As William Wallace would say....

FREEDOM!!! (Russell will be so proud of me for that....)
Let me explain. The week before Christmas, Russell and I had a small yet wonderful taste of freedom. In what I am sure was a ploy to get us to spend Christmas at their house, my parents offered to take the girls to their house the week before Christmas. Well, it was an offer we couldn't refuse, and their ploy worked:) That Saturday (the 19th) we met my dad in GA and unloaded our car and loaded his car with the ridiculous amount of stuff that goes along with a 2 and 1 year old. My dad pulled out with the girls on his way to North Carolina and we headed home (after I cried for a second and said a prayer for the girls and my parents:) ). This was obviously the longest we had ever been away from the girls, but let me tell you, it was much needed. I was completely.totally.exhausted. We had all been sick, sleep deprived, I hosted two parties at my house (which I loved doing!) and well, just living with 2 under 2, I was t.i.r.e.d. Plus, I knew the girls were in great hands. My dad has definitely proved himself to be SuperPapa this year! He has watched the girls by himself for longer stretches than I have had them by myself! And he loves every minute of it, which makes it even better:) (The reason it was just my dad for a couple days was my mom was in Texas visiting her mom...but don't get me wrong, NeeNee is jut as wonderful as Papa:) I just wanted to brag on my dad for a minute:) Anyway...that left Russell and I with a newfound freedom and we had a great time! We went to a couple Christmas parties, took a road trip to south Ga to pick up something for his work, went out to dinner, and just enjoyed each other and we slept, a lot! It was so great. Thank you sooooo much Papa and Nee Nee!
Here are a few pictures from Marissa and Allie's week with Papa and NeeNee!
Marissa having sooooo much fun:)

Allie went from crawling to walking that week!!

She also showed off her flexibility...maybe a future gymnast?

Marissa worked on her coloring skills...

her laundry skills....

her phone-talking skills...

more phone-talking...(is this a glimpse into the future? homework, chores and talking to her friends on the phone? oh my, i'm not ready for that....)

Allie doing some more eating, this girl looooves to eat:)

and make silly faces:)

Both girls love Bonnie, my mom's crazy cat.

Thanks again Papa and NeeNee, let's do it again soon!!:)

Sprinkle for Layne and Avery

(Shannon, this post is for you...thanks for all your help and I hope we did you proud:) )
Back in December, myself and 3 other girls hosted a "sprinkle" for Layne at my house. Just in case you don't know, a sprinkle is a small shower and I first heard about it from my friend Shannon's blog. She and her friends did one and I loved the idea, so that's what we decided to do for Layne and baby Avery.
Here is the invitation we sent out through email and Facebook...I made it with Scrapblog (a new website I found that is fun to play with and create invitations and cards...I made our Christmas card through them.)

Here is the table...we did a Christmas themed Sprinkle since it was in December and all the decorations were already up. We had a tree decorated with baby items and topped with an "A" for Avery and a diaper tree skirt. For food, we had iced sugar cookies waiting to be "sprinkled", popcorn with a variety of toppings to "sprinkle", as well as sprinkle donut holes. :)

close up of the tree

We also got the sonogram picture of Avery and a mat for people to sign and write their well-wishes.

Our favors for the guests are in the silver bucket and they were handmade Christmas coasters that were tied with jute with a tag that read "Best Wishes to Adam and Layne. Here's to you "coasting" on through with baby #2 ! They turned out really, really cute and were pretty easy to do:)

Layne opening her gifts.

Some of the guests....Annalee and Abby (2 of the hostesses) and Jessica

Jill Rae and Marissa, Lauren and Mrs. Davis.

Jill Rae babysits for us sometimes and Marissa loves her, she loves to talk about Miss "Gill":)

Mother and Daughter, Debbie and Annalee

The whole group!

Layne with the hostesses, me, Allison and Abby (Annalee left before we remembered to take a picture and apparently Abby didn't get the memo that the hostesses were supposed to dress the same. just kidding...Allison and I decided that great minds thought alike that day:)

We all had a wonderful time celebrating Layne and baby Avery (who is scheduled to arrive this Monday!!!) Please keep the Allen Family in your prayers as they welcome this new addition to their family!:)

I've got some serious catching up to do....

I had the best of intentions to do lots of blogging lately (especially considering I was baby-free for 5 whole days...more on that later) however I have hardly had time to sit down and breathe. The month of December has FLOWN by, not to mention the fact that Allie is officially on the move and walking these days...and she is a very busy little girl. Anyway...speaking of miss Allie, I will go ahead and tell you about her first birthday! We celebrated it pretty much the same way we did with Marissa. It was just us, a homemade cake, some presents, and a big ol' mess!
That morning we had some birthday eggs and jelly toast (as Marissa calls it).

Big sister loooooves jelly toast:)

Here is the birthday girl's birthday cake or as Marissa would say, her "happy cake!"

Of course, we had to make a special little cake for Big Sister, she was so excited about it! :)

Here she is digging in!

Pops and Nana were in on all the action thanks to Skype!

Yummy!!!

Marissa in her cute apron NeeNee gave her-she helped me bake the cakes. Here she is enjoying all her hard work:)

Giving Pops and Nana a close up of the mess.



Going at it with both hands!

Sweet yet messy smile!

Looks like she has a little something on her lip she is trying to lick off:)

"You want some?!"

After we had our fun with the cakes, we took the girls up and gave them baths, then it was back downstairs for PRESENTS!!

Allie was more interested in sitting on her presents than opening them...

Luckily, she had Daddy and big sister there to help her open them!

Allie's cool new car from Pops and Nana! This is definitely a new favorite--both girls love it! (and Allie has now figured out to turn around and drive it:) )

The Allen's got Allie a broom which was quickly taken by her big sister, but I really didn't mind in this case...I'll take all the help with the cleaning as I can get!

So, as you can see, Allie had a wonderful birthday! She is such a sweet, sweet girl and is so much fun! Be sure to stay tuned, there is lots more to come!

In the meantime, we hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy and Safe New Year!!

Look who's talking and walking

Miss Allie turned ONE yesterday!! I will post more about her birthday celebration later, but for now, here are a couple videos of Allie showing off a few new things she's learned:)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Breakfast with Santa

This past Saturday, we went to the club where Russell works for breakfast with Santa! To be honest, I was dreading this a little bit, because I was sure that Marissa would be scared of him when she saw him, much less want to sit on his lap for a picture. However, she proved me wrong! She was a little timid at first, but when it was her turn, she walked right up to him, sat on his lap and had this sweet little grin on her face the whole time:) She even gave him a hug after he gave her a candy cane! Allie, on the other hand, lasted about 2 minutes and then she was done. She kept looking up at him with this puzzled look on her face. She just wasn't sure what to think. Anyway, here are few pictures from that morning! HO!HO!HO!:)

Sisters waiting for their food

I want a biiiiiite!

Family pic

Mommy and Allie

Marissa was having a blast running circles around the dining room...this is a great action shot!

When we got home, we attemped to get a picture of the girls in front of the tree....this was the best we could get.

Because Allie was DONE taking pictures....

And she was gone.....

Hope Santa brings you everything you want for Christmas:)

Sisterly Love part 4..."I liiiiike it"

This a video I took this morning while Allie was sitting on my lap trying to watch a movie. Marissa had other plans, she wanted to play hairdresser on Allie. I guess I am using the term "sisterly love" a little loosely with this post as I'm pretty sure Allie wasn't feeling the love:)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

How to keep 2 year olds entertained at Wal-Mart.

1. Give her $2 worth of stickers you found in the Christmas dept while she is screaming to get out of the cart.
2. Give her the coffee and tell her to decorate it with as many stickers as possible. (at this point my lovely husband says to me, "you're not going to let her waste all those stickers right now are you?" Um, yeah, I am. You got a problem with that? Pretty sure he will not be volunteering to go on a family trip to wal-mart anytime in the near future. Did I mention this was his idea? )
3. Try to survive the next 30 minutes in what I have now deemed as one of the worst places on earth. At least my two year old was no longer screaming to get out of the cart....like most every other child in the store. Oh my, it stresses me out just thinking about it....
4. Take pictures of the coffee and blog about it when you get home so other moms can feel your pain....



Ahhhhh, the joys of a 2 year old.