merry Christmas!

3 months

Our little Chloe is 3 months old!  She is such a blessing to our family, and I've found myself truly enjoying every moment with her.  (I'm also wishing I could freeze time... she's changing so fast!) She is smiling and cooing, "talking" to us, which just melts my heart!  When she's waking up and I go into get her, her face lights up with the brightest smile when she sees me...more heart melting!  She seems to love being a part of the action of life and would rather not be put somewhere where she can't see someone or hear what's going on around her... unless of course it's nap time (thankfully!).  She is sleeping like a champ and with the exception of a couple of nights, has been sleeping through the night for about 3 weeks now (which is just glorious!!).  She's officially in a crib in her own room and Arden and Esther are now sharing a room.  Chloe is still a little snuggle bunny, but she also likes "standing" and proves to be pretty strong... after all, she is our fighter.  Also in the last few days, she's started playing a lot with her hands and fingers.  I've also caught her sucking her thumb on a couple of occasions... looks like she may end up taking after her oldest sister!  She's long and lean... at her 2 month check up, she was in the 25th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for length!  It'll be interesting to see where she is on our next visit at 4 months.  Here are a few pictures from the last week or two.  I still have yet to catch her big smiles on camera, but hoping to one day very soon.

blue eyes... hoping they'll stay that way, just maybe.

"Do we have to take pictures Mommy?"

A and E had to jump in on the action.

where's Chloe? :)

Esther loves to play with Chloe and love on her all the time now.

This picture was taken awhile ago, but I don't think I posted it.  Arden was reading to Chloe from her first book she got from the Imagination Library.

bunting

Joan, a dear lady in our church, made this bunting for Chloe...makes my heart swell.

gingerbread house

We bought a gingerbread house kit last week and Woody and the girls put it together this morning!  The girls have been begging to do it and finally we had the perfect opportunity since Woody had the morning off.  He was in charge of "building" the house with icing and then decorating with icing.  The girls (with a little help from me) put the candy on and had a blast.  They also loved that their Daddy gave them a taste of icing every few minutes!  Chloe had so much fun that she fell asleep in her bouncy seat during all the action and napped there for a good hour and a half!

pajamas and pigtails

On Monday, Arden's ballet/tumbling class got to wear pajamas and pigtails for their Christmas party.  The girls got to wear jingle bells and dance with candy canes the first half of class.  The second half was spent exchanging gifts and eating lots of candy and cookies! 

oranges!

Our oranges are ready!  Well, they've been ready for a week or two now.  We had a cold snap a couple of weeks ago, and we picked a few right after that to see if they were ready.  We've heard the cold makes the oranges sweet and I believe it because they're really yummy this year!  We picked all the oranges within reach last week (around 20) and then yesterday Woody got all the rest of the oranges from the top of the tree.  I counted 47 oranges just from yesterday's picking.  It's crazy to think that last year our tree only made around 10 total!  And as you can see from the pictures, our little cold snap only lasted a couple of days...yesterday and today it's been around 80 degrees...is it really the middle of December??  Arden and Esther were a big help taking the oranges and running them to the deck.  They have been so excited about getting the oranges and loved every minute of running back and forth! 

Woody started out on a ladder and then our neighbor, Peggy, let us borrow a handy little tool to pick the hard to reach ones.  I thought it was pretty cool. 

say cheese

We have a new photographer in the family.  Arden's always wanting to take pictures with our camera, and so as an early Christmas present she got her very own kid's digital camera from Nonie and Dagan while we were in Birmingham.  She opened it up the day we were leaving to head back home.  From about lunch time until it got dark, the girl took 317 pictures!!  As soon as the batteries were put in the camera, she went to work taking pictures of anyone and anything she could find.  It was so fun watching her with it and equally hilarious looking at all the pictures she'd taken once we put them on the computer!  I went through and pulled a few of the better ones for you to see.  Our budding photographer, Arden, took all of the pictures on this post.

Aunt Hannah and Nonie 

(the curtains are one of many cute little pieces of clip art you can add to the pictures on the camera)

Esther's silly face 

(I've been trying to get this face on camera for awhile...A beat me to it!)

Arden's view from the third row...there are literally 70+ pictures of this view of the back of Woody's head and then probably 30 of when I was driving!

self portrait

I love this one...we went through the drive thru at Arby's at Tiger Town to get a quick dinner...you can even tell it's raining!

thanksgiving part two

The week/weekend of Thanksgiving, Woody had a crazy work schedule, so I took off with the girls and went to Statesboro to see my family.  We got to see lots of family as we spent Thanksgiving day with my mama's side of the family and then got together with all the Groovers the next night.  Chloe had fun being passed around and Arden and Esther loved being able to have some extra time with their cousins!

Chloe with her Great Uncle Ricky and Great Aunt Martha 

"Flying" with Uncle Curt

3 silly monkeys

Harrison and Chloe

Papa and Esther roasting marshmallows

Papa and G.G. with all their grandkids

At Aunt Gale's for the Groover get together

We also got to meet up with Betsy and Hillary, friends I've known since at least preschool.  It was fun being able to catch up a little and see all our kiddos play together.  Here they are taking a break from playing at the park.

Chloe and the mommies

family of five

While in Birmingham our brother-in-law, Michael ( 268 Photography ), took some family shots for us.  These are a couple of my favorites.  Thanks Michael!