Oh Christmas Tree

We got our tree and came home to decorate with Matney. While she napped we moved all the furniture around so that it could fit in the family room and the girls still have room to play. This year is different because all my pretty glass ornaments are still stored in their boxes and new, shatter proof ornaments are hanging on the tree. The top half of the tree has all our "real" ornaments and the bottem half (Matney height and lower) has just balls. It isn't the prettiest tree but we love it!





I just realized that I don't have a picture of the tree finished. Oh well. It isn't nearly as cute as Matney and her Daddy hanging the decorations!

Bundled Up

We took the girls out last weekend to get a Christmas tree at Home Depot. One of the things I made sure of before we got married was that Jared knew we would have a live Christmas tree every year. He's been a great sport about braving the cold (and looking at all the trees, every.single.tree., that is available. I like to know my options! We've gone to Lowe's for the past couple years because they have great afforadable trees but I can't wait until the girls are older and we can go cut down our own!

How cute is this girl? She sweet aunts in TX sent her this cute bear outfit and it is perfect for keeping her warm.




Staying inside for a while to stay warm.

one more time

So, I'm going to try to catch up on blogging on more time. The last several weeks have just been crazy. The Monday of Thanksgiving week Matney got sick. Halle Kate got it Tuesday, I was sick by Wednesday, Jared went downhill on Friday, even my poor mama was crazy ill. We all stayed sick for two weeks and then J and I finally got well. The girls and my mom have decided they have the plague! I finally took Matney to the children's urgent care last Sunday morning and 48 hours of an antibiotic made a HUGE difference. She'd been awake, screaming, for most of the previous nights and now she's back to sleeping great. Halle Kate is on an antibiotic now too so we're hopeful that everyone will stay well!

This past week was our annual Small Group Girls Christmas Party/Ornament exchange and it was at our house again this year. That was Wednesday night and I am so mad at myself for not getting pictures. Ladies, I am so thankful for all our years of friendship! Then Thursday morning we had playgroup here and Thursday night I went to my first cookie swap. Talk about a crazy week! And does anyone know how long it takes to bake 8 dozen cookies???? A LONG FLIPPING TIME. I think next year I may take slice and bake and not care. Oh my gracious. Needless to say there were several long days and nights leading up to Wednesday night trying to get things cleaned, decorated, cooked, etc. I am so glad last week is over!

Peppermint Meltaways. I used my big girl mixer and everything!

Matney enjoyed licking the mixer parts once I was finished. No worries to those of you who ate my cookies, they were already in the oven before she started slobbering on things!

Biter Biscuit

I tried giving Halle Kate a Biter Biscuit (hard teething cookie type thing) the other day and she really liked it. It took her a few minutes in figure out what to do with it but after that...bring on the cookies! Matney hasn't eaten one in more than a year and now all I hear from her is "Matney baby cookie, please". I guess I need to work more boxes of these into the budget!

Teeth

Can you see them? I tried to get a picture. Halle Kate looks like such a different baby with her two new teeth. Hard to believe she's old enough to have teeth!

Growing up

I can't believe Matney is 21 months old. I catch glimpses of her across the room where she already looks so grown up. I happened to have the camera near me at one of those moments last week. Just look at her, she's not a baby anymore. sniff!

Matney right now is SO MUCH FUN. We are certainly having our battles with tantrums and behavior/listening/obeying issues but overall she's so sweet and funny. She is starting to really interact with Halle Kate. She and I were out of the house today without HK or Jared and Matney asked several times for her sister. Isn't that so sweet? She's started giving HK toys and going up to her and saying "Boo Baby". Halle just laughs and Matney smiles and does it again. That just melts my heart!

Matney still loves Elmo and (I'm sad to say it) she's started to like Barney. ugh. She still loves to read and "play letters". We ask her to find a letter and tell us it's sound. She knows all her capitol letters and their sounds. Her favorite is the "H" because it sounds like a puppy dog. We'll say "Matney, be an H" and she runs around sounding like she's panting. So funny.

She loves shoes, especially her new boots. I'll have to take a picture of those sometime because they are cute! We've had a couple of battles because she wanted to wear them to bed. Such a girl!

Jared and I are so so so so so so SO THANKFUL to be her parents. We could not be more in love with this little girl!

Play Dough

If you've known me for any amount of time you know that I do not like getting my hands dirty. The idea of play dough in my house is just really not appealing to me. Welcome to Mommy-hood and suck it up. The girls have been sick for two weeks now and we've been stuck in the house...and I finally got bored enough to get out the play dough. Turns out Miss M is like her Mama and did NOT like to touch it but she wanted me to play with it and make shapes. I also have no artistic ability so I don't expect you to be impressed that I made a snake, a bow, balls and a Mickey Mouse head. At least Matney thought I was cool!

Piggy Ride

Matney's new favorite thing....piggy back rides from her Daddy. She goes to the door during the day and says, "Daddy home, piggy wide" over and over. So sweet! Poor Jared, I think she's wearing him out!

Elf on the Shelf

I am going to attempt to catch up tonight, we'll see how it goes!

My mom's friend Kathy (THANKS, KATHY!) gave us The Elf on the Shelf set last year and Matney is LOVING having an elf in her house each morning. If you don't know anything about this the premise is that there is an elf who comes from the North Pole each morning between Thanksgiving and Christmas to visit your house. He comes each day to watch the children and reports back to Santa at night. In the morning Matney gets to wake up and find him because he's come back to a different place in the house. So far our elf has hung from lights and fans, gotten cozy on the mantle and watched from the bookshelves. I didn't know if M would be old enough this year to pay any attention but she comes downstairs each morning ready to find him. The book we read says that we're allowed to talk to him but can't touch him because his magic will disappear.

The idea is that when she's old enough to understand saying "the elf is going to tell Santa how nice/naughty you're being" will be a good motivator for her. Doesn't that sound nice? For now we are having fun watching Matney's excitement and finding new places for the elf to spend his days.

Wipe______!!!

All the Healds are still here, we survived Thanksgiving but we all got sick with a nasty cold. I've wiped noses so many times in the last week it is insane, oh my goodness. Matney has leaned the word "wipe" during all of this and is constanly running around screaming "WIPE NOSE". I hear "NOSE" through her monitor and have to go in her room and wipe it while she's in bed. AGH!!! Today was day 10 and no one seems to be over it yet. Just when I've thought I was getting better my throat hurts again, or my head is killing me. I think Jared would tell you the same thing. Both girls are exhausted because they aren't sleeping well being so congested. HK and I have spent some nights sleeping sitting up together. GO AWAY GERMS!
I am also on our old computer so I don't have any pictures. As soon as I can grab the camera and download to our normal computer I'll get new stuff up. Normally I have about an hour after I'm up and dressed before the girls are up so I can do things like clean and blog but M's been out of bed by 6am for the past several days so I'm behind on EVERYTHING. Anyway, we're here but we're snotty. Hopefully this will end soon!
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT IT IS ALMOST CHRISTMAS? That is CRAZY!!!