Merry Christmas

It was a busy few days for us and so much fun!  I love Christmas so much and it is extra fun with little ones!  We started Thursday by decorating cookies for Santa with Rylee.  Luckily I had saved some in the freezer from the tea party so it was easy to put together.

E is so big, getting so independent, she did hers all by herself

Rylee had lots of fun

Berkley had the worlds most sprinkles on her cookies.  Santa loved them

Elliott wrote on our plate a little note for Santa

Making food for the Reindeer

Everything is all set for Christmas Eve!  It was Thursday, we were headed to East Texas for Christmas with Chris's side of the family the next day.

The girls with Nanny and PawPaw on Christmas Eve

This picture cracks me up.  Berkley had accidentally hit Elliott in the face while putting her arm around her.  Elliott was trying to smile for pictures, pretty unsuccessfully.

That's better.  I think Berkley had a dirty face the entire day, there were cookies, candy and cake bites everywhere and she took full advantage of the Christmas Spirit

Opening gifts

Little Madison walked around with my camera and wanted to take a picture of all of us- so funny to see a 5 year old with a camera as big as her head and a neck strap taking pics

Elliott and "Little" Madison- not to be confused with "Big" Madison. Little M is 5 just like E, they have fun running around together, Little M is the one that taught E to climb trees last fall, she is a country girl- even barrel races like her mama and won a buckle!

After the festivities on Christmas Eve, we piled in the car for the 2 1/2 hour drive home.  Our Christmas Miracle was that Berkley actually fell asleep in the car- which she almost never does.  We made it home and Chris and I got to bed by midnight.  E was up bright and early at 6:30 reporting on all the evidence that Santa had stopped by.  Berkley is a late sleeper so we made E wait until 7:30 to open presents. I couldn't believe how patient she was!

Our traditional self timer picture Christmas morning- in only one take!!!

We had Hot Chocolate in the tea pot for Christmas breakfast, E was proud to show off her pouring skills again

Berkley with baby Cinderella.  In true Berkley fashion she is now talking about how she needs a baby Aurora and a Baby Belle and.....every other princess baby in the world. She is a true collector of princesses!

E opening her roller skates, she was so excited and pretty much wore them the rest of the day

We tried a self timer picture in front of the Christmas tree- I think Chris was about done with me and my pictures after this

He still took a picture of our beastly baby Patton for me 

Berkley continued gorging herself on chocolate Christmas Day

The family at my parents house

Notice the footwear?

I meant to take a picture of them with my parents while they still had their clothes on. No big deal since I think we got better smiles from Snow White than we would have from Berkley anyway

It was a great Christmas! Chris and I spent all day today putting away toys, hanging things and taking down Christmas decorations.  Usually I wait until New Years, but the tree was gross and I decided to start taking it apart at 10 last night.  Nesting much??? I'll have bunches of pictures of the house soon, I have about 10 projects in the works :-)

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

"I'm ready to get off this bus"

We went to ride the North Pole express train in Grapevine on Sunday with Amanda, Brad and Rylee.  We were pretty unimpressed with it to say the least, which is why the title of the post is "I'm ready to get off this bus" a  quote from none other than Miss Berkley. She didn't even believe we were on a train- which made the whole process worthwhile- could have driven her around on the dart bus for 20 min and had the same experience ;-)  She also yelled at the shuttle bus driver on the way back to the car  to  "slow down this bus" several different times.  She gets pretty worried when people rapidly accelerate, you would think she would be used to it by now!

The girls got to decorate ornaments before we went to the show.

 Rylee and E at the show, Rylee enjoyed the singing and dancing somewhat, the rest of us did not....

 E looks so cute! Too bad someone was uncooperative

 I just think she looks so big here. I can't believe my baby is going to be 3 soon!

 Berkley was not into the show at all. 

 Getting ready to finally ride the train!

 We got to sit in benches that faced each other, so that was pretty cool- we all squeezed in together. Can't say any of us will ever do it again- but we had more fun going together!

 Elliott the Elf decorating her gingerbread house.  Not sure where her shirt is.....



My Girls can't keep secrets

I know everything I'm getting for Christmas :-) Not all the girls fault- I designed my own shutterfly book and sent Chris and email to buy it for me.  I'm thoughtful like that.  The girls always get gifts for each of us that they get to help pick out.  He came home early last week so they could get to some store by 6 for Berkley to get my present. I was pretty intrigued but I didn't ask any questions- knowing it would be too easy to find out where they went.  I don't think anyone said anything right away- but Berkley has been randomly telling me that she has a surprise for me, that she got me a baby carriage. Didn't really make sense to me, and I didn't think too much about it.  So here was our breakfast conversation today

B: (whispering) "Mommy, I have a surprise for you, its a baby carriage!"
E: "Berkley! Don't tell her its for Christmas!"
Me:  "That's okay Elliott I don't even know what she's talking about, don't worry about it"
E: "Its a charm for your bracelet of a baby carriage. Berkley!"
B "I have a surprise for you"
B "I'm whispering!"

I love that Berkley thought it was okay to tell a surprise as long as she whispered, and I love that E explained what it was.  They are so funny!

Check out my photography blog- Captured by Chrissy, I've been taking TONS of pictures lately. There are some from the cousins photo shoot and more from our Christmas photo shoot on there.  Also, my brother and sister's families and my BFF Katie is the most recent post.

Our little Butterball

I am now 33 weeks along with Mr Patton.  After having to take the 3 hour glucose test because I was just over the limit on the 1 hour my Dr measured me and found he was measuring big, which isn't strange at all for a Pomeroy Baby. He had been measuring pretty much right on track the whole time- which I thought was strange.  Anyway, since big babies go with Gestational Diabetes she wanted me to have a sonogram to get his size.  Luckily, it turns out that I don't have gestational diabetes- which is a huge relief for me because I live on sugar...it would have been a rough Christmas for me!  We had the sonogram today and he has big fluffy cheeks like his big sister Elliott.  He's pretty smooshed in there since I"m measuring 2 weeks ahead! They estimate him to be around 5 1/2 pounds and in the 87th percentile.  Another chunky baby for us :-)  I was hoping to not be induced this time, but if my alternative is giving birth to a 3 month old baby I guess I better just kick him out early ;-)

His umbilical cord is what you see to the left of his face.  I told Chris I worry so much that he's going to tangle himself up in it, he is always all over the place.

 I couldn't get this one to turn, its a regular 2D profile shot with his hand on his head. Also like big sister Elliott.

Can't wait to meet our little guy!

Christmas Tea Parties and the Elf *Kurt*

Yesterday Elliott hosted her first Christmas Tea Party.  We got the idea from her friend Elizabeth, Elliott and Berkley went to the Third Annual St. Nicholas Tea Party hosted by Elizabeth and her Grandma last weekend.  They both love it and look forward to it every year.  Elliott has been asking to have her own tea party for years I think.  I thought now that she is in school it would  be fun to try to start one of our own for Christmas.  Its fun for her since she has a summer birthday and doesn't get to pass out invitations at school and get all pumped up with her friends. 

She really wanted to invite all the girls in her class (12 of them!) plus our neighbors Gracie and Ellen and her friend Madilyn.  I was a little nervous about such a big tea party, and wouldn't you know EVERYONE could come! She was so excited!  I wish I had more pictures of the setup- unfortunately I was running around up until they all arrived.  We had early release from school yesterday- so it was right after school.  I took a bunch of video at the party, got the setup and all the decorations on there and when we sat down to watch it last night it was blank! I still don't understand how it happened, I ran out of tape at one point and switched it- so we have a little bit of freeze dancing on there and that is it :-(

These are the Rudolph cupcakes Elliott made for a snack.  She actually put them together all by herself!

 The elf also surprised her with a tea pot that morning. She was so excited because we didn't have one and were just going to use our lemonade pitcher.  She practiced how to pour the tea (like Elizabeth always does at her tea party) as she was walking out of the room to put it on the table she said "This is my first time to handle a tea pot!" She was SO excited to fill up everyones glasses.  I should have taken pictures- but I was closely supervising.

 We had 8 kids at the dining room table and another 8 at the table by the windows!

 After they had tea and snacks they decorated cookies to take home

 Berkley enjoyed her cupcake a lot!  She also told Chris and my mom that decorating cookies was too hard and she wasn't good at it so she went upstairs. So sad! I was too busy to even know she was having trouble.

 After cookies they made bottle cap necklaces.  They made one to keep and one to play hot potato and trade.  Some girls didn't want to trade theirs- I felt kind of mean making them give me bottle caps to sit down and play the game, but ya gotta pay the price right? The whole game/trade thing was Elliott's idea.

 The whole crazy group

 Here's some catch-up pictures

We went to see Santa over Thanksgiving break. This is them waiting when it was finally their turn

 Elliott making invitations for her Tea Party

 These are from last weekend before Elizabeth and her Grandmas Tea Party

 It was Home Depot Saturday so daddy took them to build something before we headed to the Tea Party. Elliott has been going since the month Berkley was born. Berkley has been going for the last several months. Usually I go and help Berkley, although my "help" isn't that great, Chris has to undo some mistakes for me sometimes....With Patton being here soon he's going to be taking both girls and building all by himself from now on, which is probably better for him anyway ;-)

 Elizabeth and Elliott have been friends since they were tiny babies, they live in Fort Worth so we don't get to see them as much as we used to, but we still get together often.

Playing Christmas Bingo

 We have a very special Elf that visits us.  Our children are extremely spoiled. Kurt starts coming on December 1st each year and he likes to bring little treats with him every day.  Some days its a piece of gum, a sucker, a little piece of candy....Other days its cool stuff like bracelets, Christmas clothes, crafts.  Every morning they wake up and check their tiny elf stockings.  Some days when he brings them big things they get a hunt, which Elliott loves. This year Elliott has been reading the clues and doing the whole thing without help from us.  It was so funny because one of the clues was "A place where a baby can sleep"  We were brainstorming places to check, Patton's Bed, the pack n play, Berkley's room.  Berkley got furious yelling that a baby was NOT going to sleep in her room. Over and over. It was pretty funny how mad she was about the thought of a baby sleeping in her room. It should be fun when Patton is here.....

 That elf is so silly- he hid their Christmas PJ's in the freezer!