Crawling vs. Scooting

>> Monday, December 29, 2008

Being the proud mother that I am I say Crawling. Michael says Scooting. We will compromise and say Army Crawling. This video is actually a few weeks old but it shows her starting out. She is much faster now. She loves to crawl to the exersaucer and spin it in cirlces. She just started over Christmas holding onto things and standing up unassisted for short periods of time (less than a minute). This is greatly improving thanks to the Winnie the Pooh Train she got for Christmas.

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Eads Family Christmas 2008

We had a wonderful Christmas. I have to say Santa exploded in our living room. Lily was an angel with all the activities and events we had over the long week in G-town. As usual she ate the paper! haha! As usual Mommy took many embarrassing pictures of her with taped on bows. What can I say? Grow some hair kid!

This will mainly be a picture post with some commentary throughout. Enjoy!

Digital Picture Frame from Michael. Note this was not on the "list" but a definiate keeper!

Renee on Christmas eve!

What do you mean? This isn't the gift! But I was so excited about the paper?!
Christmas Eve Lunch at Tammy's
Morgan and Lily with their customized banks from Aunt Linda. Now if only we can get her to start filling it??
Absolutely horrible pic of us. But very holiday appropriate. Unfortunatly no alcohol was consumed in the making of this picture.
Beautiful
Morgan pooped out after opening gifts on Christmas Eve
Santa Arrived!
Lily spotting Santa's first toy!
Immediatly trying it out!
NC State cup from stocking
Aunt Shannon's Math Jokes at work again! Wouldn't expect anything less from the Math teacher!
Mmmmm I wonder where they got the ornament idea? Inspired by Michael, Look for the full line to arrive next fall!
Boxes, Boxes everywhere!
Mmmm Frog Legs!
Oh my god! My first Coach Bag! I love it I love it. Good job Santa! Smell the sweet scent of luxury!
A Daddy suprise from Grandma! His favorite gift by far!
Daddy and Lily
Grandma and Lily

Morgan giving Lily a Christmas kiss
Lily returning the favor
Morgan discovering Lily's drum
Sharing

I will say Christmas changed dramatically this year. It was not about me. I did not feel the usual after Christmas slump that we all feel but never admit. It was awesome. Seeing Lily, being with my family. A Beautiful day overall. We are very lucky to have such loving family and friends and to be so lucky to get so many wonderful things this Christmas. Especially when you think of all the others that have nothing. So we did decide on one family tradition. We are donating one new toy every year to people less forunate than us. Lily will eventually pick it out but this year I picked it out. This tradition will hopefully remind us of how lucky we are every year. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We are looking forward to a whole new year of beautiful memories.

A perfect picture to show a perfect day

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Pre-Christmas Activities


Our Christmas post will be split into two posts. Our pre-christmas activities and then Christmas trip to G-town.

Lily had her Daycare party. Here are some pictures of her during it! Too cute. I want to go get her a Bee Bop band ASAP! I was waiting to make sure she did not get one for xmas before I bought it.
As many of you know I have been focusing on starting family traditions. What fun! Fun but stressful. Deciding on activities your family will treasure for years to come is a big deal! Our first of many trial traditions was the Durham Santa Train. Through a friend I had heard about the awesomeness of the Santa Train in Durham. The tickets go on sale in November and usually sell out within days. I had been trying to get tickets for weeks and finally last Saturday through Craiglist I won two tickets to the Sunday night (the last night) 7:00pm train. As many of you know this was during the Giants vs. Panthers game. Well the game started at 8:15pm but we would be in Durham. Okay so I won the tickets. Small problem...I had to pick them up in Hillsbourgh Sunday morning for her to give them to me. So I hop in the car for a total of TWO HOURS round trip. Get home, shower, get her ready and pretty much hop back in the car to drive BACK towards Durham to make our train. The description of the event said "the Durham Life and Science Museum is transformed into the North Pole where children take a magical train ride to see Santa" How cool does that sound. It also said there would be craft tables and free hot chocolate. We drive through scary parts of Durham, getting lost only twice! Then we arrive early (as to not interfere with the football game that my husband so disgruntly allowed us to be late for). I should mention it is about twenty degrees outside. COLD!

Bundled up in the cold!

We walk up. I see the craft table. Picture this....a six foot table.....construction paper....and some markers. I will say they had face painting at the end of the six foot table. Wow some craft table. We arrived an hour early for this?? Okay back to the car we go!

In the car getting warm!

To warm up, nurse and cuddle in hopes that Little Lily would be in a good mood. So we head back out to the train forty five minutes later. All bundled up. The train is in the station. I will say the train was cute. The conductor was conductorery looking as well. We board the train, which is open to the outside so we are still really cold. And the seat is not made for anyone over one hundred pounds. Lily is pulling off her hat! Her nose is red, she is already sick, she is crying anytime you put it on her. This is the our back up one but she hated both! It was craziness.
Hat #2

Seat tooo small!

The train starts going. Pretty fast if I do say. The conductor is talking but who the heck knows what he is saying because it is crackling over the speaker. We see a Santa waving at us and we all yell "Merry Christmas Santa!" then the train stops. Imagine a shack in the middle of the forest. Painted red. With icicle lights. Two wire reindeer you get from WalMart. And two teenage girl "elfs" passing out candy. And a cheesy twenty year old Santa!

Yes this is the North Pole. Santa comes by and talks to the kids, which doesn't benefit my six month old. She did get a candy cane though!

Some entertainment in a cold world...

Michael and I look at each other.
Michael: "this is it?"
Steph:"No this can't be it?"
Michael:"Steph, if he talks to all the kids it will take the whole time, this is it."
Steph: "No way I drove four hours round trip for this! It said 'transformed into the NOrth Pole' where is the snow? where are the presents, and elves, and toys??"
Michael: "Steph (laughing) this is it"
Steph: "This is Bull$*#%!"

So yes we drove all that way and it was a bust. Michael thought it was hysterical. Needless to say this will not be an Eads Family Tradition.

To make ourselves feel a little better we had a pre christmas present exchange. Mainly to eliminate some luggage to cart to G-town. Lily opened up her gift from the Loomis', and some from us! Her first gift from Mommy and Daddy was a set of blocks. She seemed to enjoy the paper more than the blocks!
Michael got a mousepad with Lily on it! Michael made me the most beautiful ornament with Lily! It is perfect! He took her to the pottery place and this was his final product!



This should tide you over until I get the Christmas pictures uploaded! Til then....

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Last Day of Work!

>> Monday, December 22, 2008

Don't be jealous! We leave tomorrow for G-town and won't be back until Friday. I will try and post pictures of this weekends trials and tribulations but if not see you after Christmas!

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Great Idea

I am not normally a Bob and Sherri fan (98.1 for those of you Raleighians). But this morning they were playing some Christmas music and I was in that special mood that only Christmas can bring. Sherri started talking about something she did this year with her two little girls. Her oldest had asked her about Hanukkah and why it was different than their traditional Christian holiday. Unfortunalty she could not answer too much! So this year her family celebrated Hanukkah by learning different things about the menorah, the oil, dradle, etc. and doing many Jewish traditions. What a great idea! Not only did it teach Sherri but also her children about the different culture.

Now I am Methodist, but I believe that my child should not be ignorant of other people's beliefs or ideas. I think this is lovely and why not necessarily the same beliefs it educates a child on others so they are not only informed but sensitive to others. I will definitly be doing this with Lily when she gets older and will encourage others to do the same. And who doesn't like being able to celebrate multiple holidays!

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6 Months

>> Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Today Lily had her Daycare Christmas Party. The theme was Cookies and Milk. Luckily we recieved this outfit as a gift on Wednesday night. It was really cute. They had different stations set up to prepare them for their first Christmas including "how to unwrap a gift," "How to ring a jingle bell," " How to make a Christmas Ornament," and "How to have a Silent Night (nap station)." The teachers bought all the kids little stockings for the occasion. I got the daycare workers a "movie night." Basically a Coke, Sprite, Bag of Popcorn, and a $5 dollar gift certificate to Blockbuster. Thanks for that idea Alice!

This weekend Lily got some early Christmas practice in. I like to call this activity eat the paper. She got to unwrap a gift from Scott and Brooke. This is how it went.

Step 1. Apply Bow to Head so Mommy can take embarrassing pictures of me
Step 2. Tear first corner
Step 3. Eat the evil paper
Step 4. Pose with Fancy new gift
The book they got her was a perfect gift. It describes our love of dogs and has a good moral of we are all dogs (well Human) on the inside! I recommend it to all parents.
We got some artsy pictures over the weekend. I was trying to get some body shots (not the kind you take off hot waitresses) to do a collage in our hallway. It was fine until she flipped me the bird and I realized I couldn't hang that in the hallway.




"I said No MORE PICTURES! Dang Paparazzi!"
We got the majority of our Christmas cards out. I do have a few stragglers. So I decided to post the other pictures we got of Lily earlier this month. Enjoy!

TuTu fabulous Look at her little teeth!
A really good shot Brooke randomly took on her Sunday visit.
Scooting around....
Moving at a snails pace but getting across the room

This past week marked Lily's 6 month unbirthday! Some milestones to date
- 17 pounds 9 ounces (90%)
-24 3/4 inches (25%) I told the ped. she was more of a "ball" shape
-44.5 cm head (90%)
-Talking and imitating Mommy and Daddy
-Scooting and army crawling
-Rolling in all directions
-Grip objects and move between hands
-Bang objects against EVERYTHING like a drummer
-Sit up independently
-Training on Sippy Cup
-Eating all fruits and veggies (not combos)
-2.5 jars of food a day plus 6 ounces of cereal
-Giggling
-Trying to feed herself
-Three teeth (cutting a few more, but I see three)
-Plays Peek a Boo
-"Tricks" you. Frowning as if she is going to cry...waits for you to react...then giggles.
-Attitude. If she loses her toy or you take it the "tude" comes out. Poor Michael...two Stephaine's in the house.
I am sure there are many more but this is just the highlights!

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