New Year, New Baby!

New year, new baby!  Hailey is going to have a sibling next summer!  We're due on July 3, 2011.  Let the "baby therapy" for Buggy begin! 

Happy New Year Ya'll!!

White Christmas

We didn't have to dream of it here in Virginia because we had a White Christmas!  And Bug had tons of fun playing in the snow!

Snow Angels!

"Oooo Wow!"  Her park looked very pretty this afternoon, covered in snow!

Taking a break on her stoop.  It sure does take a lot of energy to walk around in the snow when it comes up to your baby knees!

Warming up inside and playing with her American Girl, Bitty Baby.  Giving her kisses, brushing her hair and giving her a baba.

Playing with her new favorite tub toy (a floating castle!) from her best bud Robert in a very warm and toasty bath!

Christmas Leftovers

It's hard to believe that last year at this time, Bug was just a little baby...

And now she's a little girl, with a BIG (but adorable) attitude! Here a few leftovers from our fabulous Chirstmas Weekend. Enjoy!



Oh Come Let Us Adore Him!

Perfect.  That's the only word that comes to mind when I reflect back on this years Christmas festivities.  As I'm sitting here, sipping my Egg Nog flavored coffee and looking over the pictures from this weekend, it's snowing outside.  Everything is covered in a beautiful white blanket of snow and the Christmas lights are shining bright on the houses across the street and everything is just perfect.  A perfect White Christmas.  The food was delicious (and too much of it was consumed!), the company was great, church was moving, and our daughter who has everything, got even more.

Yesterday, before heading over the Granny Nanny's ("Gigi") and Grandpa Ben's ("Babu"), we bundled up and headed outside for our daily run around the park.  Yes.  We are that family who still runs around outside when it's snowing, raining, below freezing.  You name it.  Bug's out there.  Perhaps she will be a postal worker?  Buggy was also very excited to try out her new big girl sneakers!

After exerting lots of energy running laps around the tennis courts, we came inside for some lunch.  Bug ate all of her blueberries, but decided to put her Goldfish somewhere else.  Can you find them?

Then it was time to head over to the Grandparent's house and drop the little one off with them and Uncle Poogie, while Doug and I enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Eve service at our old church home, Williamsburg Community Chapel.

Then it was time to eat.  And eat we did.  Ham, potatoes, beans, rolls, pies, cookies...And instead of laying around in a "food coma" like we normally would do, we just put on our stretchy pants and got ready to open some presents.  Because Bug was very good this year, she had so many presents that we had to open half of them on Christmas Eve! 

By the end of the night, she was an expert at ripping open the presents.

There was a general noticeable "Melmo" and "Dora" theme this year with her gifts.

What little girl wouldn't want a potty for Christmas?  But likes sitting on her potty and making a "Ssssss" sound.  Then she rips off some toilet paper, puts it in the potty and flushes it!

"Babu" spent most of the night playing peek-a-boo with Bug and reading her stories (and feeding her chocolate and cookies!)  I knew it was bound to happen, but I still wasn't happy about it.  Bug took her first sip of Coke, and fortunately, she hated it.  She kept rubbing her tongue, trying to get the taste off of it! 

Uncle "Poogie" Ryan surprised Hailey with a talking rocking horse!  It's going to take a little getting used to, but I know she's going to love it!

After many failed attempts at a family photo in front of the tree, we gave in to Bug's pleading to play and settled with this picture.

Hailey was up past 10pm!! and was still going strong when we loaded up Pearl to head home to Richmond and wait for Santa Claus! She was the center of attention (as always) and I can't recall a time when she had more fun!

Of course, all that fun can be pretty tiring on a little girl, and she was snoring before Pearl even made it to the interstate!  "Sleep in heavenly peace..."

We walked the sleeping baby upstairs to her crib, unloaded all our presents into the living room and set out cookies for Santa.  DaTa pretended to eat some of Santa's cookies!  We made extra yummy ones for him!

Later that night, we heard Santa downstairs!  We were so excited that we couldn't wait to see what he brought our good little girl!  We waited until we heard his sleigh take off from the roof and we headed downstairs!

He even ate most of his cookies and drank all of his milk!

The next morning, Bug woke up and was ready to go downstairs and see what Santa brought her!  Her eyes lit up and scanned the room at all her loot (and the baby gate free Christmas Tree!).  Many "ooo's", "awwww's", "pwetty's" and "wow's" ensued and then she was ready to play!  She had to run around and touch and play with everything at first.  And then she zoned in on one special toy.  The trampoline.  And she jumped, and jumped and jumped. 

Later that morning, Granny Nanny, Grandpa Ben and Uncle Poogie came over. We ate some more. Opened lots of presents, and then ate again!

Out of all the complicated, noisy, hard to put together toys, her favorite is a $10 toy from Target.  She loves hitting the balls with the mallet and watching them roll down!  I guess that's an improvement from last year, where she was only interested in the wrapping paper!

This year she got lots of babies, and baby accessories this year too.  At first, it was hard for her to understand the her doll crib was for her dollies, and not her!

"Gigi" and "Babu".

In typical Gardner/Kinard holiday fashion, the women were left to do all the cooking and cleaning while the men napped and watched sports.  Uncle Poogie was out cold, snoring, before we were even done opening presents!  I'm not even mad, but instead impressed that he was able to reach R.E.M so quickly ( I believe we were in the middle of a conversation!) and on our cold hardwood floor!  Grandpa Ben lucked out with the whole couch and comfy blanket to himself, and Doug worked his way over to the chair.  (He's under the Auburn t-shirt!)  Gotta love 'em!

It was a perfect Christmas, with our perfect little family. 

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him!  Merry Christmas!