Feliz Navidad!

I look forward to Christmas for months and months to come. I just love everything about this wonderful time of year!!! This year was even more fun with Pierson. She loved driving around and looking at the lights or "ights" as she would say. She recognized Santa when she would see him on TV or on something and would say "Santa." Going to visit Santa however was not a pleasant experience this year. She was pointing to Santa and saying his name the entire time we were in line and seemed excited about it. Once it was finally our turn, she dug her nails into my shoulder and screamed bloody murder! We didn't even have time to get a picture because she would NOT have anything to do with Santa. So minus the bad experience with Santa, she really got into the Christmas spirit this year. She helped mommy pick out stocking stuffers for daddy, wrap presents, make holiday treats and even helped decorate the tree! I can't imagine what Christmas was like before she came along. We were planning on heading to Kerrville on the 23rd, but Pierson woke up from nap on the 22nd with a 103 fever!!! She never has a fever, much less this high and so I took her to the doc immediately. After checking her over, seemed she just had a bad cold with fever so our trip was delayed a few days until she was feeling better. We enjoyed those few days at home though, lounging in our pjs, watching Christmas movies and decorating Pierson's first gingerbread house.

She really seemed to enjoy it and didn't even try to eat the candy until the end!

On Christmas Eve, we headed down to Kerrville. We celebrated with Ryan's immediate family that night with his mom's wonderful tortilla soup, tamales and gifts after dinner. Poor Pierson was still feeling a little under the weather so she was fading pretty fast.

Christmas Eve with daddy

Tired, but cute little baby

Opening presents with Aunt Gretchen and Lita

Mommy helping P open her new PJs that match her baby doll!

If you don't know the Cruthirds brothers, the tend to get a little "silly" when they all get together. Ryan and Drew decided to compare the size of the bellies. I actually won this contest this year, but there will be no pictures of that :)

Cruthirds boys

Nina with all the boys

Family pic outside with the beautiful wreath that Richard made

Pierson got to decorate her first batch of Christmas cookies before bed!

Christmas morning she was feeling much better and was ready to see her presents!

She helped daddy open some of his gifts too!

Giving Lita some sweet hugs

Playing with one of her new toys

The smile that makes Mommy and Daddy's day!

Checkin out the goods in her stocking

After we had a wonderful Christmas morning as a little family, we headed over to celebrate with the extended Cruthirds family. We stayed for a while, ate and then headed back to get in our comfy clothes again and relax by the campfire. Pierson got to see all the fun things on Pop's phone.

And Uncle Drew's phone :)

Pierson's favorite nap spot this holiday was with her Lita

After Christmas lunch nap #2

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas in the car :)

Since we were with my family for Thanksgiving this year, we had originally planned to go back to Longview the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with them. When it got a little closer, we had a slight change of plans. My sister's boyfriend, Ryan, is a football coach for Daingerfield and they made it to the state playoffs this year which was the same weekend we had planned to do Christmas there. So, we opted for meeting my family for dinner in Mansfield where the game was to do a semi-Christmas celebration.

Due to space and the awkwardness of opening gifts in a restaurant, we moved the party to the back of the Tahoe where Pierson got to open a few of her gifts and her stocking from Nana and Pawpaw

Aunt Kelly gave her a baby stroller set with everything she needs to take care of her baby doll! Pierson was SOOOO excited!!!

She took a short break from playing with the stroller to pull a few things out of her stocking. She wanted to play with all her toys then and it was not fun trying to get her to go inside to eat :) Ryan and I even got to open our stockings from Nana and Pawpaw too which is one of favorite parts of Christmas.It was a tad bit too cold for Miss P for us to make it to the game that night so we went back home after dinner, but it was nice to see the family for even a short bit of time. We missed getting to see my brother and Jannon and my new little nephew, Jackson.

Once we got home, Pierson was still not done playing with her new toys. She was so excited the next morning to see her new baby doll bed put together that she wanted to test it out for herself :)

Future Gymnast!

After trying to go for months, we were finally able to go to the gym for Pierson's first "gymnastic" experience. I had no idea what to expect, but I was soooo glad we went! Pierson could have stayed there all day if I would have let her.

She didn't know what to do when we first walked in. She pointed to the tumbling mat and then looked at me and kept asking "play?, play?" Once I said it was ok to go on the mat and play, she was all over the place!

She wanted to try out everything they had in the gym!

She loved jumping on the big trampolines

She even tested out the rings and could hang on by herself for just a few seconds before mommy would have to tickle that cute little belly :)

Loved playing in the ballpit too!

I can't wait to take her again!!! It was great entertainment for her to get to do things that she normally doesn't get to do. I love having these kind of activities to take her to. Who knows if she will become a my little gymnast or not, but she definitely enjoyed her first trip to the gym!

Christmas on 5th and Christmas Book Exchange!

We started off the Christmas season by attending Christmas on 5th down at Baylor! Pierson and Hudson decided to go on a date to the event this year :)

Pierson even snuck in a little hug and kiss!!!

Little Miss P had so much fun. She spent some time in the petting zoo, decorated her own Christmas cookie, ran around with her friends, listened to the music and the best part of all...watching the KOT Christmas Tree light up!

Family pic in front of the tree

Playing with daddy while listening to the music

We also had several holiday playgroups this month! I loved seeing Pierson experience all the wonderful things about Christmas this year. She made her own Christmas ornament at one playgroup and had her first candy cane!!! (Of course, didn't have the camera) Then her little group did a Christmas book exchange.

Here are a few shots of the precious babies with their new Christmas books! Jake, Addyson, Sawyer, Hudson, Pierson and Russell.

We got them all to look, just not really smiling :) Oh well, we will take what we can get!!

It's a BOY!

The Monday before Thanksgiving, we were able to find out the gender of Baby Cruthirds #2 and it is definitely a BOY! We are so thrilled to have a little boy on the way! Eventhough the ultrasound tech gave us a pretty good guess a few weeks earlier, we still weren't sold that it was going to be a boy. Our minds were still thinking pink, probably because that is all we think about now. It was very clear in this ultrasound that baby #2 was a BOY so bring on the blue!

I apologize for the horrible scan of a picture this is of our little man, but this is as good as I could do without Ryan's help so this will just have to do for now. Hopefully I can get some better ones up later.

It still hasn't sunk in to me that we are going to have a little boy joining us, but we can't wait for him to be here and to join our crew!

Thanksgiving 2010!

Since we have absolutely NO family on either side that is close by, we have rotated holidays between our two families since we have been married. We tried one year to see both over Christmas and it was just way too much for us and we didn't even have kids!!! This year we spent Thanksgiving with my side of the family in Longview. We had the extra treat of my mom coming up the weekend before to spend a little extra time with P. We got in a little shopping, some rest and Ryan and I even got to attend a Baylor game alone! Once we got to Longview it seemed that it was go, go, go. I got my first facial from my little sister who is in school to become an Esthetician and it was AMAZING! I think I am really going to like her being in this field :) Since both my brother and sister (plus their families), along with my parents and grandparents are all in Longview, there is always something going on when we come in and people to visit with. It is always great to get to see everyone, but we are always exhausted when we get back home! On Thanksgiving Day, we head out to my aunt and uncle's house in Bettie (bet you haven't heard of that East Texas town huh?). There we have our typical Thanksgiving celebration with tons of food, football, napping and talking.

Pierson watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and dancing along with the Rockettes!!

Attention from Nana

Sweet little cousins! It is so fun to watch them actually play together now that Pierson is old enough to understand what is going on. These two played and played all week! Maddie was so sweet and let Pierson play with all her toys and even drove her around in her pink Barbie car (which I think we will have be getting pretty soon for little Miss P because she asked to play in the "car, car" constantly!)

My beautiful little sis and her mini-me Maddie.

Pierson LOVED playing with her Aunt Kelly! She even learned how to say Kelly on the drive down and was saying Madilyn (madawin) by the time we left. She would say Kelly's name all.the.time. when we were there and it just sounds so cute coming out of her little mouth.  

She loved wearing cousin Maddie's boots around.

Mommy and Pierson

The newest addition, Jackson. He took a much longer nap than the rest of us did :)

All three of the cousins!

After lunch nap time with daddy! Is this not the sweetest thing? I just wanted to stare at them sleeping so peacefully. There is just something about my sweet husband that just calms Pierson (and me too for that matter!) and she can always fall asleep on him. These two are by far what I am most thankful for!!! It really makes me tear up sometimes just thinking about how blessed I am.

Our little TURKEY!!!

She is growing like a root! She is definitely going to have her daddy's height for sure. She is such a little ham too! She flirts, butters up her mommy and daddy when she wants something, fake laughs (apparently she gets that from me I am told) and talk, talk, talks! I obvisously don't have another to compare her to, but this little stinker gets smarter and smarter every day. Just over this past month, her knowledge of people and names has just baffled us! She loves looking at pictures and saying people's names. She is saying short sentences now like "I do it" and "I did it", "I like it" most things are still two word sayings like, "I eat", "baby eat" (we now have to feed baby when she eats), "I sit", "mommy sit", "TV gof ball" (can you tell what daddy lets her watch), "no mommy, me ______" whatever she wants to do at the time vs. getting a diaper change, "go bye-bye in car-car", "read book" and one of our recent favorites "bucky's do-nut". Yes, she is talking about going to Starbucks to get her favorite little pink sprinkled donut and milk (or moke as she says it). When she sees a Starbucks now, that is what she says! I think we might be going there a little too often :) Definitely my guilty pleasure. It's a good thing Ryan likes it too or I would be in trouble!