Leaving for MN Today...

Merry Christmas!
We're flying to Minnesota this afternoon to spend a week with both sides of our family.
We had a wonderful weekend! My parents flew in Friday and left Monday afternoon & the Christmas concert, "Stories", at church went really well. I believe lives were touched with the real message - that God came as a baby to save us. We're so thankful for our extended Charlotte "family" that we've come to know - they are dear and precious to us.
Elise had her 6 month Dr. visit last week Thursday. She continues to grow - she's now 28 inches long & 17 pounds, 3 oz. Christmas came a little early at our house - so that Elise could get her "big" present at home - a new wagon!
Her friend, Kaylie, next door turns 1 on Dec. 22nd, and the girls will have lots of fun in the wagon this next spring.

Well, I'm looking at the clock and time is ticking away...I have a few more things to do before we leave. Have a safe and blessed Christmas!

2nd Week of December

This week has been full of rehearsals, shopping & a little baking. I took a picture of our tree from Elise's vantage point...just so we get an idea of what it looks like to her. She turned 6 months this week! What a fun age...her little personality is starting to show, and she's also starting to let us know when she wants something and isn't getting it fast enough, such as a toy that's out of reach.

Our Christmas concert is this weekend & we have 3 performances - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My parents fly in on Friday afternoon to stay for the weekend. It's been unseasonably warm here - record highs in the mid and upper 70's all week, and so getting into the Christmas spirit has been a little more difficult. The temps should drop into the 50's by Saturday. I've been Christmas shopping in flip flops...gotta write this down to remember!

Have a great week...the countdown to Christmas is on!

Getting Ready for Christmas

We got the tree decorated this weekend, and Elise loved the lights. We set her down by the tree & she was content to just feel the needles and look at the lights, but she soon decided that she wanted to pull the branch into her mouth to taste it, so it was a short lived moment, but we captured a bit of her intrigue. Saturday night Curt joined us and we had tomato basil soup, cheese bread & warm chocolate chip cookies before doing some decorating. It was a fun evening. We hope you all have a great week. We're hoping to get many things done this week to finish up Christmas shopping, because we have dress rehearsal & performances the following week, and then we leave for Minnesota. We hope to stay healthy and well rested. Take care! Merry Christmas!

Capturing the moment

The last week of November

This past week was a great week. Elise has started on a great schedule, and I told her she can hang on to this one as long as she likes. She wakes up to eat between 5:30-6 am, then goes back down to sleep until 7:30am. She'll get up to eat & play & then back down for a morning nap around 9:30, which usually lasts about 1 hour to an hour and a half. She gets up, eats, plays some more, then has rice cereal with fruit or vegetables, then down for her afternoon nap around 1:30 & sleeps till about 3pm. She'll get up after her nap & play a bit, eat a little more rice cereal, then it's bathtime, a bedtime story, eat & to bed by 6:30pm. It's been nice to have a few quiet hours in the evening to get things done.
On Friday night we went out to get our Christmas tree & we found a nicely shaped little tree. We almost thought about not putting one up since we'll leave for MN on Dec. 18th, but it just wouldn't feel the same without having one to enjoy.
This weekend we also got Elise a warm snowsuit so she is ready to visit family in the tundra. It'll be perfect to bundle her up.
She wasn't too excited about trying it on for us, but we're sure that she really does like it. LOL.