Christmas Eve 2010..And A Little Bit of Catch-Up!

Ok, so first off, I must say that I've not done such a great job of staying on top of the blog during Bailey's birthday season.  I have lots to share from this year, but for now, I'll give you this:

Bailey,  You have gone from this......

to this....

to this......

I have to say that I did not spend this birthday season thinking back to the days leading up to and the events of and after Bailey's birth.  But, rather, I spent this year being thankful for a growing, smart, witty, beautiful, loving, healthy 2 year old.  Oh, how my heart aches for that new born we had 2 years ago and that some what of a still a sweet baby we had last year.  But this year, we have a life unlike any we could have imagined two years ago.  No, I did not dwell on the hurtful beginning we started off with, but instead chose to celebrate what Bailey is to us today and the sweetest that she has brought to our lives.   Bailey, your dad and I love you so much.  We remind each other daily that you are what true love is all about and we are so thankful for you. 

Ok, so I will post birthday pictures from both her parties soon.

For now, I want to journal what we have done this Christmas season and what is to come!  Our Christmas break started off on a rather sad note, with the passing of Sid's first cousin's 9 year old daughter.  Allison was born with some physical and mental challenges, was not able to feed herself or talk, and eventually taking care of her became more a daily challenge than most parents can handle.  Her family made the best decesion they could and decided to place her in a home type facility.  Allison lived there for 10 months before she went to be with Jesus.  Yes, sweet Allison had challenges here on earth, but this Christmas, she is in Heaven singing Christmas carols for the first time in her life.  She pain free and whole.  However, she left a whole family on this side of Heaven who are very sad to be here without her.  We celebrated her life and life and laid her to rest on Monday, December 20th.  The message of her service is one we all need to remember:  We cannot bring Allison back, but we can prepare our hearts and our lives to go be with her in Heaven someday. 

The weekend before the funeral, we celebrated Bailey's birthday with her Alabama family at Mimi and Poppy T's with a sweet little party put on by them.  On Sunday, we went to Beauty and the Beast play in Birmingham with Mimi, Poppy T, Erin, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bo. Monday, we celebrated the life and death of Allison Paige Grey.  On Tuesday, we celebrated Christmas with the Whitehead family (Nene, Jerry, Sid, me, Bailey, Ben, Kylie, Brady and Mason).  Once again, the children had a blast, the food was wonderful, and us adults got way too much!  That is because we are spoiled rotten.  And have great parents!  That doesn't hurt too much either now does it?? Wednesday, we had a party here at our house to celebrate Bailey's birthday with her Mississippi family.  And finally, here we are on Christmas Eve.  We did not go to Alabama like we normally do this year.  Sid had to work until after 4 today and it would have just not been worth it to make a less than 24 hour trip over there and back.  We had hoped to work something out for me and Bailey to get there earlier and have more time and Sid even said we could go on without him.  Needless to say, we are home on Christmas Eve for the first time since being married.  We went to the Christmas Eve service at church.  And now my little Christmas elf is all snug in her bed and santa has visited.  We will go to Jackson in the morning to see Sid's grandmother, which we've not done since we've been married, either.  It hurts to not see my part of the family during this time of year, but at the same time, I am so thankful for what I have here and for Sid and Bailey.  All that matters to me tonight is that I have the Christ candle buring deep inside my soul, I am thankful for my freedom tonight, and I am so in love with my family that is piled up in this bed next to me, sleeping.

And so, tonight, I leave you with these pictures from today.  Christmas 2010.  We tried to take some pictures before church, but Bailey spent the day with Nene and didn't get a nap, so she was extra cry'ie, as you can tell. 

Do ya'll see Santa up there?  Speaking of which, we sure did see Santa after church tonight.  I will always remember coming out of chruch from the Christmas Eve service after having lit a candle and sang, looking up at the sky as a child, looking for the star and for Santa.  Well, tonight, I don't know what we saw, but you'll have a hard time convincing me it wasn't that Jolly Old Man!

And last but not least, couldn't you just eat this sweet thing up in her new Christmas pj's??? I could!!!

Don't be fooled too much by the sweetness though!  She cried for about the whole hour before church and after church.  She just thought it was funny at this moment that I took that Buzz Lightyear from her and said "to infinity and beyond'.  She was giving it a try!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010 Christmas

I probably should wait until these are mailed out, but I know a copy you can hold onto is way better than this picture of a picture.  I recieved a code for 50 free cards this year and I do not think that I will be disappointed.  I was able to get a little better quality of a card this year because I got them for free.  Shutterfly has soooo many neat things on their site now.  I really don't see how they don't put local Christmas card places out of business.  It's easy to use the site and you can make sure your pictures are just so so.  I was even able to make several different cards, save them, and show them to Sid so he could have the final vote.  That's just pretty cool if I do say so myself.   Shutterfly will even address and mail and out your cards for you, for a small fee of course.  I didn't choose that option but I was able to create the perfect card for our family this season and I cannot wait to get them so I can get them out in the mail to you!

Best Gift Ever American Lung Association Holiday 5x7 folded card

Create photo new year's cards with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

And, in other news, this Christmas will go down just like the past 2 Christmas's have, with our sweet girl battling some sickness.  Our Christmas parade was last Monday and it was the first night that the temp dropped very low.  We bundled up our ball of energy and off we went.  On Tuesday, she had a pretty bad stopped up nose, and on Wednesday when Sid picked her up, he thought she just sounded way more congested than she should have.  He took her own to the doctor, but it was too late for a walk in so they made an appointment for Thursday afternoon.  When Sid took her, they decided to test for the Whooping Cough because it's apparently go around in places it shouldn't go around in.  The doctor told Sid that it usually takes a while to get the results back, so she went ahead and treated her like she had it because the antibiotic used would treat her stopped up head regardless.  Late Friday afternoon, I got a call from the State Health Department informing me that Bailey's test came back positive.  Can you imagine the freak out I had?  Sid and  I are being treated, and thank goodness by that time, she had already had 2 of her 5 days of doses.  She has slept alot this week, and especially today, but other than that, she has just ticked right along.  If I didn't know better, I'd say the test showed a false positive.  The bad thing is, I didn't really think she was that sick, so I sent her to daycare Friday and to Kylie and Ben's on Thursday night so we could go to Sid's work Christmas party.  I hope and pray nobody else comes down with it. 

Sid and I have some shopping to finish up and were planning to go tonight, but the weather is terrible here and I have just been dragging myself today.  We are going tomorrow when Nene gets out of church. 

Well, enjoy the online version of our Christmas card and have a safe and warm night!!!

When You Try To Create Your Christmas Card

But your child is 2 this go around, what happens? 

THIS:

 She finally got tired of posing and decided she'd try her hand on her daddy's new netbook.  I'll have to tell you the story of Christmas laptops, but just know that this is part of his Christmas that he already has.  It's the perfect size for Bailey, but we don't let her touch it often.  Just thought these pictures were funny!

I asked her who she was writing to and she told me she was writing to her Mimi and Poppy T to tell them that she misses them very much and wishes they would come to see her very soon!

We went to Jackson this past weekend to spend some time with his grandmother.  The plan was to pick her up and go finish up some shopping that we had and then go back to her house and hang out for a bit.  Let's just say that isn't at all how it went, but we did get to go to the Christmas parade near her house.  This was the first one for Bailey and she absolutely loved it.  I've not seen her enjoy something as much as she did this in a long time.  The bad thing is we still have tons of shopping to finish up because we got none done this past Saturday like planned.

I snapped this picture before the parade and if you look closely, you'll notice a green blob of gum in Bailey's mouth.  Gum is her new kick and the child amazes me with it.  Sometimes she makes the mistake of swallowing it right when she gets it, but most of the time she will keep it.  She kept this piece for a good two hours on Saturday.  AM-A-ZING!!!!

Tonight was Philadelphia's parade and it was freezing cold.  Bless her little heart!  But Sid got her a minnie tobaggon in the style of a ski mask.  Nothing but her eyes and nose showing!  When I saw it I swore up and down she would never wear that thing on her head.  But she did.  She wore it the entire time she was out in the cold.  Her big down coat that Mom and Dad got her last year for Christmas still, ironically, fits so she was very warm in her layers of clothes and all that.  But it was just so cold!  To end the day, we all went to eat Mexican becasue we needed supper, but also because Brady found out today that he made the varsity baseball team for this year.  It was a big deal to him and lots of his friends didn't make it, so we wanted to honor him and let him know we were all proud of him.  He's a great little ball player.  Reminds me of the time and effort my brothers put into ball and how time consuming it was. 

Well, I'm off to see if there were any Christmas cards pictures took the other night that are usable.  If not, enjoy our sweet girl in her show off mode in the cutest Christmas outfit of the year!!!

Oh Christmas Tree!

Finally, I have found the time to post the pictures of the Christmas Tree.  Next on the list:  upload, sort through, and edit the 75+ pictures of Bailey that Sid and I took tonight in front of the Christmas tree.  I'm  hoping to have gotten at least one good one to do a Christmas card and a card for her teachers at school.  I did that last year instead of a traditional Christmas card and they loved it!

This is my most favorite tree ever but I can promise that I highly doubt we will have a full size tree next year.  We didn't want one this year, but we couldn't find anything eles that suited us.  Bailey is so enjoying her tree and that's all that matters to me. 

Some too funny's that she's done:  She's started pointed to things saying "rite der" for "right there". 

Tonight, Sid pulled into a parking lot and was parking.  He either ran up on the curve or swung the truck way out to turn in and made the truck bump a little, I can't rmember.  Bailey plopped that paci out and said "whoa doc!" 

Tonight at supper, she got down from her chair and said "I be rite back Mama".  I said oh no you won't be right back, don't get up.  Did she listen?? Not so much! 

She is making this season of our lives to something that we never dreamed it could be.  My heart could just burst I'm so full of love for her and her daddy. 

We are going to see his grandmother in Jackson Saturday and hopefully do  a little more shopping.  We'll see how that goes!