Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We have been celebrating Christmas for a while now. Britton, Julie, and the kids came to stay with us on Christmas Eve. It was so great getting to have them here with us. Thanks you guys for coming!!
We started the holiday on Christmas Eve at my mom's house. We went over early that morning and had eggs Benedict and bloody Mary's. After dinner, we had to hurry home before Santa came...
We had a great time getting to see all the children discover what Santa had left them. For Elle, this year was a Christmas of "Dora." Here she is holding her Dora balloon, sitting in her Dora chair, and wearing her Dora dress and house shoes. Elle's excitement made my Christmas!! It was so fun to watch her.
Jackson got a "PSP" (or a game boy for you old folks). Alli got some toys and books. Alli also got her first baby doll from my Aunt Cyndi. As you can tell, she loves her baby.
Thanks Aunt Julie and Uncle Britton for Alli's new shoes. She can't wait for it to warm up so she can go swimming in Poppy's pool and out on MeMe's boat.
Alli likes the taste of beef (note the cow in her mouth) she got a "Little People Farm" from her Granddaddy and Nonnie.













After Christmas, the stomach bug made a stop at our house and left Matt feeling less than joyful. We had to cancel the invitation for Lucy and Larry to spend the night, but they still got to come by and visit. They brought Alli a zoo toy and a fun purse. Of course, Alli liked the box the best...

We headed east to Evan and Marta's to ring in the new year. We had a great time "settling Catan" on new year's eve. On Thursday we had a great big "trash plate" breakfast and got to visit with Charley and Rhonda. Alli and Kate enjoyed playing with their toys with Poppy.

Matt and I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and we wish you the best of everything in 2009.

Happy Halloween

Alli had a big time this year celebrating Halloween. On Monday she wore her Halloween headband to school to start the week of celebration.

At school, the class made scarecrows out of old pajamas.

On Thursday night her school had a fall festival. The director of the daycare said Alli had the cutest costume she had seen all night. Here is Alli with 3 of her teachers.

On Friday night Matt, Alli, and I walked around our neighborhood and watched the other little goblins....

Bath Time

Alli and Matt love bath time. It is their time to hang out and play together. Enjoy the video...

So sorry

We would like to apologize for taking SOOO long to update our blog. Lots has happened to us since I posted last. Alli turned 3 months old...then 4 months old, I (Kristi) celebrated my birthday, we went camping. Lots of fun things....

Alli has been going to daycare (we call it "school") during the day while Matt works and I go to class. Alli really loves her teachers there. She especially loves Ms. Sheika. According to everyone at school, Alli is Sheika's favorite. They do some fun things with the kids during the week. A few weeks ago it was "silly sock day". That particular day was the first cold morning we have had this year so Alli got to wear one of her new fall outfits. Her socks really speak the truth...

Another day at school they had pajama day. Check out Allison in her beautiful gown Mrs. Pam gave her. Doesn't she look fetching..... This month we went to visit Matt's family. Marta and I went to a big consignment sale and bought our girls some new fun clothes. While visiting, we got to see Matt's grandparents (Grand Bobbie and Pappy).

I had a great birthday. Matt cooked me a fabulous meal on the 10th and we went camping on the 11th and 12th. We were a bit worried because Allison had stopped sleeping through the night and we knew that when she woke up she would disturb everyone else. But, Alli started sleeping through the night again while we were camping. When she woke us at 6am Matt and I were thrilled!!

The reason we went camping was so we could help TJ with the Enduro (Dirt Bike race) that he was putting on. Alli loved all the dirt bikes. I thought she might be scared by all the noise, but she loved it. Of course, she was the hit of the Enduro.

Baptism

Allison was baptized on Sunday. It was a wonderful experience for us. We were so blessed to have so many friends and family members there to share in this sacrament. (Click the picture above to watch a video).


The dress Alli wore has a cool history. My mom (Lynn), brother (Britton), myself (Kristi), niece (Elle), and Alli all wore this dress to be baptized. Each of us has our name and date of birth sewn into the hem. Alli also wore a pearl necklace that Aunt Julie got her for the big day. She looked so beautiful and was well behaved through the whole thing.

We celebrated together with friends and family after church at my mom's house. Thank you to all who were able to celebrate with us in our special time.

Crass Weekend

Evan, Marta, and Kate came to visit us this weekend. It was great getting to hang out with them and let the girls play. Ok, so the girls didn't really play with each other, but Kate entertained us by pushing the laundry basket all over the house and Alli showed off her stomach to back roll. We had a very lazy Saturday complete with big breakfast and lots of Olympic watching. Thanks guys for making the trec to our house.

A week of Firsts

Alli has had one busy week! It started on Monday with Alli's first extended period without her Mama. Kristi decided it was time to start breaking Alli (and herself) into the concept of time apart. For the first test, Meme and Grandpa Larry came to town to hang out with the girl while Kristi spent some time getting reacquainted with the lab at school. After four hours of separation, Kristi had cried, Alli had not. In fact I (Matt) think I heard from my office upstairs Alli say, "This isn't so bad: lunch in a bottle and playtime with Jacque the Peacock!" See below Alli kicking Jacque's tail feathers in a staring contest.

The 2nd "first" came on Wednesday, and was witnessed by Granny Lynn. Much to the disbelief of her parents, Alli rolled over for the first time in post womb recorded history. We're convinced that Alli's been TiVoing the Olympic women's gymnastics and has decided to start practicing her tumbling early. She went on to perform a series of rolls that haled a cumulative "9.8" from the judges, both her parents haling witness. She took her bow (or at least smiled real big).

The 3rd "first" occurred this morning when Allison slept for 2 hours in her crib without being swaddled. One night we were moments away from breaking into a Babies R Us after hours for a clean swaddle. Kristi was most excited about this since she was afraid Alli would never be able to sleep without being in her "baby straight jacket." Alli was dreaming about her first catch and practicing her story to her friends. "Isaac I promise that fish was THIS big."