Christmas Season

Christmas is in full swing at the Prather house! Not only am I almost done Christmas shopping but all the decorations are up and ready to enjoy.

 

We got our tree up.  This year Chris had a great idea to put it close to the door.  It is out of Ali's reach and it makes the front door look festive because you can see the glow from outside. Caroline was a big help this year hanging up ornaments.  She mainly stuck to one side of the tree so her side had LOTS of the unbreakable ornaments.  Pip the cat  jumped in tree like she was greeting an old friend. The tree is now 8 years old and there is a huge hole where the cat likes to perch. 

 

Chris took care of the lights this year. He put the penguins up last night.  These are one of my favorite birthday gifts from my parents.

Front Door- The tree is shining through

Stockings and baby Jesus are up.  The fun thing about a new house is deciding where every Christmas decoration belongs.

 

My Mom gave me an early Christmas present for the kitchen. I really like how it turned out.

 

One of our traditions is we make an ornament at the mudroom.  Sara and Andrea joined us this year. Sara made the cutest Christmas plate out of Andrea's hands and feet. Caroline used a gallon of red paint on her heart ornament. I held Ali so she wasn't photographed at the mudroom.

I did however; photograph her standing up in her high chair yesterday afternoon.  One strap is  broken so Ali thought when I was heating up her dinner she would grab at the  art work behind her head. I immediately moved her to our portable high chair where she will probably be sitting the remainder of her babyhood.

She didn't seem to mind.  Ali is wearing a homemade Christmas Mimi bibs.  These are awesome because she can't take it off & she never gets food on her clothes.

 

Yesterday afternoon we spent some time with Mimi, Nana & Papaw. The girls love going over there.

Jaden is One

My nephew Jaden turns 1 years old in 2 weeks but we wanted to celebrate with him. On Saturday when the Davids were down from Las Vegas we had his birthday party.

Aunt Dacee with all her nieces and nephew.

Ali celebrating with puffs instead of the cookie cake

Singing happy birthday and opening presents

Caroline's favorite part is the icing of the cookie cake.  I loved getting to see Jaden and I'm glad we got the celebrate with him!

Thankful

I am thankful for so many things this year.  Ali was born this year and Caroline became a sweet big sister. We were able to go to Startford for Thanksgiving this year to be around my mom's family.  

I have a ton cousins on my mom's side.  We are missing Tanner who lives in Florda and didn't have Friday off and the William's three boys because my Uncle Wade's football team is still in the playoffs.  It was snowing by the time Thanksgiving started.

The Family- 

Next year we will have one in the picture when Dondi has her baby

Lolly Showing Ali snow

Caroline eating red Jell-o salad.  Her favorite thing my mom made.

We spent the night at my grandparent's house Wednesday night. Game night always gets crazy around our family. Everyone is bad losers  & worse winner.

Ali is 10 Months Old

Ali is 10 months old today! What I want to remember:

Ali is such a happy, smiley baby

Wears 9-12m clothes

Size 3 shoes

Size 4 diapers 

She loves:

Peas

Mash potatoes

Yogurt

Sweet Potatoes

Blueberry Oatmeal

Drinking from sippy cup

Her favorite toys are the ones that make LOTS of noise. She also wants to be around her sister and in the middle of everything! Baths have to be quick and to the point. She likes to pull up and cruise around furniture- The Christmas tree is in trouble.

She does not appreciate her car seat - It is the devil to her. Thanksgiving we took her on her longest road trip and she did ok.  The last 30 minutes both ways were tough. She will do better when she can get flipped around in a year.

She sleeps 7pm-7am- 1 morning nap- 1 afternoon nap. She does good at dare care.  She still doesn't have any teeth but can gum to death any food we give her.

We love our sweet 10 month old.

Dondi, Kyle and Jaden came for the week and we had such a great time! On Wednesday we took Jaden to the Science Spectrum. 

Caroline petting Carlos the turtle

Jaden checking out the sharks

Wall climbing with Caroline. More family time to come.

Stone Soup

Today was Caroline's Stone Soup day at her school.  Ms. Deborah her teacher has been reading  Stone Soup all week.  The class today went on a scavenger hunt to find all the ingredients and then her class acted out the story on things they found.  Caroline found the pot so she got to go first. She walked really proudly up to the front of her little class. It was sweet.

It's a great story about sharing and taking care of others. After the story her cafeteria served stew and rolls for the kids and parents. Her teacher had a little rock that said "I tried stone soup" Caroline was about to put it in her stew when I stopped her.  She wanted REAL stone soup.  

 

I let Caroline come back to school with me.  She did great!  I set her up a little desk and my school lap she watch Daniel Tiger and colored for most of the afternoon.  I mainly needed to catch up on my transcription so it was fun having her at school.

This is Caroline on the way to pick up sister. 

Also we met one of the neighbors last week at gymnastics and arranged a play date.  The girls had so much fun playing princesses.  She also has a sister Ali's age so Ali got to play with a friend too!

 

A couple of Pictures from the week: 

 

Where's Ali?

There she is!

This is Ali's new favorite trick.

 

She really likes to play with Caroline. Caroline will sell out and jump out from behind the couch with a roar!!!

 

Caroline and Daddy went to birthday party on Saturday while Ali and I played at home.

Ali's new hats

Aunt Jacee got the girls matching hats

So cute!