Pics and Parties for Christmas!

We wanted to have a good "Christmas-y" family picture for our Christmas cards this year, so we enlisted the help of our friends Josh and Jessica. They came over and played photographer and baby-attention-getter for our pics. It was quite a feat to get this little one to look at the camera and kinda smile. You see, she is a quite a wiggly-worm now that she is mobile! We managed to get a few decent ones. You can see more of them HERE.


Last Thursday we hosted our SmallGroup Christmas party. We had 16 adults, 2 toddlers, and 3 babies all crammed into our little home. It was a great time! We had lots of yummy food, a fun gift exchange and hours of chatting and just having a good time. I enjoyed the fact that I got to show of Addy and let her play with the other girls, but got to put her to bed in her own crib and then enjoy the rest of the night talking with the grown-ups and not having to worry about her. :o)

Here she is with Bella (9 mo), Lauren (2 yrs) and Shelby (5 wks):


We managed to use the timer and get an entire group picture . . . It turned out pretty well for such a big group! And we only took 2!


I have to tell you also about my little last minute project for the Christmas party. I decided Addy needed a holiday outfit, and I didn't want her to wear her "Christmas Dress" because it would be "too much" for our casual little party. So, I remembered seeing this cute little outfit at a little boutique in Tulsa and loving it:



So I decided to make my own Christmas version! I had a white onesie - ironed on the letters for "Jingle Belle" - sewed red tulle between green/white swiss dot ribbon - found a child-sized Santa hat at Walmart - there ya go! It definitely wasn't "too much" . . . . Do ya think? (Okay, so I know sometimes I go overboard with my girly girl and her froufiness and bows . . . but isn't it too cute! :o)



Check out all our other pics at www.falatfam.shutterfly.com

Storytime

We are all about getting out for playdates and just hanging out with friends. We try to get together with friends at least once or twice a week and we're always looking for things to do. At Addy's age, she pretty much doesn't care too much about what we do, but she does like getting out. She is always so entertained just by watching people and being outside and seeing what all is going on around her. So, I was checking out all the events going on in our newspaper and came across "storytime at Barnes and Noble - Free!". I know Addy isn't probably the target age for this service, but hey, it's something to do and it's free! So, Addy and I met our friends Sarah and her 9 month old Bella and Jessica and her 1 month old Shelby at Barnes and Noble. The girls didn't really listen to the story, but they loved watching all the "big kids" (2-3-4 year olds) and just interacting. Then we went for lunch and the Mommies really enjoyed that part! Here are a few pics:

A Fresh Start

Here we are all fresh and anew sharing the daily (or weekly, or biweekly, depending on how busy I am) comings and goings of our happy family of three. Our former website is on hold right now since the hard drive on our computer crashed and all our data (including my website) was taken with it. We are in the process of trying to retrieve that data, but we'll see. . . . . you can see any previous pictures, video, and blogs at web.me.com/falatfam. Our initial time for that website is up in February anyway, and we have to pay to continue it, so I thought we'd check out blogspot for a while. A lot of my friends use it, so I thought I'd try it out for now since I can't use my other and I might just decide to stick with it.

So, here are a few highlights of the past couple of weeks:

• We've been to the zoo, to see Sesame Street Live, to ride the train around the zoo and park, to the Japanese Tea Gardens, on a couple of playdates, to a couple of Spurs games, to the mall, to take pictures with the Spurs Coyote, on a trip to the hill country for a picnic . . . . Addy and I have had quite the social life lately! (And Evan on occasion - poor guy actually has to work!)
• Addy celebrated her 7 month birthday!
  
• Addy is officially crawling and pulling up on everything! I've got to get this house child-proofed! Life is rapidly changing! She's not real fast yet, but if she really wants something, she can make it across the room. And, now every time we go into her room because she is crying, we find her standing up holding on to the bars and giving us quite the pouty look. She is just so adorable! Even when she's throwing a fit! :o)

• We enjoyed a potluck-style Thanksgiving with our small group at the home of the Whitakers. We had a really nice time hanging out with these friends!

I'm sure there have been many more things, but here is a start. Maybe I can keep up on this new format . . . we'll see. I'll leave you with a few pics:


In Bandera on picnic day . . . .
. . . . . At the Japanese Tea Gardens

With the Coyote, the Spurs Mascot . . . . Addy thought he was just a big teddy bear!

Addy enjoyed her Thanksgiving Dinner - she tested the mashed potatoes and broccoli casserolle, but mostly ate her oat cereal, pureed apricots, and sweet potato puffs.

Addy loved Lauren's swing . . . this was pretty much her first time in a swing like this and as you can tell, we might need to find a way to get her one like this!


Addy got to help put her first star on the Christmas tree! We bought our live Fraser Fir today at Lowes and have the lights on so far . . .

So, I don't really do my blogging here . . . you can check out our family website at web.me.com/falatfam to see my blog and lots of pics of our beautiful little Addison.