Week One

We flew in on Friday, and our little home in beginning to get in order!  So the following is the recap of our first week in Atlanta, spent with my family at my mom's house.  

It was SUCH a sweet time of cousins, cousins, everywhere!  A constant state of motion and fun until bedtime.  We flew in on Friday and had an extended Elliott family party on Saturday night.  Here are Ashley (7 months) and Abby Jane on the night of the Elliott party in their Christmas outfits!

My Grandaddy and Joan came over on Sunday night to see all the great-grands.  Here is Grandaddy with the oldest two, Katie and Scott.

Katie (5) and Abby Jane became best friends, according to Katie and the looks on Abby Jane's face, throughout our time at home.  Katie got really good at feeding Abby Jane with me!Grammy is the Pied Piper as always, and was continuously up to her ears in grandkids.  At least two or three of the six slept in sleeping bags in her room every night, and they read books every morning before coming downstairs.

One of the greatest things that happened this trip was the christening of the "jumping room," as the kids called it.  My mom had everyone clean out this huge storage closet in her basement at some point a while back (we were conveniently on the opposite side of the country), and there is now a mattress and a ton of pillows in there- and the point is to be a fun place to jump.  There were a lot of hours logged and energy burned in there.

One of my favorite things we did as a family was sugar cookie baking and decorating, using Jodi's wonderful recipe!  Everyone participated, and we had the greatest time.  I'm hoping it becomes a tradition. 

We celebrated Christmas morning twice- once on Christmas Eve before Greg and his family drove back to Greenville, and again on actual Christmas with Jo and her family before we headed up to Cartersville.  This is the first Christmas morning, and Abby Jane's box of BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS from Uncle Greg and Aunt Susan!  That was what we asked for this year, and everyone came through fabulously!
Here are Jake and Abby Jane opening up her stocking at Grammy's on real Christmas morning.  Santa is so smart to know how Puffs can light up a girl's eyes!
Here are Katie and Ian helping Abby Jane open up her fridge farm from them!

So I uploaded 296 photos from the last three weeks to my computer last night, so needless to say, this is only a tiny sampling of all the fun that went on that week.  I'm trying to restrain myself!  Coming tomorrow are pictures from our week with the Gross family!

Still Here...

Happy New Year to everyone! We have so much updating to do, but I forgot my cord and have been unable to upload pictures from our time at home. We have had a wonderful time in the south, spending the first week out here with my family (7 adults, 6 children- so we're still man to man defense as of right now!), the second with Jake's family (Cade is the cousin who has the most toys in common with Abby Jane right now, so their interaction was a lesson in sharing and a kick in the pants!), and Friday sent Jake back to LA for his January session of being away at school and started my week here in Atlanta of seeing friends!
My big plan is to upload pictures when we get home and do one entry for each week we're out here since there's so much to show! The most exciting development for Abby Jane as she has been trying to keep up with the big cousins is her improvement in walking. She walked about 15 feet the other day, and is starting to choose walking over crawling on her own accord. It has been a delight to see those of you we have had the chance to lay eyes on, and I hope to catch more of you this week!

Family Christmas

We had our family Christmas last night before we leave for Atlanta tomorrow morning!

Abby Jane finally got her riding toy!

A Belated 10 months...

Abby Jane turned 10 months last week, and I neglected to mention it with everything else we've been up to.  For the sake of our own records, I do want to share the new things our big girl has been up to these days.

These days, Abby Jane...

- babbles all the time, sentences of sounds all strung together

- is great at identifying things, looking at the tree when we say, "Where's the Christmas tree?", crawling towards Jake when I say, "Go get Daddy!"  

-started doing the hand sign for "more" this week (we're teaching "more" and "all done")- but we think she thinks that it mainly means "Puffs"-so she does it often!

-is really getting good at imitating things we do

-has 6 teeth- four on top, two on bottom

-can walk several steps at a time  

-has become a very speedy cruiser!

- her major obsession in the food department is cheese 

-books are some of her favorite toys- she loves turning pages, lifting flaps, and tonight she actually cried when a book was finished!

Swings also remain a delight, and she's good at leaning forward to go down slides.

She's becoming so independent- silence has come to mean mischief is incurring... 

and she has no problem crawling out of the room we are in- gone are the clingy days of old!

Another thing we LOVE that she's into is kissing.  Big, wet, slobbery, open-mouth kisses.  They are the flat-out best.  As long as she doesn't lay any on any of the little boys in her life.  

Mainly, we are having such a great time sharing Christmas with her- such sweet memories! 

Tis the Season...

On Thursday, Jake took us girls out on a fabulous Christmas date.  We went first to Beverly Hills to see the crystal chandeliers they hang on Rodeo Drive during Christmas.  There were banners hanging that said, "Deck the Hills." And any trip to Bev. Hills would be incomplete without a stop at Sprinkles Cupcakes- I got chocolate peppermint- best cupcake in my life- and Jake had spiced eggnog.  

The Grove is a fabulous shopping/restaurant area that does amazing decorations for Christmas...
There are even fountains like at the Bellagio (though obviously smaller!) that are choreographed to music.  Abby Jane was enthralled by the fountains.  We ate at The Farm, which had seating by the fountain, so we had an entertained child during dinner.
At 7 p.m., real snow is blown from the roof of the theater right next to where we were eating, and Christmas music was playing... it was very magical!

Here is the massive nativity scene at the largest intersection in Malibu- kind of random in so secular a town, but very neat nonetheless.

This morning was the Santa Monica to Venice 5K that incidentally benefits Harvest Home (see previous entry).  This is our 3rd Christmas to do it, though I mostly walked last year due to a large belly!  Unfortunately, Jake was under the weather this morning, so just us girls (this is us post-race)

 ... joined the crew- Gross girls, Santa and Mrs Claus (aka the Dubachs), the Roberts and Sammy, and the Aufhammers.

And here are Abby Jane and Sammy pre-race, getting their game faces on... I can say that Abby Jane took Sammy down on that last stretch , but I think Sammy's dad let it happen.  We surely did miss Jake, but he's feeling a little better, so it was good for him not to go.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Here's a picture that I love that didn't make the Christmas card...

On Sunday night, we joined our small group in giving a Christmas party for around 70 people at Harvest Home, a home for homeless pregnant women.  This is our third year to be a part of this night, and I think it was the best-organized year yet. Here is Kathryn and others getting dinner ready in the kitchen!
There was a campus-wide Christmas party at the cafeteria, and one of Jake's students put on the old Santa costume.  Here is Santa afraid of crying baby who had just climbed over her mama's shoulder when mama tried to thrust her in strange man's lap.  Mama gave up and sat down.
Here is Santa more comfortable now that baby realized mama would not try to give her away again.
On Monday morning, we met our dear friends Carrie and Mihret at Griffith Park again, and this time we were joined by the Parmelee ladies (Cailyn is 2, Jaana is almost 6 months) who caravanned with us from Pepperdine.
The whole gang having a picnic lunch...
The girls had a GREAT time- Cailyn and Mihret can keep up with each other and entertain everyone else.   Here are Mihret and Abby Jane swinging...

And Mihret helping Abby Jane swing...

Someone discovered the first present under the tree!

Yesterday, Jen and Lucy (five months) hosted a gingerbread decorating party, complete with homemade hot chocolate!

Here are Em (and baby Jones) decorating with 2 year old Canon!  None of us made tons of progress on our houses, but we had a great time playing and letting the little ones play!  Abby Jane danced for Lucy to make her laugh- and then they just laughed at each other for about 5 minutes.  It was precious.

Walking Little Lady

Abby Jane took her first steps on Thanksgiving Day at the Roberts' home, where we had Thanksgiving!  She walked from Jake to my mom, who was in town for a few days.  It was so fun to share that with so many friends who were also there!  This video was the day after Thanksgiving- excuse all the boxes- we were in the process of hauling out all our Christmas things when we shot this.  I also apologize in advance for the seeming repetitiveness of this, but there is a lot of far away family who want to see as much as possible!

She can now go several more steps before stopping!  Here are a few more pictures from Grammy's visit and getting our tree!  Which Abby Jane loves to wave "hi" to, by the way...

The Roberts family, who graciously hosted 14 for Thanksgiving dinner!

On Thanksgiving Day...

It's still novel to us to drive by the ocean on the way home from Home Depot with our Christmas tree!
A rather bad picture, but here is my starfish wreath- I got the idea from Coastal Living.  It's still sans ribbon- looked too fussy, I decided...

Putting the angel on the tree was a special honor and tradition in my family growing up.  This is Abby Jane's first year to have a turn!