Farewell to Christmas

So we had our last (but certainly not least) Christmas celebration last weekend.  WAYyyyy back when we thought Anna would be born on Dec. 20th we decided to plan our Christmas with Todd's family in January to make sure everyone could be there and we wouldn't have a brand new baby.   When she was born early, we decided to keep the date to keep things easy.   It was actually kind of fun to have it later and less overwhelming for Eli (and us!) to not have everything all at once.   Here are some highlights from the weekend:

*Eli and his cousin Jaimeson hanging out.   Eli is 9 months older than Jaimeson and they love each other to pieces!  
*Anna meeting her Aunts and Papa.  Believe it or not, they did a great job sharing her ; )
*As Seen on TV gifts.  Every year we try to pick a theme for our gifts and this was our theme this year.   Plenty of Snuggies went around, but my personal favorite was the Butt Face soap.  It is literally one bar of soap for your Butt (brown) and one bar of soap for your Face (white)...genius.
*Reading 22 days after Christmas.   It is a family tradition to read "The Night Before Christmas" but since we celebrated a little late we modified it a little bit.   Each person starts the story off with a gift.  As the story is read gifts are passed each time the word "THE" is read.  The gift you wind up with at the finish of the story is yours!   Donna (Todd's mom) always picks the best gifts.   I won a "Mega Horn" that freaked the kids out at first, but then Eli started using it and it is now hidden (by me) somewhere in the house.   Where is it?  I'll never tell...

Thanks everyone for a great weekend!  To see the complete pictures visit our shutter fly link to the right and click on album Kilby/Warren Christmas 2009(10).

Annie and Anna's Playdate

Even though Annie and Anna had yet another playdate today these pictures were from their playdate last week.   Not only do I have pictures yet to upload from my camera from this past weekend (Christmas with Todd's mom) but we didn't even take pictures today of the girls!   I guess it's old hat at this point : )  (Don't worry they are "hanging out" again on Friday night and we are coordinating outfits so there will def. be pictures then!)  As you will see from the pictures we need to continue these play dates to develop their relationship.  So far they are off to a rocky start...

To view pictures (and commentary) visit the Shutterfly link to the right and click on the album "Annie and Anna's Playdate".     

Elmo's World

Todd came home from work last Friday with a surprise for all of us...tickets to go see Sesame Street Live!  Anyone who has parented a 2 year old knows that 1) They ALL love Elmo and 2) You would be an idiot to tell them that they were going to meet Elmo until you were actually face to face with Elmo.   Well, I am the idiot that told my son the night before : )  I will learn my lesson one of these days!   I personally love anticipating fun events and do not like surprises (it ruins the fun of looking forward to it for me) so I think everyone is that way.   Well they aren't, especially not 2 year olds.  

After we bundled up on Saturday morning we all headed out to meet the crew of Sesame Street and it was actually (I'm not lying) FUN!   To watch your child enjoy something so thoroughly definitely rubs off no matter what it is they are doing (well, maybe not flood the bathroom which he did the following morning...)   We decided to REALLY spoil him and introduce him to cotton candy as well : )   The only rough part of the experience was talking him into a nap when it was all said and done!  

Anna is 1 month old!!

Happy 1 month Birthday Anna!   What are some things we've discovered about you in 1 month?

*You don't like to sleep at night (by night I mean from 7 to 11 pm...late night she does great!  Unfortunately Todd and I DO like to hang out when he gets home from work and Eli is in bed, and her screaming really doesn't help keep the intimate conversation going...)
*Eli says you don't like to play as much as he thought you would (but he does try to play something new with you everyday!)  
*Eli thinks it is AWESOME that you fart and burp more than he does (and all of us combined...) 
*I witnessed Eli stroking your hair yesterday and saying , "your beautiful"...yeah, my heart pretty much melted.
*You like to get talked to!  This is when we get all of our smiles.     
*You don't get as much tummy time as your brother did (believe me this is for your own good until your brother can master his gentle touch...)
*But demonstrated in the picture with your Daddy you aren't having any problems holding that head up!   (you must practice when we aren't looking so you can keep up with your brother)
*You like to be worn  (meaning you like to walk around with mommy in your sling)
*You do not like wardrobe changes (but your mom does them a lot anyway...) 
*You may have reddish curly hair and blue eyes!!  The jury is still out, but I love looking at you everyday regardless of whether you have brown hair and brown eyes just like the rest of us or something totally unique to you!  

To celebrate your 1 month birthday I am going to post the professional pictures received in the hospital.  (Use the shutterfly link to the right) I have been holding out in posting these because I wanted to give them away as Christmas gifts and didn't want to ruin the surprise.  Turns out I forgot to even do that : )  I also completed our December album if you want to take a look there.   Don't forget if you double click on the pictures you can download them to your computer!  You can even do this with the professional pictures because we bought the rights to them.

So here you go, our sweet girl when she was born and our sweet girl now!

Christmas' Galore!!

Finally a blog about how we spent this glorious season!   Believe it or not we STILL aren't done...we are anticipating our final Christmas celebration in a couple of weeks with Todd's mom's side of the family.   Until then, here is how we spent the last couple of weeks...

Celebration #1 (Grandaddy):   Christmas morning we couldn't wait for Eli to get up so that we could show him that Santa did indeed come and that Jesus' birthday had finally arrived.   Of course, this is the morning Eli decided to sleep in.   Don't worry we weren't too disappointed, instead we made sure some last minute details were in place to make it extra special.  When Eli finally woke up we took him downstairs and show him that Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk!   Eli may have cared more if he wasn't in such awe over the presents that suddenly appeared under the tree : )  Believe it or not, we did tell him to wait to open these until Grandaddy arrived (we know we will never be able to do this again...) and bought a couple of hours looking through the contents of our stockings.   Once Grandaddy arrived he brought his own piles of gifts and we realized we should have started opening a little sooner (and maybe hide some of the gifts for next year!)  Eli started opening his gifts and he was a little distracted.   Each gift he opened he wanted to stop and play with (can you blame him?!?)  But the crazy parents we are we told him to wait to play with them and FINISH OPENING ALL OF YOUR GIFTS!!   Four hours and 50 cars later (seriously) we were done and able to enjoy a cold (previously hot) breakfast.   We then whisked Eli away for an early nap (it actually worked) and we had a devotional reminding us of our need for a Savior and what His birth means to us.  

Celebration #2 (Grandaddy, Memaw and Papaw the Great, Great Aunt Jan, Great Aunt Joan and cousin Celeste):  Toting half of our cars and 2 kids we headed over to the Great Grandparents to enjoy a Christmas dinner.   Although there were a lot of beautiful, colorful, and breakable items I think we we managed to make it through the night without any casualties (although I think when we left we saw all the Christmas people in the Christmas village face down in the pond... they were "ice skating" ) We had a great time and Anna enjoyed meeting everyone!  

Celebration #3 (Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Rachel Uncle Kyle cousins Libby Davis and Brett, Aunt Reebs Uncle Jason cousin Roman): Eli was so excited to see all of his cousins (and the Aunts were excited to get their hands on Anna)   One thing we realized this time around is that Eli is no longer the baby.  He used to get spoiled rotten by his cousins but now there is a new baby in the family.   So he was kind of at the awkward trying to be a big kid but still in diapers/nap phase.  He had a BLAST and still talks about his "FRIENDS" (Cousins).  I think it will take hanging out with them one more time and he will potty train himself so that he can be a big boy with the rest of them.
The actual celebration was...crazy.  Even though it wasn't aesthetic enough for my sister Reebs, we managed to get all the gifts into the family room and let the kids open everything first.   Once that crazyiness was done we closed them off into a room and let the adults open their gifts in peace and quite (yeah right).   When we looked in on the kids we realized they had out all the musical instruments and had started a band!   It was precious, and they really didn't sound THAT bad.  

Between all the visits with friends and family, and our new family of 4 we have felt so blessed this Christmas season.  We can't wait for celebration #4!  

P.S. to see a complete album of pictures click on the link to the right and go to December 2009 album!  

To keep you (and me) happy...

...I am going to mooch off of my sister's blog.  This way I don't have to take the time to write anything (it really isn't THAT much of burden, promise!) and you get to see more pictures of sweet Anna.   My sis, Rachel, as you know is very cREaTive.   For Anna's "birth"gift she painted a canvas in her room incorporating the theme of her room...BIRDS!   Thanks Aunt Rachel, we LOVE it!!   To see the canvas, and our sweet little bird go to her blog HERE

I also wanted to take the time to put a plug in for my sisters art business.  To check out more of her work go HERE