crazy sale night!! The police officer that was standing in the produce section where the line for some tv was wrapped around to, really got a good laugh at us for only coming to get groceries!! But, its Thanksgiving and no grocery stores are open and even though we have a some staple items at the house, we really needed other items and I didn't want to wait until morning! But, it wasn't bad since the sale started at 10...it was actually the quickest I ever shopped in Walmart! It was so great spending some quality time with my Mom.






Anna Riley played outside the whole time we were there, I think! We could not have asked for better weather. It was perfect!! The girls that live in the house down the road, kept her entertained for a while on their golf cart. Anna Riley rides my Granny's golfcart in Berry everytime she goes and loves it so she was so excited that they ask her to play! They are 8 and 9 and the sweetest little girls! They would come and knock on the door to see if Anna Riley was awake and could play! :)
Saturday, Mom and I fixed some snacks and we watched the game at the house!  All I can say is ROLL TIDE!!!