White Christmas

We had our very first white Christmas in Georgia. It was beautiful.

We snuggled up inside around the fire and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We hope you had a very Merry Christmas, too.

Morning cuddle

This morning Chloe woke up at about 7:15 and then cuddled with me in bed until almost 8:00. It was so fun. Except she is sick. That is not fun.

Holiday Goodies

On Monday for FHE we delivered plates of cookies to the neighbors in our cul-de-sac. It's one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We bundle up and spread a little Christmas cheer.

For the gift tags I used the free printable from HERE. I thought they were adorable. This year we gave Lacey Ginger cookies, Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies, and Nieman Marcus cookies. Yum.

Lydia is TEN!!

Here are some things you may not know about Lydia:

• She is the fastest girl in her class.
• She won the "Leadership Award" in her soccer team this year. (The coach hands out only two awards each year, the leadership award and the most improved player award, which she won last year.)
• She has a "uniform" that she wears almost every day to school: jeans, t-shirt, zip-up fleece jacket or sweater, tennis shoes.
• She does not like being tall.
• She is an AWESOME whistler.
• She has to have surgery soon to remove a mole on the top of her head.
• She is FUNNY.
• She is an expert at recognizing and quoting movie lines.
• Sometimes Chloe prefers Lydia instead of me or David.
• She is mature, helpful, and one of my best friends.

We love you, Lydia!! I hope you had a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Mr. Knightley

This is Mr. Knightley. He is the newest member of our family.

We brought him home two weeks ago.

And my world has been rocked. 

I wasn't planning on getting a puppy, but when our next-door-neighbor's dad brought a litter of 8 puppies to give away over the Thanksgiving weekend we made the mistake(?) of letting our girls play with them. And they fell in love. And I fell in love with the look of joy in my girls' eyes as they played with the puppies. So we decided to adopt this little guy. And it's been a roller-coaster ride. The first week I cried every day wondering "what have we done?!" But every time I tried to gently tell McKenna that we might not keep him it made her cry. And every time I thought I just couldn't take it anymore, Knightley would be so sweet. Something tells me that he will be a really good dog someday.

It turns out that even though we got him for the kids, he is my dog. (I do have to give my girls credit though. They are living up to every promise they made when we agreed to bring them home. Poop and everything.)

Does anyone have any great puppy advice for me?