Luke's Winter ONEderland Party

We celebrated Luke's first birthday with a winter ONEderland party. 

Some of my favorite pictures from that day. Hard to believe my baby is one!

Holiday Updates!

We are in the full swing of all things holiday over here. A quick recap.....

We had a fun thanksgiving, celebrating with family and eating lots of yummy food! The day after we took out all our decorations and went to get out Christmas tree. It's one of my favorite days.

We made a gingerbread house one afternoon. 

Hard to believe this is Luke's first Christmas!!!

I'll be back soon to post more holiday updates!

Christmas 2015

We started out Christmas eve with church, we were lucky that Clarke got the whole day off. We even got a fairly good family photo before service. 

It was a rainy day, at least not too cold, but definitely didn't feel like winter. The next day we had the ac running it was so warm. That night we had dinner and opened presents with the whites. We put out our milk, cookies and reindeer food (oats and glitter Chloe made in school) Chloe didn't like the idea of Santa coming into our house, so we told her an elf would bring her presents for Santa. 

 Christmas morning was really fun this year because Chloe finally was into opening her presents. She had asked for a Bitty Baby, saw her in the catalog. 

Chloe had fun playing with her new toys that day. I think one of her favorites was the check up kit. She's being giving all her animals and babies check ups since. 

My mom made a nice dinner that night, complete with a huge 5 layered white chocolate cheesecake. 

Hard to believe next Christmas we will have an almost one year old with us. I hope y'all had a very merry Christmas as well!

Christmas Catch Up!

We've had fun getting ready for Christmas this past month. Some fun things we've been up to...

One of my favorites is just hearing Chloe talk about baby Jesus in the manger with hay. And Joseph and Mary and the donkey who goes click clack click clack. I love that she is starting to get a picture of the real reason for Christmas. 

We went to see the lights at Lewis Ginter. It was fun walking around and seeing the beautiful lights, afterwards we went to Aunt Melanie's house for spaghetti. 

My dad was here this past weekend and we celebrated Christmas with him. I can't believe I didn't snap any pictures but we were busy going out to eat, Children's Museum and last night we opened presents with him. 

I can't believe Christmas eve is this Thursday. Even more, I can't believe this will be our last Christmas as a family of 3!!

Snow Day!

In just a few days we went from this...

to this....

We've had a fun snow day. This is the first snow that Chloe has been old enough to really enjoy and play in. Last year's snow she wasn't even walking yet, hard to remember. 

Clarke went into work late, and Chloe loved having him home. She keeps saying "snow! snow! snow!" I think she is going to be sad when it all melts away. 

Updates

Thought I would update the blog with what we've been up to these past few weeks in Winston. 

Me and Chloe have been going to the Children's Museum once a week. It's so cold outside and we need to get out of the house, so our passes are definitely being used! 

I've been getting back into the gym. Since doing the mistletoe run in early December I was totally slacking. I've decided I'm not going to try and run outside during the winter months, but just do some classes at the Y, which I'm loving. 

Chloe absolutely loves taking care of her babies. She is all about giving them their bottles and tucking them in, it's adorable. 

Aunt Melanie came this past weekend to visit. We loved having her. We all watched Frozen, Chloe's first time and she actually watched all of it. 

This past weekend our church celebrated it's first birthday. They talked a lot about the church being a home and I could totally relate to wanting that. Moving to a new state can be tough and our church has made Winston-Salem feel like home. I love that we're apart of what God is doing in this city through our church. I know when God called us here helping to start this church was part of God's purpose in it all. 

And I'll end with a picture of Chloe wearing this hat. She will randomly want to wear it around the house. Love her. :)

the rest of richmond

Since Clarke had vacation days left at the end of the year we stayed in Richmond the week after Christmas. We had a great time getting to see family and friends. 

As many of you know my birthday is the day after Christmas. I went out to lunch with family and dinner with friends. This was our 10th annual girl's Christmas dinner as well. 10 years we have been celebrating Christmas together, enjoying a nice meal and sharing memories over the past year and hoping/dreaming about the upcoming year. Such a great time. 

One of the nights we were there a bunch of us went to Lewis Ginter to see the lights. Chloe loved running around and seeing everything.

I also got to get Chloe's handprint made. She loved painting and "helping".

Later that day me and Clarke had a date night. Thankful for family that will watch Chloe so we can have some time to ourselves. We had to drive around and see the tacky lights. They just aren't the same here in Winston!

Once again my mom stayed with Chloe on New Year's Eve and me and Clarke got to go out! We just hung out with friends, nothing fancy but it was a fun way to ring in the new year. 

New Year's day we drove back home after being gone for a week. It feels good to be home, but there is always a part of me that misses Richmond after being there. It was a great week.