A Joyful Heart is Good Medicine...

A Joyful Heart is Good Medicine-Proverbs 17:22

-at least that's what we're counting on. We are quarantined in the house right now with The RSV. And as my highly intelligent doctor told us, "From here it can either get much worse or much better". (I wonder what year in med school you learn that) Anyway, we're hoping for much better.
I will leave you with a video that was actually taken before she got The RSV. It cracks me up everytime I watch it.

You can see all the wonderful toys behind her that she received for her birthday and Christmas, but apparently all she needs is a 50 cent bottle of bubbles and a crazy dog. I love that at one point she actually almost falls over from the strain of laughing so hard. : )

The Year in Review

Since I made a 0-6month video, I decided to make another one for 6 months to 12 months. There are a few pictures each month of Presley. I can't believe how much she's changed in such a short time! I know it's several minutes long, but if you watch it to the end (what else are you doing at work today?) you'll see a short clip of her walking, as well.
TURN YOUR SPEAKERS ON - there's music!

Click on the play button to watch Presley's 6-12month video!

Christmas 2008

Well, it's about time that I posted a little bit of something about Christmas! (With the birthday celebration and everything else about the Holidays, it's hard to fit this all in. And I'm still trying to take this in order) Presley had about 6 different Christmas celebrations- starting in November- so these are just a few highlights.

Sweet angel, sitting by the Christmas tree.

Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) gets tasted.

When she would open a present she would tear off a little tiny piece and then hand it over to someone and then tear off another little tiny piece...

It has the potential to take a great while.

-but eventually everything was unwrapped.

And sometimes drowning in the wrapping paper can be as much fun as the presents themselves!

She was always reaching for the bows...

Presley's new tunnel.

Presley received so many amazing gifts for Christmas! And really, when you're that blessed you can't help but to enjoy it all!

Birthday Suit

I read about this somewhere so I thought that we'd try it. You buy an outfit in an adult size and every year on their birthday take a picture of them "growing into" it. So in the end you have a fun progression all in the same outfit. Needless to say, this first one definitely didn't fit, but we had a fun time trying it on. Here are a couple of the pictures....

: )

Presley's First Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESLEY!

December 20th, 2008

We had a "Gingerbread House Decorating" themed First birthday party for Ms. Presley! We decorated Gingerbread houses -adults more so than kids- but everyone seemed to have a great time. Our house is now a living toy box. I was needlessly worried that my daughter, being born so close to Christmas, might be a little bit neglected. Never fear, though, she is still completely Spoiled!

The cake was interesting - not as messy as it could be. I'm pretty sure she didn't think that she was allowed to be sticking her hand in the middle of a cake. She was a little suspicious that this might be a trick. : ) That, combined with the fact that she doesn't really like sweets yet, made it pretty tame cake eating. She enjoyed it a little bit more once we cut off a piece of the cake for her.

This expression was her general theme of the whole day - she LOVED it all!

Let's be honest. The bows, tissue paper, bags, and wrapping paper were almost as much fun as the things inside of them.

I am not exactly sure if it was the appeal of the bag or if she just wanted to get away from all the excitement for a minute.

Here are a couple of the Gingerbread houses.

I love the front porch evergreen trees on this one.

The front porch, chimney, and second story window of this house are all custom built...

And this was her at the end of the day.

She is always still awake when we put her to bed, but that night she couldn't keep her eyes open.

SHE'S WALKING!!!

We tried to capture it on video, but I guess she's not ready to perform for the world. She is standing really well now and will walk for 4 or 5 steps before giving it up to crawl. Crawling is still the preferred method of transportation since it gets her there much faster, but she working on it. She started walking the day before her 1st birthday.


Since there is no video, I'll just put a cute picture of her standing and going for the 3-point shot...

(It has been a really busy few weeks...I'm going to try to do a little each day to try to cover it all.)

Santa!

Presley was able to go and visit briefly with Santa before Christmas. I don't think she got around to telling him what she wanted - she was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing! She didn't cry, though, so they were able to quickly snap a picture.