Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas


 A couple of pictures of our beautiful girls opening their gifts. For Ray and I it is a joy and blessing to see our girls so happy and excited, to spend this time together and making wonderful memories. We wish all a Merry Christmas.



Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Eve





On Christmas Eve the girls get to open their one gift and the stocking that hangs in their room. They both received adorable matching PJ's, you can see the design with Abigail above holding them in her hands. In their stockings they received new bath tows, princess lip gloss, and princess body spray. We read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the girls and they are now dreaming of all the goodies that Santa will bring forth tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Tree Topper Tradition 2000


Ray and I celebrated our first Christmas living together in 2000. When it came time to decide what to put on the top of our tree we both wanted what we grew up with. Ray as a boy grew up with an Angel on the top of his tree. I on grew up with a huge handmade bow that my Mom would spend an hour creating. So to compromise as all great couples do we decided to have both!! Our Aggie colored Angel sits on top of a matching Aggie colored bow that I had made by my Mom. I love how we took two things we loved as kids and will now have a new tradition for our girls to grow up with.

Emma Decorating the Christmas Tree

 Emma decided it would be wonderful to add some of her and Abigail's toys to the tree as ornaments. Here you see her adding a lion and she went on to add a couple other toys. You would think that Abigail would go for the toys, but no... she still went after the Aggie ornaments every time.


Abigail Grace Explores Christmas

 Abby has been trying to get to the gifts any way she can. She rams them with her walker. She will twist and turn and try to grab them, drag them, or run them over.

 She loves the tree... she goes to it every chance she gets. She will stare at it, grab the bows, try and pull off ornaments, or use the ornaments for teething toys!

 Abigail loves the sounds that bells make. She goes around and plays with them, lights up and gives us this great big smile that melts your heart.

 Our girl flashes her super cute smile when she knows she shouldn't be doing something so you can't really get on to her, you just give her a kiss and distract her with something else.

Again she is after the tree... this time she pulls the Aggie Candy Cane and makes it spring up and she does this until Big Sister Emma goes and pulls her away.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Christmas Card Traditions

 This is a tradition that we started when we had Emma. We get them Christmas cards, write in them, seal them and when the girls are older they will read them. Above is the card we picked for Abigail Grace and below is the card we selected for Emma Elizabeth.

 Another tradition started as well... as you can see we are customizing our own Christmas cards with our family photos. This is one of the few opportunities we set aside to try and send an update image to our relatives we do not get to see often. We hope you all enjoy!

Gifts to Give

 These gifts our for my side of the family. (Housley, Savell, Burnham, Viator, and Maxey)

 These gifts our for Ray's side of the family. You can tell my family is bigger than his : )

These gifts our for the Peeples, we have known them since 2005 and they are like family in every way.

Due to multiple factors and trying to put the focus back on the true meaning of Christmas we have decided to only give one gift per person. We usually go overboard and have to load the back of Ray's truck to haul gifts around but, our focus is family, Christ, and making memories of a lifetime rather than an over abundance of gifts that will go untouched in a few weeks time.

Christmas Presents A New Tradition

 To bring the true meaning of Christmas into our celebrations we decided to start a new tradition. Christ was given three gifts on his birthday so our girls will receive three gifts on Christmas to symbolize that. We did not want to forget that through history kind individuals like Santa Clause gave out gifts to children, so they will get one gift from Santa. Then to incorporate a tradition from my family they will receive one gift on Christmas Eve - Christmas Pajamas with their stockings. So in total the girls will each receive 5 gifts each.

 The lovely Mickey Mouse wrapping paper is for our Emma Elizabeth. But this year due to little sisters wrapping paper and some items she has seen in stores she is becoming more interested in the princesses.

 Our Abigail Grace is such a precious little girl. We are so very thankful and blessed to have both of our daughters to share this special time of year with. She too has her five presents and lets just say due to some of the shapes wrapping was not easy. Dada said all gifts should come in two shapes, square and rectangle. I have to agree after trying to wrap some gifts just to have things bunched, tear, or just look odd.

So for Abigail Grace her Dada picked out this princess wrapping paper for her First Christmas. It is adorable and Emma keeps showing it to her Dada telling him she wants a princess.

Many people have asked "what has Emma asked Santa for" well... nothing. Emma has not asked for anything specific gift, toy, etc... maybe next year.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Sick, Sick, and Sick

 Abigail Grace Pheris in bed as of 12:30 a.m. she is sick and will be going to the doctor at 9:00 a.m. She has been having some gunk coming from her eyes, green boogies from her nose, and when she came home form day care on 12/14 her temp was 102.6. Well as of 11: 45 p.m. her temp rose to 103.6 so she has had a cold bath, meds, change of clothing, and a cool press applied to her forehead. Praying she gets better and sleeps some tonight.

 Emma Elizabeth Pheris in bed also as of 12:30 a.m. she is sick and will also be going to the doctor at 9:00 a.m. With Emma I got a call from day care that she was running a fever after waking from her nape and had puked. So on my way back to work from my own doctor appointment I went and got my girls. She was so sad, crying, wanting to be held, wanting her Dad that we had to call him from day care for her to talk to him. At home she was better for a while, but after Abigail waking me and me checking on her, I checked on Emma to find her hot as well with a temp of 102.1. So as I am trying to get Emma to take her meds, I call their Dada and she pukes... Well off to a cold bath, meds, change of clothing, and a cool compress. She fell asleep watching her Handy Many Show as a reward for finally taking her meds for fever. Praying she gets better, gets some sleep, and is able to kick the fever without the induction of any seizure activity.

 Brandie Housley Pheris... me as you can see... I have had a really bad sinus infections for about a week. Went to the doctor and was given an injection and some meds that I was unable to pick up and start as of yet due to my precious little girls being sick. As you will note of the time of me creating this post, you would think I wold be in bed. But with thoughts, concerns, worries, stress, etc.... I thought it would be therapeutic for me to get it down on paper (ha ha) and get it out of my head, so that I could get some sleep.

 Abigail Grace playing this morning. No signs of feeling bad, fever, nothing that would guess I would be doing this at 1 a.m. but I love my precious gift from God and being a Mom!

Emma Elizabeth this morning playing and counting her barbie ornaments on the tree. She was feeling great, all smiles, happy, and excited to go to school. Had no clue I would be picking her up with a fever.

12/9 Just Because

Ray sent me this wonderful Christmas bouquet to work last week. It was a sweet gift from a loving man. He was trying to brighten my week and show his appreciation for all that I do every day. I love my husband.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Abigail Grace Pheris 7 Months Old



Our little girl is growing so quickly! She is such a happy, sweet baby we fill blessed to have her in our lives. She is very energetic, outgoing, and smiles all the time. She can say Mama, Dada, Hi, and Ooh Wow. She rolls all over the place, is still doing her rocking motion, prefers to stand, loves the exersaucer and walker. She has two teeth and is cutting two more as I am typing this. She does not sleep through the night, we believe she is going through a growth spurt along with the teething. Did I mention she is growing out of 9 month clothing and quickly into 12 month clothing. She is still off the chart with her growth, especially her height.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Abigail and Emma's Santa Picture

We could never get both girls looking and smiling at the same time. Emma wanted to talk to him, look at everything, touch everything, and was just enjoying herself. So we selected the one with Abigail smiling the most beautiful smile since this is her first Christmas and first time meeting Santa. Santa asked Emma what she wanted for Christmas and she told hem "My Poppa!" this little girl never gets enough time with her Poppa. Looking forward to more family time soon ; )

Christmas Pictures

 We took our Christmas Pictures today and it was a blast. The girls look so precious in their outfits.


Our Girls Love Christmas

 "Take a Picture of Emma" this is what she has been telling us lately. She wants us to take her picture when she is wearing her Aggie Santa hat.

 Emma giving her trees some love, she is giving the pink tree a kiss!

 Emma sharing her love with her sister before we head out the door to start our day.

 Our precious Abigail loves her walker and really loves the fact she can get to the tree faster.

 She gives us these beautiful smiles, you just can seem to get on to her for much when one of these smiles bloom on her face.


Emma and Abigail's Christmas Decorations

 We bought this tree this year and decorated it with all of the Holiday Barbie ornaments that I have collected for the last 18 years. Emma loves it and it stays lit in her room through the night.

 Above is Emma's stocking for her room and below is Abigail's stocking for her room. These stockings are for them to awake and find a little something to start off the recieving of gifts on Christmas Eve.

 We have this adorable baby's first Christmas tree in Abigail's room. This is the one we used for Emma when she was an infant. We looked for one for our Abigail so she could have her own, but could not find one online or in the stores.


An Aggie Christmas

 All our decorations for Christmas come in two color Aggie Maroon and Gold!

 Emma has enjoyed playing with our Aggie Santa and Aggie Snow Man on a daily basis.

 We are waiting for Santa to come down the chimney and fill our Aggie stockings with goodies.

 Our tree is over 10 feet tall and filled with all Aggie onraments, WHOOP!

 This is an Aggie Santa I had make when Emma was still a baby.

 Even our other decor we buy at different locations has to fit our color pattern.