Merry Christmas

Here is a picture of out tree on Christmas morning with all the loot!! We had a wonderful day. We celebrated just the three of us in the morning and then we went to Cassie's. We celebrated with Nana, Papa, Uncle Shane, Aunt Cassie, Brooke, and Grant! We were very spoiled and had a great day!

Here is the aftermath.... I will try to post some video soon. Paige loved Christmas. She kept saying, "open, presents". She enjoyed it much more than last year.
Brooke opening her present from us.
Grant opening his present from us.
Paige playing on Brooke's old tricycle. They are going to let us have it so now we won't have to buy Paige one. It is a Barbie tricycle. Paige calls it "cycle".
My beautiful flowers from Paige and Daddy. Today Paige and I are packing for NY. We are going to celebrate with my family in NY till Jan 2!

Paige's favorite present!

Paige got a table and two chairs for her room from Santa! She loves it!!
Here are two pictures of Paige's room. Her theme is pink and green with flowers. Once she switches to a big girl bed we are going to get white furniture to go with her pink and green room. She already had many white accents in it.

Notice that her table has the same design as her border and decorations.
Here is a close-up. Santa asked Mommy the elf to paint it for him but he dropped off the table. So mommy(me) has been working on it for a couple weeks.
Close-up of the flower. I also added pink and green polka-dots.
In progress..
In progress...

Chistmas Eve

Here is our family at church on Christmas Eve.

Paige in front of our tree after Christmas Eve.
So, pretty!
Here are three pictures of Paige helping mewith the sugar cookies. She had so much fun and was a great helper.
She looks so big in this picture!

Fun days with our girl!

I have been enjoying my Christmas vacation so far. I have been having fun with Paige. Today we went to visit Daddy at work and to meet him for lunch. Here she is in the car waiting for Daddy to come out! Can you tell she was excited to see Daddy!
Paige is becoming such a girlie girl. Today she wanted to wear a "tail" just like Mommy. Tail is what she calls ponytail. How cute does her hair look?
Playing with her stroller and pushing some animal around. She loves to play with her stuffed animals especially her dog Schwartz.
Playing with daddy.

Playing dress-up with her tu-tu. Paige is becoming more verbal everyday and we are blown away by the things that she understands and can do. She loves to talk to us and help with whatever we are doing. This morning I was doing the laundry and I went to clean out the lint trap and she had already done it. She is so observant.
Opening a present at a party last week.
Can we start?
Helping Mommy make brownies last week. Mommy thought I was about to dive in and eat some.

Tomorrow Paige is going to help me make my favorite Christmas cut-out cookies with frosting. I am excited to start this tradition with her and hope we bake together every year. Every day I feel more blessed to have her in my life. I have truly enjoyed being home more with her this year and just the connection that I feel with my daughter. I can't even begin to put it into words. She has the best heart and I love to be around her. She is smart, funny, and so sweet. I am so excited for Christmas this year and I am excited for her to start learning the true meaning of Christmas. Hopefully I will be able to get some video up and pictures before we leave (for NY on Thursday) of Christmas morning but if not you will have to wait till we return. Merry Christmas!!

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Holiday Spirit!

This weekend we put up all of our decorations and Paige loves the tree. She asks if she can touch it all the time. She has of course taken some balls of and we had to teach her not to. It was fun watching her get excited about every decoration that we took out. By the way the tree is not crooked the star on the top is. No matter how hard Brad tries to fix it it keeps going crooked. Oh well, it's still a pretty tree. I love this time of year. It makes our house look so festive and then when you take everything down it seems so empty.
Paige posing for me in front of the tree.

Paige as Santa
Mom, what kind of hat is this....

Paige trying to help untangle the beads for the tree, although I think she tangled them more. She wants to help all the time and is also always saying that; "Help, please", she says.
Playing outside.
Smiling for mommy!

Hair today..gone tomorrow!

So I was watching Oprah a few weeks ago and she did a segment with Hilary Swank where she cut her hair and donated it to Pantene so they can make wigs for women and children with cancer. I had already been growing out my hair for Locks of Love and decided to read about Pantene's idea on their website. There you only had to cut off eight inches as opposed to Locks of Love where you have to cut of 10. I decided eight would be easier and faster and I was ready to cut my hair. SO yesterday I went and got it chopped and I love it! My hair is on it way to Pantene now! I ended up cutting about 10 inches by the time it was trimmed anways!Check out Pantene's website if you think you might want to try it too!!
Before
After
After
After

New York City!!

Our trip to NYC was amazing. Brad and I had a great time and can't wait to go back. We only got to do a fraction of all the things that we wanted to do but still got to do a lot of things. Unfortunately due to the writers strike and the Broadway stagehands strike we didn't get to see Dave Letterman or a Broadway show. I was very upset about that but that means we just have to go back. We did get to see an off Broadway show called "Frankenstein" (not to be confused with Broadway's Young Frankenstein). It was very good though. Here are just a few of our pictures. There were places we couldn't take pictures and I figured that twenty pictures for one blog was enough. We went on a NBC studios tour and got to see where they tape Conan O'Brien and Saturday Night Live. We rode the train down from Syracuse while Paige played with all of her family in the snow. (My mom has all those pictures so I will have to upload them later.) The train ride was beautiful along the Hudson and it was nice to not have to worry about parking while we were there. It was so neat to just walk around in the city. They were starting to decorate the city for Christmas and it looked beautiful everywhere. Central Park was amazing and so beautiful. I am not sure why we waited so long to visit (especially me..growing up in NY and never visiting:) We will be back for sure...it's even hard to write all the things that we did.

Brad getting ready for his appearance on TV!
Me and the F.A.O Schwarz solider.
Central Park
Central Park
Brad and I in our carriage ride. It was so cold riding in that carriage.

Central Park
Brad and I in Grand Central Station.
The view from our hotel room.
We stayed on the top floor of out hotel (41st floor) and here is a look at the street below.
The statue of liberty from the Staten Island Ferry.

A view of Manhattan from the ferry.

These next two pictures are of a commercial, TV show, or movie that they were filming while we were walking through the financial district.
Take 2
Thinking about what I can get inside the store:)

This is a commercial they were filming in the Financial District for the Hartford Insurance Company..hence the deer on a stick!
Take 2
Chrysler Building
Brad waiting for the subway.
Times Square

A play I would have liked to have seen.
More Times Square!

Brad and I at Rockefeller Center.
All the ice skaters at Rockefeller center. It cost 15 dollars a person plus 10 dollar skate rental so we didn't do it. We decided to save our money for something else. This same night we ate at an Irish pub around the corner and we saw Brian Williams from NBC Nightly News...our only celebrity sighting.

The city at night
Two pictures from the Museum of Natural History.

Two pictures from before we left. Brad, Bill, Steve, Jenn, Jay, and Nicole.
Me and my bros!!