Christmas Eve 2011

We spent Christmas Eve going to a new church we are trying up here. It was a sweet, simple service full of families celebrating Christ's birth in the manger. It was perfect, minus the coughing spell (I've been sick) I got during the middle that was so bad I started gagging and had to go to the bathroom to throw up. Just lovely. Thank goodness I made it to the bathroom!

Afterwards, I made dinner, we ate together and made our Christmas cookies for Santa. This is a tradition my family has always done, so I'm glad to be able to start it with Felicity. She was a great helper! (And yes, in case you are wondering, she does have a bit of a black eye from falling into the sofa table.)

Toddlers in charge of sprinkles on cookies is a bit dangerous!

Waiting patiently...

Once they were done baking, I was taking Felicity's picture on the hearth by the cookies we made. (By the way - the 2nd, 3rd and 4th batches turned out much better. Our stars were a little unrecognizable at first, but we got the hang of it. Using lots of flour = messy, but much prettier-shaped cookies.) Anyway...the temptation of sitting by a plate of warm cookies was just too much for this little girl -

She just couldn't resist :-)

Thrilled I actually captured a decent pic of the three of us in front of the tree with my auto timer on the first attempt!

Then off to bed while visions of sugarplums dance in our heads! 

This little piggy...

I'm so happy to have met some really sweet girls in our new neighborhood. There are lots of little buddies for Felicity to play with and I just still feel so grateful to be here in this neighborhood. One of my new neighbor friends, Danielle, invited me to go get manis/pedis with her the other day. Her husband was able to watch her little boy and I thought that Justin might be able to watch Felicity, but he ended up having an appointment for work, so I had to bring her.

I was really nervous about it. Fe is by no means the age or the type of kiddo that is into sitting still for long (or short, for that matter) periods of time. I mean, people go to the nail salon to relax and get away from their kids, so I was really hoping this wouldn't be a disaster...plus, I wanted to make a good impression on my new friend. I came prepared with Ariel, Belle and Cinderella loot, snacks, juice, etc. and hoped for the best. I gave up on trying to get the manicure and just decided to attempt a pedicure while holding Fe in my lap. Shockingly, she did great. She played with all her dolls and talked to the people doing our nails. I was so proud of her and very relieved. She was getting a little wiggly towards the end, so I asked the lady doing my feet if it was possible for her to paint Felicity's toenails. She said yes and that it would be $4. Can't beat that! So, I asked Felicity what color she wanted them to be and she said "yellow." I honestly wouldn't have cared one bit if she had them painted yellow, but we already had the red for mine with us, so Felicity said that color would be ok. So Fe and I got matching pedicures. Her little toes were so cute. Professional pedicures are not going to be a regular occurrence for this 1 year old, but it was a fun treat for her...and me too. Daddy was quite surprised, but thought her toes were very pretty too.

Danielle snapped this one on my phone:

Ta da!

I'm still here!

And I promise I'll be updating lots of stuff soon. The main excuse I have for my lack of posts, is that WE MOVED!! You may remember the miniature announcement I made at the end of this post. Well, after lots of planning, praying and packing, we finally made it to McKinney and so far, we're loving it. I have lots of blogging to catch up on, so I'll be working my way through what's been going on in our world.

Until then...I'll leave with this --