Christmas in Iowa

We traveled up to Iowa a couple days after Christmas and spent about a week & a half there. It was crazy busy as usual, but we are so thankful to be able to see all of our families every time we visit! This trip was pretty hard on Lexi though. We were going to split up the drive both ways and stay at Chad's in St. Louis. Well, we decided to drive the whole 12 hours, no stopping at Chad's, both ways. What were we thinking???? On the way back home, we were thinking we wanted to get home so she could see her doctor in the morning. The day before we left, we took her to a doctor and found out she had ear infection. Then, when we got back and took her to her doctor, we found out she had croup. Our drive home was pretty miserable. She couldn't breath well and kept coughing. She is all better now, but those few days when we got home were pretty sad. We'll have to take it a little easier on her next time!

At Papa Jason & Grandma Nean's

So cute!!

Papa and the girls

Helping Grandma win a game!

Lexi loved playing w/her cousins.

Painting w/pudding. She was such a girly girl about it. I guess she doesn't like to get her hands dirty.

Lexi learned how to climb stairs. We tried to block off the stairs when we were all in the basement. She thought she could still manage to get through. She got stuck. :)

Blocking off the other set of stairs. She loved climbing them... thought she was pretty big stuff!

Just doing what Grandma showed her to.

At Papa Steve & Grandma Shell's.

A drawer full of lids!! What could be more exciting?!?!!

playing w/Valerie

All 3 of the little blond-headed girls! :)

Natalie & Lexi loved playing together!! Wish they could play together more often!

Lexi stood up and grab Uncle Chad's finger before she realized who it was. The look on her face says it all.

"A box!!! How did Grandma know what I wanted for Christmas???"

Lexi enjoyed watching me open her gifts. Hopefully next year she'll be ready to do it by herself.

Family Picture (Lexi is trying to blow Natalie kisses!)

Grandma Shell & Papa Steve w/their beautiful grandbabies!

Cousins!

(two out of three looking is pretty good.)

While we were there, Grandpa got out his banjos. He & Mike spent an evening playing for us. Lexi of course, thought she needed in on the actions!

I love this picture!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Even though Lexi didn't really have a clue what was going on this year, it was still fun to spoil her a little. :) We very much enjoyed getting to spend our 1st Christmas with her at home, just the 3 of us!

Watching dad open his gift on Christmas Eve

All dressed up & ready for the Christmas Eve service at church
all the presents under the tree

Christmas morning!

cute!!!

a pretty bow!

talking on her new phone

checking out all her clothes

playing w/her new music tabledoing some more talking. she is such a girl! :)

Christmas Fun!

This year getting ready for Christmas has been a new level of fun! In previous posts you saw how we decorated the apartment. And then our pretty Christmas pictures. Here are the latest Christmas activities Lexi has been up to!

Helping make Christmas cookies

Getting ready to decorate (or maybe eat) one.
Yep- eating it is much more fun than decorating!

"Mom, I REALLY like sugar!!"

A much needed bath, after eating her 1st Christmas cookie!

Last weekend was A Dickens of a Christmas in downtown Franklin. Mom didn't take too many pictures. It was pretty cold, but Lexi seemed to like it for the most part.

Here she is all bundled up & keeping warm w/Daddy.

They had a little petting zoo, which she obviously wasn't old enough for. So we just looked at the animals through the fence. This was probably her favorite part of the day.

Here are some other things Lexi has been doing this month...

She loves to help mom fold clothes. :)

She LOVES standing. She really hates sitting down to play. I'm sure walking isn't too far away.

Just being cute, as usual!

Learning how to text. Ha! Ok, so not really. But she does love to have people talk to her on the phone. She especially lights up when she hears daddy's voice!

We are so thankful for such a beautiful, healthy baby girl! We look forward to teaching her the true meaning of Christmas in the coming years. The decorating, baking, etc. is fun, but Christmas is about so much more than that. Our prayer is that we never get so caught up in "fun" of Christmas that we loose sight of what the Lord has done for us. May we always worship & praise Him. Not just this time of year, but always!

Some of Lexi's talents...

Here Lexi can be seen showcasing a few of her talents. She is learning to play drums and is picking up singing very well! Don't worry, we'll be making money off her in no time. ha!

In all seriousness, she loves that she can create all these new noises and be so loud. It's a joyful noise to mom & dad's ears!

Merry Christmas!

I cannot believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. We are so excited to spend this Christmas together as a family! Thank you to Andrea McKay for taking these pictures for us.

We hope you all have a very blessed & merry Christmas! We love you!

Christmas time is here!

This year we decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. It was one of the few free days we had w/Mike. He is going to be very busy the first part of December. Lexi was a great helper!! We are so excited to have our 1st family Christmas with her this year!

Trying to get the tree out of the box.

A little harder than she originally thought. :)

This is the look she gave the tree the rest of the day.

She really liked the lights! She even offered the help dad see if all of them worked.

Inspecting all of the decorations.

There are 3 stockings this year!!!