Christmas is coming

We made some sugar cookies to try out a new dough recipe before we had our cookie decorating party. Lydda Grace is really into sprinkles!


Lydda Grace and Wade sporting their new Christmas shirts that BeBe made.

Wade at 7 months

I feel like we have really hit a huge transition point for Wade right about now and everything is moving so fast with him!

He was an early crawler (5 months) and now at 7 months is pulling up on everything in sight! He will even put his hands on the floor and stand up, he just can't get to the point where he can pick his hands up off the floor!

Wade (aka: Wadesie, Wade-a-roo, Wade-a-rama, Wade-Beefcake, Wadester) is putting everything he gets his hands on in his mouth, all his toys, all LG's toys, shoes, the floor, Christmas ornaments, you name it.... he tries to eat it. So far we haven't seen any teeth yet but are guessing they must be on their way.

He has started to babble and talk a lot more, we hear "dadadada" a good bit and every so often he will get into a little squealing fit and just happily squeal away (VERY loudly) for several minutes.

Wade LOVES his big sister. When she is in sight he follows her every move and will crawl after her down the hall. Lydda Grace (usually) returns this affection and is all about hugging, kissing and holding Wade.

back in october

You may recall we went to VT in October to visit BekBek and HaHa. These are the pictures from their camera....some really great ones! And this is before Lydda Grace's "don't take a picture of me" phase so she was actually smiling for the camera... I had forgotten how nice that was!!

mmmmm... toes

Right before Thanksgiving (so yes all these posts are out of order... oh well!) Amanda and Evelyn and Baby Lucy came to play! Lucy was just about 2 weeks old.

When I told Lydda Grace that Lucy had been born she couldn't stop talking about hugging and kissing Baby Lucy and then all she wanted to do was "taste her toes" (this is from a favorite book of ours More, More, More Said the Baby by Vera Williams). So Lydda Grace finally got to taste Lucy's toes. I have to admit it's rather anticlimactic... but sweet nonetheless.

And now Lydda Grace AND Evelyn are both big sisters!

Christmas is coming!

BeBe made Lydda Grace and Wade smocked ornaments.
Lydda Grace LOVES decorating the tree. (and yes, I meant to type "loves" and not "loved".... she is still decorating and redecorating the tree everyday)
LG and Wade have fun playing with (or in Wade's case chewing on) their nativity set. Lydda Grace really gets into talking about the people and animals and likes to put them all in a line.

give thanks

We had a very nice Thanksgiving weekend. We got to see lots of family!
Wednesday we headed up to Yadkinville to Granna Wylie's house. We celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday with Great Grandmother Downey.
Friday Mama, Dada and Wade headed out shopping and Lydda Grace and Granna Wylie made deviled eggs and took a trip to visit Uncle Nick at the fire station. Saturday we went to Greensboro to see the Wylie clan. It was so wonderful to catch up with everyone and of course Lydda Grace and Wade got lots of love and attention. (sadly I don't have the video of LG literally just spinning around singing Jesus Loves Me... over and over and over.... with at least 10 adults watching her, and of course applauding when she was done!)
We got back home late Saturday evening and BeBe and PopPop and Aunt Bethy and Uncle Mark spent the night with us after the game.

superbaby

Who needs a cape when you've got a bib?!

in which i try to get free Christmas cards and end up crying

I have great memories of photo Christmas cards…. as in I don’t have a memory of a Christmas where we didn’t make and send them! It started out with just me and my sisters…. I think we got mom and dad in the picture a couple years. Now there are 10 of us in the picture for this year!

There was always the dilemma of where to take the picture, what we should wear, how we should fix our hair (I can remember one year in particular where my hair was particularly bad!!), etc. But in the end THE picture was taken and mailed out to family and friends every year.

Looking back our Christmas card pictures great stories about our family. There’s one where you can’t tell it from the picture but we all know that Bethany was being bribed with Cheerios to stay still. There’s the one where my hair was a nightmare… and those glasses…. Yikes!! We took many Christmas card pictures on the steps… the inside steps… the outside steps…. Almost every other year there we were on the steps. There’s a picture (or maybe two…) where we’re under the arbor that Dad built at the old house. There were Christmas cards with pictures from each of our weddings. I think my favorite card is the one where we’re all sitting on a swing at the park, it was the first time we were all together and Jon and I had the chance to tell Rebekah, Bethany and Javier that we were expecting Lydda Grace!

Last year we started doing our own photo Christmas cards, in addition to the one that Mom and Dad still do. And it’s fun for me to think that Lydda Grace and Wade will be able to look back on them someday and have memories like I have around something that is so seemingly small.

All of this to say that I actually am blogging this post because Shutterfly.com is offering an amazing promotion for bloggers to get 50 free photo cards for blogging about their holiday card collection... Shutterfly's card collection... not mine.

So I set out to do my obligatory blog post to get my 50 free cards and in the process got all teary! What was supposed to be a mere 150 word post is now closer to 400 words! And I haven’t even written yet about what I’m supposed to say for Shutterfly!!

In a nutshell, Shutterfly.com has great holiday photo cards… seriously… I’m not just saying it to get the 50 free. I think my favorite card so far is this “Joy and Love” one. I love that it has room for lots of pictures, and narrowing it down to one photo is never an easy task. But I also really appreciate it’s simple message.

I’ve included some photos of other cards that I like. But there are tons (and when I say tons, I mean close to 200) to choose from.

You can go HERE to check out their Christmas Photo Cards.

Or HERE to see Holiday Cards in general.

Or lastly if you are a little belated in sending out your cards they have a great New Years selection HERE.

So thanks to Shutterfly for this great deal thus causing me to write this blog post and have a sweet little time of reflection. And thanks to all our readers for putting up with my ramblings so we can get free Christmas cards. I promise the next post will have pictures of Lydda Grace and Wade (which I know is the only reason you come to this blog in the first place!) instead of these other random children and families (however cute they may be).

what we've been up to

Our sweet little man.
Had friends and our adopted students over for lunch Sunday. Lydda Grace was ready to jump into the game of Killer Bunnies.
Wade is crawling everywhere now... fast! The other day I set him down and before I knew it he was down the hall in LG's room eating her Little People!

Lydda Grace's new thing is "don't take a picture!!!" every time I pull out the camera. So this is a rare shot of her actually looking at the camera, usually I get the back of her head these days!

Wade truly encountering grass for the first time. Not sure what to think about it!

my sweet guys

Our church had their 25th anniversary celebration this past Sunday and Carson was taking pictures at the event and captured this one of Jon and Wade. I love the picture in general but am actually really excited to have one of Wade sucking his thumb! He has his thumb in his mouth all the time but I can't seem to get a good picture of it. I'm trying to not even think how hard it is going to be to break him of that habit.... right now it's just so cute!

well check-ups

Today Lydda Grace and Wade had their 2 year and 6 month check-ups. They both did great, handled their shots like champs (though all afternoon LG said, "I didn't like the shots" over and over....), and were found to be in great health! We praise the Lord for our healthy kids!

Here are their stats:
Lydda Grace- 28.5 lbs (50%), 36 in. tall (75%)
Wade- 19 lbs (75%), 27 5/8 in. tall (90%)

sewing

I was sewing earlier and Lydda Grace wanted to sew too so we got out her animal sewing cards.

halloween

This year Lydda Grace was going to be Little Bo Peep, but then we realized that since she actually had a sheep to carry and Bo Peep's sheep are supposed to be lost we thought maybe she was Mary Had a Little Lamb instead..... either way she was super cute :)

We trick-or-treated at a few houses, which was a nice way to meet some of our new neighbors and then she enjoyed a little candy afterwards!

this is our Wade

These pictures really capture what Wade is up to these days! He is on the move anywhere and everywhere. It's kind of funny, he can't sit up on his own yet, but he can get wherever he wants to go, and quickly!

she's got me written all over her

jack-o-yantern

We have a porch for a jack-o-lantern now!

amazing help

I have my days all mixed up... but "awhile back"... BeBe and Aunt Bethy came to visit at the same time which meant two people could be doing stuff around the house while one watched the kids. Needless to say, we got a LOT done! We even have curtains up in the den and dining area! What?!? I figured it would be months before that happened. We.... I mean.... Bethany, painted the double bed for Wade's room, all but one... two... okay maybe three boxes are totally unpacked and we got pictures on the walls!
In all that busyness these are the only two pictures I have....


LG all decked out in Aunt Bethy's jewelry and sunglassesReading with BeBe in LG's big girl bed

VisiT

Two weekends ago we went to Blacksburg to visit Rebekah and Javier and Gracie and to visit our VT and GCPC friends. It was a great trip!! The kids were good travelers and we had a great time! Saturday we tailgated on-campus with ResLife and Sunday we got to worship at GCPC and catch up with folks at the potluck after the service. We loved seeing BekBek and HaHa's new house and getting to spend time with them. (Rebekah, I need some more pictures from you! The ones on your camera were the best I think!!)

eating cereal is funny

We started Wade on rice cereal last week to see if it would help with him sleeping through the night.... which he has slept through the night the past two nights but I don't know if that's what did it or not. He loves to grab the spoon while I'm feeding him and then likes to reach for his toes to work that in between them real good too.

we're here

We are in... not settled at all, but IN our new home!

We were so blessed by all the help we had painting and moving in from family and friends.
Friday night when we moved in I came back from the second load and Lydda Grace asked when we were going home.... "This IS our new home baby girl!!"

She is loving her pink room though and likes to show it to everyone who comes to visit. Then she hides in the closet and says, "where's Lydda Grace?" and then giggles and jumps out :)