Rainwater Family Christmas

It's not even Christmas yet and I'm writing a Christmas blog post! Woohoo! The Christmas celebrations have begun and so far our first Christmas as Little Rock residents has been great. We celebrated with David's side of the family on Saturday, so I want to go ahead and blog that so that I don't have to write one huge Christmas blog post.

We headed over early on Saturday morning and immediately put Abigail down for her morning nap. Saturday was John's 31st birthday, so while Abigail slept we celebrated John!

Once Abigail woke up it was present time!

Halfway through opening presents we took a break to eat lunch. Kathy made such a delicious meal and we actually all got to sit at the table at the same time. What a treat.

Once lunch was over and some short naps were taken, present opening resumed. It seems to take a lot longer with kids, but we had a great and relaxing time doing it. No rush at all and we spent most of our time chatting as we opened. So wonderful.

Mike and Kathy did such a fantastic job making it a special day. On Saturday night we had a shower to go to for great family friends, Calvin and Brittany. By the end of the day we were pretty pooped and Abigail even slept in until 8:00 a.m. For lunch we went with Mike and Kathy and the whole family to the club, which was really nice until all the children melted into puddles of crabbiness. It ended quickly when we all couldn't take any more. :) After sleeping almost three hours this afternoon we had our sweet girl back and enjoyed a nice family dinner at Big Orange. We're really looking forward to the rest of our Christmas celebration and another dinner with David's side of the family before we head to Charlotte to celebrate with my side of the family.

13 Months

I have not been a good blogger in the month of December. To anyone who still reads our blog...I am sorry. Lots of fun stuff has happened since my last "iced in" post, but I haven't gotten around to blogging it. In a nutshell, we've Christmas shopped, had a Sunday School Christmas party, had a work Christmas party, gone caroling, and even practiced walking. :) I won't go without blogging our Christmas festivities, but for now, I want to blog Abigail's 13th month. I haven't taken any real pictures on our real camera since the ice storm, so I'll post my iphone pics that I've taken since she turned one.

We've eaten mum mums and gone Christmas shopping...

We got shots and still love snooping in the cabinets...

We loved on Deuce and spent a significant amount of time wearing holiday clothes...

...and even spent some time at our park on an unseasonably warm day!

Facts about Abigail at 13 months:

1. Clothing: 12 month and 12-18 months

2. Diapers: size 4

3. Weight: not sure but I'm guessing somewhere between 20 and 21 pounds?

4. Teeth: 1 bottom tooth has broken through and we can see the one beside it under the skin! Woohoo!

5. Abigail is mostly taking her milk from a sippy cup now, except for at night, when she takes a bottle still. The doctor said to go ahead and drop that night time bottle whenever we're ready, but we haven't done it yet. We don't use it to put her to sleep or anything, but it IS nice to have some quiet time before she goes down. The same effect could be had with a sippy cup, so we'll see if we move to that in this next month. Most likely we will drop it all together.

6. Daily Schedule:
7:00-7:30 Wake up! Sippy cup of milk and breakfast
9:00-10:00 or 10:30 Nap
Depending on when she gets up, we sometimes have a morning snack
11:30 Lunch (if she didn't have a morning snack
12:00-12:30 Lunch (if she DID have a morning snack)
2:00-3:30 Afternoon nap
3:30-4:00 Snack
6:00 Dinner
7:30-8:00 Bedtime

7. Walking: SO CLOSE. She's taken a number of steps unassisted, but she still doesn't quite have the hang of it.

8. She still loves to give kisses, high fives, snuggles and hugs. We're working on identifying some of the body parts, but for now, she can mainly identify my nose...not sure if that's an important skill or not, but it sure is fun. :)

9. Abigail loves on her baby dolls and gives her teddy bear kisses.

10. A new thing she's started doing is offering me or David some of her food. She'll hold it out and sometimes I'll let her put it in my mouth.

11. One thing I don't want to forget about that she is doing is when she puts a bite of food in her mouth, she'll pop it in really fast and then raise her hand up above her head and say, "Mmmmm." We love it.

12. She's doing great in the church nursery and on Tuesday's when I have my women's Bible study. I'm so thankful that she adjusted.

13. If either of us is carrying her up or down the stairs, and someone is following, she bursts out laughing and thinks it's hilarious. This is something she has done for a while, but again, I don't want to forget these sweet things.

14. Her hair is getting so long in the back! The top is catching up, but I could probably put the back in two tiny little pig tails if I tried.

We're Iced In!

An ice storm hit overnight last night and we have been cozily tucked into our little house at the bottom of the hill. We think David's truck could make it up, but it might be a little hairy coming down. By the end of work yesterday David and the other dentists had decided to close the office for today and we were so hopeful that we wouldn't lose power like the news people were warning about. We woke up with power and have thankfully had it all day!

We didn't do too much outside today but did venture out with some of the neighbors for a little bit.

Abigail took a TINY sled ride...she was none too thrilled.

We ended the day inside, warm and drinking hot chocolate!

Never have I been so thankful to have kept power. :)

Thanksgiving Break

This has been a very relaxing Thanksgiving break. Break is the key word there. Not having to travel was such a dream! We have been thankful to be able to have the time and ability to travel and see our families for our last 5 Thanksgivings, but it sure was nice to relax a little bit more.

We had Thanksgiving lunch at Mike and Kathy's with all of the family. The food was delicious and wrangling three kids was fun. It was loud and funny and a sweet time with family.

After lunch and Abigail's nap, we headed over to my parent's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Tripp and Kara were in Fayetteville for Thanksgiving, so it was just us and Mom and Dad. It was a great and very relaxing night. We had wanted to put Abigail to bed at Mom and Dad's, but she wasn't having it, so we headed home. Speaking of bed, Abigail is giving us a hard time these days at night. She wants us to hold her, so she just cries until we come in and pick her up. So...she's crying it out. So far so good and I know we'll get on the other side of this. She's teething and so much more aware of herself right now...it's always something new. Thankfully, when she goes to sleep she sleeps like regular, all through the night. Just a sidenote. :)

On Friday we decorated the new house for Christmas! I have really been looking forward to doing it and we had a great day getting it done. Mom donated me some garland that she no longer needed so that I could do my front door...all I had to get were the decorations for the garland. Since Mike and Kathy moved, they didn't need all their window sreaths anymore, so I snatched them up. All I had to do was add new bows! I'll post pictures of all the finished decor soon, but for now, here are some shots from the day of work!

On Saturday we went down to the farm to eat Thanksgiving lunch with Grandma, which was really really nice. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures, but the Ross family was there, along with all of our family, minus John and Sarah.

Santa and Mrs. Claus were at the Promenade on Saturday, so after Abigail's afternoon nap we took her down to meet them! We didn't have any expectations that she would like it, or even give us a smile, but she did great! She loved Santa and can't wait for Christmas!

Totally kidding...she hated it. This is real life. :)

On Sunday we finished up the last of the decorating by heading to the Christmas tree farm to find the perfect tree!

Unfortunately, the tree farm prices were a little bit above our pay grade, so we actually ended up getting our tree at Home Depot like usual, but the tree farm was free to get in to and fun to see. There were swings, snacks, hay rides, rows of trees to walk through, and pig races! We would recommend it for sure...even if we didn't leave with a tree. ;)