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.

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.

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.

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.

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.