At Whitten's End

Santa Ellington and Mrs. Schotsi Claus are friends of Brad's, so as a favor to him, they came over to spread good cheer to our kids and to make sure that they were being good. Emma was shy and wouldn't sit on Santa's lap, but she did manage to burn off some steam by running all over the room while they were here at the house. Casey on the other hand warmed up to them very quickly and loved to touch Santa's soft coat that Mrs. Claus made for him. Running circles around Santa and her family when she was asked to sit down... :) Best family pic we could get :) This is their "Santa caught me being good" cards. Though hesitant about Santa, Emma was all excited about this gift! notice the play yard in the background that is now surrounding the tree and how Emma is admiring her "good" card!

I hosted my 3rd annual cookie exchange for Alamance Mommies on 12/9 and had- as always- a great turn out. As with the previous years, we made 1/2 a dozen cookies for each gal participating for a grand total of about 120 cookies. We had some gals drop out in the last few days, so there were extras to go around and we were also able to donate some to our Christmas Cheer family. Fun and goodies were had by all!

Here's just a few of the 8 areas of the downstairs walls that my aspiring artist marked with crayon. I didn't get a picture of the fabric on the chair that she took marker to :( This is precisely the reason that Emma's never allowed crayons, pencils, pens, or markers unsupervised!!

The last couple of years we bought our trees at tree lots set up in the area. We've always wanted to drive to a tree farm to choose and cut one down ourselves but trying to find the opportunity when the weather is nice to get to the mountains has been all but impossible. This year we found out that there's a local couple that has a tree farm on their property, so we drove out to Hall's Tree Farm the day before Thanksgiving! Their remote but accessible location was perfect with a down-home, friendly touch! We got to pick and cut our own tree and only paid $30!! The girls liked the idea of getting a tree their size! Casey enjoying himself while daddy sees which trees measure up and the girls enjoy running free We all took a turn sawing down the tree with daddy making the final cut to detach the tree. Emma wanted to saw, too, so daddy closely supervised her so that she felt like she'd done her part, too! Our tree now has a play yard around it and most of the ornaments...

I finally got the disc of Casey's 7 month photo session, so I'm posting a few more pictures from that session. It's hard to believe that this is the day that he sat up for the first time since he's now crawling, pulling up on the furniture (though not cruising, yet), and pretty much getting into EVERYTHING! This one is probably my favorite... I love that you can see the Colts symbol as well as "18"... he reminds me of good ole Peyton in this picture! Just chillin out!

Casey officially started crawling last night. Just a few crawls at a time but it wasn't the typical positioning followed by shimmying to the floor. While we were putting Emma down for bed last night, Casey was sitting on my lap as I sat beside Emma's crib. He grabbed onto two of the siderails and pulled himself to standing. UGH! My baby boy is getting so big! He also had his 4th tooth break through on 11/8. He decided to push through his 2nd from the center teeth on the top first in honor of the New Moon movie coming out next Friday! Once that fourth one comes down a bit more, I'll try to get some pictures of him with his fangs :) In the last 2 weeks, his favorite thing has become going from laying down to sitting to laying down to rolling to sitting,.... when he's wound up, it's funny to watch him do this in rapid succession. Most of the time he's just content in one position chilling out, though!

Emma with her hair in pigtails in preparation for her role as Dorothy and Kayla with her black Wicked Witch nails! With this being our first year as a family with three kids, we really wanted to seize the opportunity to have a costume theme, especially when Kayla will only be dressing up another few years. :( Kayla has been chomping at the bit to be a witch for a couple of years, so we allowed her to go as the Wicked Witch of the West and we built the theme around her by having Emma be Dorothy and Casey the Cowardly Lion! We had really hoped to spend part of Halloween evening with Brad's colleague, Jennifer, but trying to get 3 kids ready with their costumes, hair, nails, and makeup while still having to carve our pumpkins, feed the fam, and get out Trick or Treating before it got too late was quite a challenge. Casey has been teething and it was quite warm for a lion costume (not to mention the fact that he HATED his tight mane, so that didn't help matters! Trying to get all...

We had made plans a couple of weeks before Halloween when Brad had the weekend off to go to a local corn maze that had a pumpkin patch, but the weather took a turn for the worse and naps didn't coincide, so we ended up going to a local church that was home to Boy Scout Troop 75's pumpkin patch a few days before Halloween. Pumpkin seeds are a special treat in our home come this time of year, and I learned that it pays to mention this to the person running the pumpkin patch because the troop leader let us have free access to pumpkins that were starting to go bad so we got to take home a few pumpkins free of charge. Emma dancing through the patch Casey patiently waiting for us to pick our pumpkins ????? Kayla thought this pumpkin would make a great pumpkin for Casey Emma wanted to be like Kayla, so she picked up a little pumpkin and held it up, too! Brad showing the girls the big pumpkin Our little family of pumpkins The back left one is actually a free pumpkin that I used for se...