Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas and are so thankful for family and for celebrating Christ's birth. We always spend Christmas at my grandpa's house and this year we were greeted by this:
He was standing in his street like this. If you know my grandpa, you know how funny he is and how he loves to play tricks. He told us, "I've read some magazines and the preppy look is out, and the trailer trash look is in." We were all dying laughing. Behind him is the "demerit" list he made. The demerit list started in New York when we said we have better stop asking up if he was warm enough. He said that if we kept asking, we would get demerits and not be invited back to New York next year. It then continued through Christmas. It's wonderful to have such a fun grandpa.

All the girls had to get a picture with him.
On Christmas Eve we always go to church and then we come home and cook Mexican food.
This year my mom had all the girls matching shirts. We wore them all day on Christmas Eve. At the mall, one lady said, "Boy I've seen a lot of people with those shirts on today." I guess she had just seen all the girls at different places in the mall.
After we read the a book about the Christmas story with the girls, we put the girls to bed. Emma Catherine said that she was going to sleep completely under the covers so Santa wouldn't see her and that he would be sure to come. Once we were sure they were asleep Ryan finished putting together the girls' big present.

Birthday and the Causey's

The 18th was Ryan's 31st birthday. The girls and I actually celebrated with Ryan a little early because we were going to be with Ryan's family on his actual birthday. Emma Catherine helped me make cupcakes, and then they helped Ryan blow out the candles.
On Ryan's actual birthday, we headed to Prattville to celebrate Christmas with Ryan's family. It was fun for all the cousins to be together. It made me wish we lived closer to Ryan's brothers, so we could play with them more often. We had a good weekend with them.

Ballet Recital

I posted earlier this fall that Emma Catherine is taking ballet at Worship Through Dance. She has enjoyed it and she loves her teacher, Mrs. Bridget. They had their first recital this month. It was a Christmas themed ballet and Emma Catherine was a cow. All the girls her age were different animals. Emma Catherine wasn't really happy about her costume. It wasn't that she was a cow, but it was that she had to be an animal at all. The older girls in the recital got to wear traditional ballet costumes and Emma Catherine thought they looked liked princesses. After the recital we called my mom to tell her about the recital and she asked Emma Catherine if she was gorgeous. Emma Catherine said, "No, the girls with princess dresses were gorgeous and I was a cow." We told her that she was a gorgeous cow, but I don't think she believed us. I think her spring recital will be more "princess-like."The day before the recital, Emma Catherine had a dress rehearsal, and let me just say that it didn't go so well. She hadn't had a nap in about 4 days and she was grumpy, weepy, and whiny. She didn't want me to leave her side and she when she was on stage, she really didn't dance much. I was so thankful that Lauren had stayed to go to the dress rehearsal because she was able to take care of Bailey for me.
I prayed all day on Tuesday that Emma Catherine would take a nap and that she her performance would go better than the dress rehearsal. Thankfully, the Lord answered my prayers and she took a great nap, and she did great at the recital. She was cheerful and happy to be doing ballet.

Breakfast with Santa

The Vinyards invited us to go to Breakfast with Santa with them and we were so glad that we did. The breakfast was good and they got to visit with Santa. We didn't feel rushed, which was one thing I really liked about it.
Bailey's favorite part was there there was chocolate candy all over the table. Every time I turned around Bailey was unwrapping another piece of candy. There's really no telling how many pieces she ate. Here are 3 pictures, but I could have posted more. Emma Catherine and Bryant are great friends.
Lolli taught Emma Catherine how to "charm" us.

Our Tree

I really like to post in chronological order but I just realized I forgot to post about decorating our Christmas tree. My parents have always gotten a real Christmas tree, so that's what Ryan and I have always done. I've tossed around the idea of buying a fake tree this year when they go on sale, because real trees get messy and they are harder to take care of, but I'm just not sure I can do it. I love the way real trees smell in your house and I love going to pick out our tree together. We always go to Lowe's to get our tree because they tend to have good prices and a good selection. (notice Emma Catherine "helping" Bailey look at the camera)Generally, we have put the ornaments on the tree without the help of the girls, but this year we let them help us. I am glad we did because they were both excited and it made the whole event more special to them.

Caroling with the Fishes

***Disclaimer*** I am desperately trying to catch up on posts for the month of December.

The night I got back from New York we headed out to the aquarium for Caroling with the Fishes. It was a members' night and Emma Catherine was excited to go. We had a good time and the girls got to see Santa again. (I think this was the biggest Santa I had ever seen).

New York

The first weekend in December, my grandpa always takes my mom, sister, and I to New York. We are so grateful for his generosity and we always have a fabulous time. This year we wanted to do something a little different the first day so we took the subway to China town.
We ended up in a secret room and all got fake purses and cheap sunglasses. It was an experience for sure.
We met some friends from home for dinner. Kristen and Blue are living in New York now and it was fun to catch up with them and eat at Virgil's, which we love.
We did lots of sightseeing and shopping and we saw the play South Pacific. It was a great show.



We also met up with an old friend from Palmetto. Noel used to live down the street from us growing up and we hadn't seen her in ages. We got to catch up with her in the American Girl store, while I was trying to decide on which dolls to get Emma Catherine and Bailey for Christmas.
This is Jimmy, the doorman at the Double Tree in Times Square. We have been staying at this hotel for over 15 years and he has always been there. He remembers our name every year.

Rock City

On the night of Thanksgiving, we went to Rock City's Enchanted Lights Display. We had never been there but we were excited to take the girls. They loved it so much. We also got to see Santa and decorate cookies.

Where Have I Been?

Where have I been? Pouting would be my honest answer. I have been pouting about the fact that I broke our camera lens. Yes, I broke our camera lens that is not even a year old and that we had a garage sale to buy. It's been a very bad year for the Causey's in the camera department. Last year the week before Christmas, Ryan dropped our Pentax SLR camera on the driveway at his parents and it was unfixable. We saved our Christmas money and bought a Nikon SLR. We had it for a few months and Bailey pulled it off a coffee table (onto carpet) and the lens broke. We had a garage sale later in the spring and upgraded our lens to replace the one Bailey broke. Then a couple of weeks ago, Emma Catherine and I were in the Walmart parking lot and I fishing in my purse for my keys and the camera dropped out of my purse. We had been on a field trip that day, which is why the camera was in my purse. I broke the lens. We are still waiting to hear if the lens in fixable. In the mean time, I have had to use our old kodak easy share camera from about 2004. I am thankful that I even have a camera to use at all, but after using a SLR for so long, I am spoiled. The Kodak is SSSLLLOOOWWW and doesn't really take good pictures. Because I've been pouting and fustrated with myself and the kodak camera, I really haven't taken as many pictures as I usually do.

I have tried to decide the best way to post about the things I do have pictures for. Because of the holidays and how busy things are and will get, I am just going to do a long post with pictures of what we've been up to. So here goes...

The week before Thanksgiving we went to a Thanksgiving playdate. We did a painting craft, decorated cookies, ate lunch, and played. We had such a good time being with friends.
At the end of the week, my mom came into town. We always have such a great time when she visits. We went to the YMCA holiday gift market and the girls got to see Santa after we shopped. We also did a lot of Christmas shopping on Saturday. My mom graciously offered to babysit the girls so we could go to our Sunday School Thanksgiving party, and we took her up on the offer. Emma Catherine cried all the way home from the airport when we dropped her off.
Ryan was on call this Thanksgiving so we could not travel. I decided to cook a little Thanksgiving meal for our family. I cooked a 3 lb turkey breast and it turned out really well. We even used our china, which I hate to say we had never used before. We tried to spend time talking with Emma Catheirne about being thankful.We spent Thanksgiving night at Rock City seeing the Enchanted Gardens of Lights. I will post those pictures tomorrow.

Halloween Festvities

Boy last week was busy for us. We had our fall festival at church, a fall festival at the YMCA, fall parties at preschool, and we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We had a great time at each event but by Sunday, we all took a good nap.

At our church's fall festival the girls enjoyed playing the games. Bailey was also fascinated with her candy. She would stop every few seconds to take candy out of her bucket. She also tried to eat candy with the paper still on it.
We enjoyed seeing our friends and going on a hayride.
Emma Catherine was very excited to walk around our neighborhood on Saturday. We decided to leave Bailey in the stroller because she didn't really seem to mind. We would push her up to the door of a house and she would say "treat...please." By the end of the night, Emma Catherine told us she was ready to go home. I think she was tired but I also think she wanted to get home to eat some candy. Let me just say, between all the events we went to, we have plenty of candy. I think some of it is going to have to start disappearing.