Tis the Season to be Jolly

We have continued our Christmas fun over the last few days. Harper's favorite toy this week is her toothbrush. ha! She has always LOVED brushing her teeth (and since she has had 8 teeth for a WHILE and at least 2 since she was 4 months old) - we have been brushing them for a while. She found it in her bag and has chewed on it ever since. I had to go buy her a new one today.
Yesterday a lot of Scott's extended family came over for Christmas lunch. I guess we were too busy eating to take many pictures. This is us getting ready to chow down.
This is Harper's plate. The girl can put away some food. I think she's starting to chunk up a little. ha! I'll be interested to find out her stats at her 1 year appointment (which reminds me I need to schedule that).
Harper got a few more gifts from her great aunt and uncle last night and she was so excited!

( You may notice that right now I can not get Harper to keep a bow in her hair. We had to quit wearing the big bow bands because she would rip those right off. I know that was her signature look and I LOVED it. So when she finally got hair I started putting little bows in her hair and I'm working with her to keep those in. As she gets older and gets more hair - we will be bringing the big bows back!!!)

We will have a lot of fun playing with all her toys when we get home. I bought a big basket today to keep toys in in our living room to try and keep thinks a "little" organized.

We gave Scott's little cousin gator golf and he really liked it!

Harper liked it too. I would peg her as a future Tiger Woods but I don't think anyone wants to put that label on their child right now. (Just another reminder that we just can't put anyone up on a pedestal - only God will never let us down).
Harper was up ALL night last night. We had a ROUGH night. I don't think anything was wrong - she just did not want to sleep. She didn't nap yesterday either. Needless to say I was WORN out this morning so I took a nap from 7-9 while Scott and his family took care of her. And she was happy as a clam and put on a little show for them.
She has started dancing constantly. It's SOO funny. My favorite thing is when she will get on all fours and put her booty in the air and "shake it like she just don't care". It's HILARIOUS. I really need to get it on video.
Scott, his dad, and Steve have been doing a lot of hunting over the last few days. His dad killed a deer tonight. I'm hoping Scott continues to have no luck. ha! We are headed home tomorrow. We have had a wonderful Christmas but I'll be happy to get home. I'm ready to take down Christmas and get my house clean and organized. I guess that will keep me busy over the next week!
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and weekend!

First Christmas

We got to Scott's parent's house last night after a crazy drive. Most of Arkansas was flooded and roads were closed all over. Luckily we knew ahead of time so we took a different route. Scott's parents recently changed Scott's childhood bedroom into a room for Harper. Gone is the blue and cowboys posters (ha!) and here are pink walls and princess bedding!
Scott's mom sat in this little chair in Sunday School growing up and so did Scott and she had kept it and had a friend paint it for Harper for her room.

Harper was in awe of her new room! She is so lucky to have a special bed at both of her grandparents houses! I think they want us to visit more often. ha!

After Harper went to bed, "Santa Claus" went to work wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree. I was so excited going to bed last night thinking about Harper unwrapping her gifts. I know she is one and wouldn't really know what is going on but I think I have a lot of visions of future Christmases and how fun they are going to be!

Here is Harper crawling in this morning to see what Santa had left her!

Santa got her this book and I'm hoping one of the words in there is "momma" so maybe she will FINALLY say it! ha!

She didn't quite know what to think but I think she had fun unwrapping her gifts. And we certainly had fun watching her.

At one point - she just sat on her gifts! ha!

She got two more BIG horses! She was pretty excited with this one. I think I need someone to build us a barn since we have wound up with FOUR huge horses. We are leaving one at each grandparents house so she can have a horse everywhere she goes. She really does like "giddying up!"

I guess this little girl must have been pretty good this year!

Santa got her a little mailbox. I figured since I loved mail so much - she would probably love it too! And I was right - she has played with it all day long! We also got her the little teapot and she was real excited but we are saving that in the box for later on.

Harper got in a lot of time with her GiGi

We had a great Christmas lunch of Southern BBQ! It was so good. Tomorrow we are having our actual Christmas dinner with more family.

Harper had a great day but she was pretty worn out this afternoon. She was melting down quick and went to bed really quick!

Our family - Christmas 2009

Harper and her grandparents

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas too!!!!

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

MERRY MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO LISA BATTS!!!!!!

There were 8098 entries (between my two posts - because I thought the first one got full) and Lisa was #4276 which is what the random number generator picked.

Reading through the comments - I wish I could send one to everyone of you!

Lisa - I'm e-mailing you right now and if I don't hear back by December 27th by noon - I'll have to pick another winner!


True Random Number Service

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

4276 

Timestamp: 2009-12-25 03:26:05 UTC

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

May you know the JOY that only Jesus can bring this year!

Jesus came that we may have life - and have it more abundantly! John 10:10

Just a note:

The contest for the free HP TouchSmart Computer ends tonight at 7 p.m. I will pull a winner using random integer generator at some point tonight and then contact the winner. We are travelling and will be mostly without internet so I'll do it as quickly as I can. Please check my blog and your e-mail because the winner will have until Dec 27th by noon to contact me or I will pull a new winner! I'm so excited to see who wins!!!

Miscellaneous

This afternoon while Harper napped I made some red velvet cake balls to take with us to Christmas. The craze is sweeping twitter and it made me and Scott want some. I also made oreo truffles which are basically the same thing but you crumble up oreos and mix with cream cheese and then dip in the almond bark! Try it - you will thank me!!!!
Scott sent me these pink roses for my birthday. Only they didn't arrive until Today. I thought it was sweet. He used to send me flowers all the time when we were dating but quit once we got married. Which was okay by me. He had planned to send me flowers when Harper was born and well - nothing ended up like we planned with her birth. So I think these are what he would have sent me on January 16th. And I think he just wanted me to have a nice birthday. And I did!
Harper's birthday outfit came in today! I just love it. I figure she can wear it all year - not just at her party because she will be "one" all year! The pants are so precious! I had it made HERE.
I've had SO many people ask me about this in restaurants and on-line so let me tell you about my FAVORITE baby product right now. I'm in LOVE. (I have NO connections with the maker of this and they didn't ask me to write this......this is just pure mom love!) Once Harper started sitting in a high chair at restaurants and eating food - I had the new dilemna - how do I let her eat without touching the germy table? I tried using napkins which were awful. Then I started packing an extra burp cloth and she could eat off that which was great but 1. I would have to wash it every time and 2. she would always whip it off the table sending food flying. HUGE mess. So last time I was visiting my in-laws we went to this little baby store and I saw this mat! It has suction cups so it sticks to the table so baby can't pull it off, there is a little tray that hangs over the table that collects all the food babies are always dropping and you can wipe it clean very easily! And it rolls up easy in your diaper bag. Seriously it's the GREATEST thing. Anyway - it's a Kiddopotamus Tiny Diner and I found it on Wal-Mart.com for $10.88! Worth every penny and I plan to start giving this as baby gifts. When you are having a baby - you never think (Or I sure didn't) you would need this because you are thinking tiny baby but this is a life saver if you like to eat out!!!
And while I'm at it - another thing I get asked about a lot is something a sweet friend Mary Katherine gave me when Harper was born and I LOVE it! I carry it with me everywhere I go and put puffs and melts in it for constant anytime snacks. You can also put formula in it. Each of the 5 little holders snap off so you can carry between 1-5 of them and put different things in each one. There is a little hole at the top of each of the containers so you can pour out whatever you are carrying. It's called a Packing Smart. Just something else I'm in love with! :-)j

I feel like I should break out into a chorus of "these are a few of my favorite things".................

Don't forget tomorrow I'm drawing the winner of the FREE COMPUTER!!!!!! So go enter and Merry Christmas!! www.kellyskornerreviews.blogspot.com

Great Day to be Alive

I have had a really nice birthday. Even if I WAS sad about my age - I got SOOOOOO many e-mails, texts, facebook comments, tweets and blog comments that have just made my day! I am so blessed to know so many sweet and encouraging people! And I thought it was funny how many of you left me comments to tell me you shared my birthday! Happy Birthday to you all! I have never known anyone with my birthday except for Diane Sawyer (and I am mourning her loss on GMA big time). (and yes - a Christmas birthday is as awful as you imagine but my family always tried to make it special and as an adult - I think it's fun to have your birthday during such a fun week!)

I had lunch at Gusano's - a local pizza place I love with a new friend Kristen and her little boy Trevor. I had such a nice time with them - they are so sweet!
This afternoon I headed over to Laurie's to exchange gifts for Christmas. We tried so hard to get a good picture of the girls but it was pretty much impossible (on a side note - I used my tiny little camera in all of today's pictures so the quality is pretty terrible. I've been spoiled with our nice camera).

Laurie and the girls!

Scott took me and Harper out for dinner. I really wanted Mexican so we went to Abuelo's. Harper was SO good. She just LOVES going out to eat. She is SO much like her momma! ha! She also really likes cheese. In the last 2 days - she has had cheese pizza, grilled cheese and tonight cheese quesadillas. And you wouldn't believe how fast and how much she has eaten of all of those. (She has also had a lot of fruits and veggies so I'm not just giving her cheese. ha!)
As we were leaving - a sweet couple stopped me and the girl, Courtney, told me she read my blog. ha! She knew it was my birthday and that I loved eating at Abuelo's. ha! It was fun to meet her! Thanks for saying hi Courtney!!!
We went and got hot chocolate at Starbucks and drove around and looked at Christmas lights. Harper fell asleep pretty quick so we cut our trip short and came home and put her to bed.

I would say it's been a pretty perfect day!

Age is just a number

Today I turn 36 and I'm having a little bit of a hard time realizing I'm closer to 40 than to 30. I always thought when I turned 30 I would have to lock myself away in a dark room and spend about a week crying but I had just gotten married weeks before so I was a happy newlywed and could have cared less that I had entered my 30's.
And then I thought when I turned 35. Yikes 35 .....that just sounds so old. But I was weeks away from having my precious baby and I could not have been happier.

And this year? Well - in my head I'm 25. I look in the mirror lately and I see wrinkles and gray hair and a face that isn't as young as it used to be (probably mostly to a LOT of laying out in my 20's) and I should be sad. But this year has been the BEST year I have ever had. I am so blessed I can barely understand it. Every dream I ever had has come true and MORE! I could not have dreamed the things that have happened to me this year. And I'm okay with 36.

When I was in my 20's - I was VERY insecure. I worried so much about how I looked or what people thought of me. I have found in my 30's I am worrying a lot more about what God thinks of me. I worry a lot more about what other people are going through than I do about how much the scale said this morning. I'm thankful God has changed my perspective. I'm thankful for each day I have.
And let's face it - I would rather be 36 than this awkward 13 year old EVER again!!! Can I get an amen? All I can say when I see this picture is "Bless your sweet heart 13 year old Kelly". Awkward was my middle name. (Still is).

If you want to see more horrid pictures of me and get a good laugh ......you can venture over to my mom's blog where there are some pictures only a mother could love. ha!

Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16

Fun Day

I am SOOOOOO blessed with the parents God gave me. They are so good to me and I'm so thankful for them. They came over today to visit me and Harper. Tomorrow is my birthday (I'll be 36 - gulp! More about that later) so we had an early birthday celebration and of course the REAL reason they came was to see a certain baby..........
My aunt Linda sent Harper some Christmas presents and we had so much fun watching her unwrap them. She got her the CUTEST outfits that I can't wait for her to wear!
Harper mostly loved unwrapping the presents. At one point she decided she just wanted to stand on this box. Thankfully there was nothing fragile inside.
Dawson in the background of this picture made me laugh. I think he is wondering "where are my presents?" My Aunt Linda also gave me the CUTEST red purse (she gives the best gifts) and this necklace that I LOVE! I'll show ya'll when I wear it!
Today Harper has been going from sitting down to standing up all on her own without pulling up on anything. It's her newest "trick". We went and ate lunch and then visited some more. I had a lot of fun being with my family. This dress is borrowed from my friend Jamie. I love it but I think Harper may have some chubby little arms because we couldn't get the sleeves buttoned. ha!

On another note - what do ya'll do with your Christmas cards? I just keep mine in a big bowl in my kitchen so I can look at them and then after the season I put them in a big scrapbook album where I keep each years cards. But I saw on Boomama's blog that she has a Christmas tree where she hangs all the cards like ornaments and I thought that was so neat. I was wanting to get a fun white tree for next year (because four trees aren't enough) so I can find a good deal when they go 50-75% off - I might get a small one and maybe even put some red and lime green balls on it and then hang the cards next year. I think that would be a great way to display. Any other fun ideas?

P.S. Speaking of Boomama - if you haven't read her post today on pageants - you need to. It is HILARIOUS. Read the comments first and then watch the video and follow along. It's Hilarious! And the dresses they wore in the video - I actually LOVE. Kind of wish I could find a few of those right now. And a lot of those girls had the whole "POOF" down!!!! :-) (And that the video was made in my birth year is just a coincidence!)