Happy Holidays! I can't believe that there are only 8 days left until Christmas. Wow! We've been doing so many fun things the last few weeks that time has flown by faster than usual. In November we celebrated lots of birthdays including Daddy's with his favorite Trader Joe's carrot cake. Mommy had a girls weekend shopping trip with her mom and sisters. And we had a great Thanksgiving and spent a few days with Grandma and Pop Pop. We also had a fun baby shower for Aunt Erica and soon to be born cousin baby Ben. And since Thanksgiving we have reunited with our Elf - Ellie, cut down and decorated our Christmas tree, attended one holiday party with more to come, visited with Santa and Mrs. Claus along with Faith's friend Luca and his brothers & sister (they all got a great picture with Santa while Faith kept a death grip on my neck), had lunch and/or dinner with friends, saw beautiful Christmas lights while visiting Grandma and Pappy and wrapped lots of presents. I've been working on this post for weeks and realized that I haven't even posted any photos from November yet. Yikes! So without further delay, here are a few updates and pictures from November and these first few weeks of December.
Our biggest news is that our house is officially binkie free. Hallelujah! Right before Thanksgiving our last binkie got a hole in it. We had been telling Faith for months that we wouldn't buy any new ones, so, we bit the bullet. We're in the clear now, but boy did we have a rough first night especially. Think screaming and crying and jumping up and down in her crib so much that we had to keep moving the crib make to it's spot because she was moving it all the way across the room. And I think I sang "You are my Sunshine" at least 1000 times that first night. I won't even try to deny the fact that I thought about driving to Target more than once (aka like every 3 minutes). But we stuck it out and by day 5 - we were totally in the clear and now she doesn't even ask for it any more. And in a recent visit to the dentist - we were proud to report our success!
I mentioned "You are my Sunshine" above. With the elimination of the binkie, we have added quite the ritual of song singing in it's place. 4 songs are now required at bedtime. In no particular order we have: Sunshine, ABC's, Rockabye Baby and Twinkle Star. And then of course we say our prayers. Some days I love it and other days I can't help but think about all of the things on my "Faith is in bed" to do list. I try hard not to wish away these precious moments but boy is that hard from night to night. No matter what, I know one day I will give anything for her to want me to tuck her in, let alone sing 4(!!!!) songs over and over.
She is still loving preschool and morning tears are a rare occurrence. She loves being the line leader, but her favorite job by far is flag holder. She knows most of the pledge of allegiance (give or take a few words). Maybe that's normal for an almost 3 year old, but I was highly impressed. Her memory is amazing! We are looking forward to a preschool holiday program this week. She knows most of Frosty the Snowman and some of Jingle Bells (although she thinks they are flying in an airplane instead of a one horse open sleigh). Given how her dance performances have gone - we have some pretty high expectations :-) We'll see how it goes and will of course take pictures.
More from us soon on holiday festivities.
Much Love,
The Groves
A lazy morning in Mommy & Daddy's bed
Taking over mommy's closet
Celebrating Daddy & Aunt Kelly's birthday with chocolate cake
Cute girl in O's hat during her Daddy-daughter weekend
Dance class parent watch night
Catching snow flakes during our first snow of the season
Celebrating our amazing guy's birthday!
What our mornings look like when it's cold
Happy Thanksgiving!
Mommy & Faith
Family Thanksgiving selfie
We call this one - 3 cousins on a chair. What happened to our babies :-(
Beautiful girl
Kira LOVES Faith and kept hugging her over and over
Ellie brought Elf PJ's for Faith on her first visit
Pre-Santa happy girl
Faith and her buddy Luca
Only in Mt. Airy would Santa visit the John Deere store.
Off to find the perfect tree
Found it!
Mommy needs a picture too
"Here's your cart daddy"
One more photo with our perfect tree
Mommy & Faith selfie - Daddy photo bomb = best part of this photo
Family selfie
I call this one "team work"
Apple cider donuts for all our hard work
Dance performance. Costume = could be worse, right?
Hanging out with Luca
As our friend Kym captioned this one "Best babysitter ever"
Time to decorate the tree
Such a big girl
