Ivy Ramblings: January 2012

I'm Back!

We have been traveling a lot, and busy with this and that and the holidays, so I had gotten behind on the blog. Here are the highlights in my attempt to play catch up...

Meet Criddle! Major, Jaime, and Paige sent Madelyn The Elf on the Shelf. If you don't know about this, you should! It is a book explaining all about what the elf does, and comes with this adorable little guy, whom M named Criddle! He watches Madelyn all day and at night flies back to the north pole to report to Santa. When he returns in the morning, he moves to a new spot in the house. Criddle was a mischievous elf though, and did silly things during the night! Here he is in the fridge where he turned the milk red! Madelyn was so excited every morning to find Criddle and thought all the crazy things he did were hilarious! A few more examples are: Criddle made cookies and left a mess with the flour but also left one cookie for M, Criddle brought M a hershey kiss from the north pole, Criddle dumped out M's cereal, picked out all the marshmallows, and made a heart out of them, etc. etc. I can't wait until next year to see what Criddle is up to while we are all sleeping ;)

We made a quick trip to Clint's moms to see the family and exchange presents. Here is M with her cousin Jaycie. They are feeding M's new Baby Alive doll from Nana...she loves this thing!

Christmas at our house...with wet hair! We did our presents at night after bath time...

She said this was her excited face!

Then she slept in those pjs, and woke up early and wore them for the drive down to Sinton. She loves Baby Robert and Paige!

Granny and Papa got her a bike! When the bike was wheeled out, she yelled "I wanted a bike for Chirstmas!" She was so excited and I think has ridden it every day since...

We have a sort of white elephant gift exchange. This is what my dad ended up with...the hat and this lovely book :)

loving the massage chair!

BIKE RIDING!!

Thanksgiving in North Carolina!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Carlsons! Clint and Kevin are best friends from high school, and I adore his wife and daughter. We arrived on Thanksgiving day and the feast was almost ready (thanks Lindsey!). Madelyn and Cadence were instant friends...as you can see!

The girls had met before but were too young to remember. They got along wonderfully...

saying their prayers...

they took turns being the baby...for days! Here is Cady putting M to bed :)

at the zoo!

which way girls?

love this!

they took turns being a robot and chasing the other around the house! Out of all the toys, with baby dolls being a close runner-up, this cardboard box was the winner...go figure!

Apparently we took no pictures of adults, but we got a lot of cute ones of the kids. Thanks Kevin and Lindsey for hosting a wonderful Thanksgiving! Hope to see y'all again soon!

Lubbock

reading with Pop...

Madelyn thought climbing the ladder with Popio was so cool!

Madelyn did my mom's hair! It actually looks cute!

family pic

more pics in the backyard...

this one is so cute!

Visiting Family in Austin

My mom and her three sisters..

It's not too often that all four sisters are together, so they had to do their crazy pose! They have been doing this for as long as I can remember. I think it's so neat! Too bad I don't have a much older picture to scan and post for your comparison :)

So Heather (my cousin) and I decided to do our own silly pose :)

Alex reading to Madelyn...

the girls...

playing Bugopoly...

Alden

My friend, Melissa, was in town, and I got to meet her newest addition, Alden! He was precious...

And Madelyn and Ananda had fun playing while the moms caught up...

Ananda was so sweet to sit and let Madelyn do her hair!

Jamie!

Jamie is a friend from elementary school. Though she moved away when we were young, we have stayed friends all this time! Jamie likes to keep things adventurous, often moving to other countries. She currently lives in Chile, so it was a real treat to get to hang out while she was in Dallas.