Numana

our family team

What an awesome opportunity we as a family had to help the poor and hungry. My dad invited us to El Dorado to put together meals for the children in Haiti. A little worried at first that Evie would quickly lose interest, she stuck with it and together we as a family put together 2,000 meals. And within the 2 hours we were there a total of 30,000 meals were packaged. Over the weekend, close to 300,000 meals were put on the container to be shipped to Haiti. WOW! It's amazing how much people can do to help others in a weekend alone. What a gift to be a part of such a great event and to be together as a family made it even more special. Thanks, Numana, for all that you do and thanks, Dad, for being such a big part of it.

Christmas Morning

I think I was more excited than anyone to go downstairs to see what Santa brought. I couldn't wait to see Evie's reaction to all of her gifts...Honestly she was more excited to look at the cookie plate we left out for Santa and eat what was left of the half nibbled cookie.

Santa brought her the new scooter and helmet she asked for and is liking it more everyday...thank goodness!

The cookie plate we left out for Santa with some carrots for Rudolph Christmas Eve

First spin on the new scooter

The adorable chef's outfit from her Uncle Rich, Aunt Ney-Ney & Sallie

Christmas Eve-Eve

This year, the Morris family gathered the day before Christmas Eve to celebrate together. The Shanks family hosted and everything was just perfect, as always. Santa even showed up for a last minute check to make sure all of the kiddos were being nice. What a thrill! It was so cute to see Hampton and Evie run to the door to greet him.

the girl's table

"a scooter and helmet, huh?"

the boys

all of the grands with Me-Maw and PaPa Woo-Woo

Baking Christmas Cookies

The long-lived tradition of baking Christmas cookies continues on in the year 2009...we've been baking together since we were little girls and are so enjoying carrying the tradition on with our little ones and Dodger, too! I must admit, it seems to get more labor-intensive every year but for some reason this year, Dana and I 'figured it out' and created "pfeffernusse perfection". Hopefully we'll remember what we did this year for the year 2010! The kids had so much fun decorating their snowman cookies (thanks so much, Molly, for the idea!) while Dana and I worked on the 21 batches of pfeffernusse. What a wonderful time we had - most definitely an event I treasure and look forward to every year!

Let's go to the movies...

Last Friday, my sister and I ventured out to see the new movie "The Princess and the Frog" with the girls. I was so excited to take Evie to her first movie and also a little nervous - "would she sit still? would she be quiet?" So a quick trip before hand to Dillons to pick up every candy imaginable would surely do the trick, right? I mean, bribery works all of the time! Well, she did a super job for the first, oh, 20 minutes...then she began saying, "it's over, no want to, let's go". Oh no, I thought...how are we going to make it another hour? Well, thanks to Aunt Dana who apparently has a better lap than mine, she sat there for quite a while - thank heavens! For all of those who haven't yet seen the movie, it is super cute! Definitely one for the DVD library once it comes out!

I heard the bells...

A couple Saturdays ago, we ventured out to the Dillons down the street to "ring the bell" for the Salvation Army. It is such a blessing to do such a thing and we are grateful to Paul Longhofer at our church for opening this opportunity up to the congregation. It was especially fun this year with Evie. She loved ringing the bell (for about the first 10 minutes) and swinging around on the bucket. Thank goodness for Trevor who kept the bell ringing! What a treat to witness people giving to those in need especially those who looked as though they had nothing to give.

gingerbread house tradition

This was the second year for the annual gingerbread house building with Hope and Evie. I remember last year well - Evie sorted and ate the candy and Hope worked super hard at making the house look perfect. This year was a little different...Evie actually got into the decorating (in between bites, of course) and Hope, again worked meticulously at decorating. I love that the house sits on display in my kitchen as a reminder of how time quickly passes and how these sweet moments are definitely memories in the making.

Through the eyes of Evie

Evie LOVES to take pictures...she must get that from her Aunt Dana. Whenever she is in reach of my camera, she snaps away. It makes deleting one by one a real chore! But it's always fun to see the world through Evie's eyes. I decided to share only a few of her shots with you all - so enjoy "pics by an almost 3 year old".

Sweet Smells of Pine

We headed out Saturday night and found the perfect tree - thanks so much to the three kind men that each held one up for me so I could eliminate one by one. I am so happy with our pick! More pics of it all decorated to come!

Giving Thanks

Boy, have I been slacking with my blog. I logged on today to put up a new post and realized the last time I posted was when Evie went to the dentist. We had her follow-up appointment this morning (3 weeks later). Oh well, as they say better late than never, right? We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year and were able to celebrate with Trevor's side of the family. G'ma Doodle, PaPa, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Mandi, Reese, Davis and Joon were all here and what a treat it was! So much yummy food and so little time to eat it all! And the weather...could it have been any better?We have so very much to be thankful for this year and are so blessed to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with special people in our lives.

1st visit to the dentist

Today we had our first-ever trip to the dentist. All in all, it was successful with only a few tears - thank heavens! She did such a great job letting Dr. Iseman look at all of her teeth and she even let him floss them! It is such a "kid friendly" office with treats, games, and the Disney Channel playing on the ceiling - I wish they would have a dentist office like that for me!

We have to go back in a few weeks to try and get some more

x-rays that just didn't happen this time. Hopefully she learned all of the ropes today

to make the next visit even more fun!

"Well, I am having a little bit of pain right here"

"I'm really not sure about that mask you have on"

trick or treat

This was really the first year that we could get serious about Halloween. Last year, Evie was just recovering from hand, foot and mouth disease, plus she wasn't quite 2 and really didn't get it. But this year, we were ready to go! I had found her costume in August just because I was so excited to find the perfect one. She looked sooo cute in her pink poodle costume! We've had many chats throughout the season about all of the scary halloween stuff in stores. And I constantly have to remind her that, "it's not real", "it's just for fun", and "it's just silly halloween stuff". She repeated everything I said, as if to help her not be so afraid. That is until we ran into many scary halloween costumes while trick or treating. So much so that she wouldn't let go of her dad or uncle Garry. I am hoping next year she won't be so afraid!

morning at the park

What a beautiful morning! We thought it would be a great day to spend some time at the park...so we got all bundled up and headed out. Just wish I would have brought some towels to dry off all of the equipment from the rain the night before. Oh well, we still had fun running around and watching the ducks. Fall is most definitely my favorite season!

baking fall cookies

I never knew baking with Evie would be such a treat! She had such a great time stirring the batter and helping me add all of the ingredients. She wasn't too hip on the cookies once they came out of the oven, though. The batter is always much more yummy!

wordless wednesday...

pumpkins, pumpkins, we love pumpkins

For the past year, Evie has been obsessed with Barney's Halloween show. I seriously have every line and song memorized - surely it will wear out one of these days?!? Anyway, we didn't make it to the pumpkin patch last year, so I was so excited to take her this year - especially since she has been watching the kids visiting the pumpkin patch in the Barney video. Well, we should have listened to the weather man when he said it was "mighty chilly" outstide. Boy, was it ever! It seemed like we should have been shopping for a Christmas tree instead of pumpkins. Needless to say, we didn't last long but long enough for a couple trips down the super slide and a few pictures!

fall friday

We had such a fun afternoon visiting our sweet neighbors.

We first stopped at Brooke's house for a loolabelle photo shoot. What a beautiful fall day...FINALLY! We've definitely had yucky weather for the last week, but today made up for it. And what a sweet baby I got to take pics of...she is absolutely precious - definitely model material. Thanks, Quincy, for enduring all of those blanket pictures. You were a trooper! While taking some of the pics,

Evie wandered over to another neighbor's yard, (Melinda and Kaitie's),

where she got to jump in a huge pile of leaves.

Oh, what fun!

what a face

I just had to post these pics that were sent to me by some friends. How cute is she?!?