BRRRRR.....Rabit!! It has been so cold this week. We have literally just been wrapped up in a blanket on the couch snuggling. Bree is such the snuggle bunny. If I am laying somewhere and she would like to lay with me she says, "Mommy's Tummy" and I know she wants to lay on my tummy. And if I am not fast enough with covering her with the blanket, I almost always have wrapped around me. Then she usually says, " Feet cold" and I know she wants under the blanket with me. So seriously our house is not really that cold, but I just can't get warm enough. Besides, I do love laying on the couch with my baby wrapped up in a blanket on my tummy cuddeling with me. Those momments are precious and it is not all the time that I can get my 21 month old to lay and cuddle. So, believe me I cherish it when it happens. The ice and freezing rain hit Greenville and the surrounding area early Wednesday morning. Therefore, my office was closed and I got to spend the day with Kerry and Aubree. We slept in, rode around our property with Kerry looking for critters to shoot and then Kerry made us breakfast. So, the day was off to a good start. Then we "chilled" at the house with Bree. That afternoon was spent with the Dugan family. Bree loves the girls Allison and Addison and talks about them all the time. They really are great with her. They make her feel as big as they are. We ate a late lunch/early dinner with them at Val's in Canton. It is a small, quiet restaurant on the square that has great Italian food and amazing dinner rolls. They are to die for, seriously! I highly recommend this place..try it out if you haven't already added it to your list of favs. Bree didn't eat much at lunch due to her being too busy watching the girls and growling. Yeah, her Daddy taught her that and I am so proud.(Just Kidding!) It is pretty cute but also pretty annoying at the dinner table. Another small thing that we are gonna have to work on....but who gets the blame Bree or her Daddy for making it a game to growl at people. Due to her not eatting much she and the girls were hungry again once we got home. So, we discovered Bree's love for chicken nuggets when we got back to the Dugan's house. Amie fixed the girls dinosaur shaped nuggets. And Bree sat right in the middle of them at the bar.(She sat on a lil suitcase so she could see over the counter.HA!Ha!)So Amie gave her 2 nuggets and the girl normally just plays in the ketchup with her food and eats a little. But actually she ate those 2 nuggets and then wanted more. She does usually eat better if Amie is fixin it and if she is sitting next to the girls eating. I suppose she feels as big as they are and wants to be doing just what they are doing, so she sits there and eats with them. So, she wound up loving the chicken nuggets. Now, of course I have tried chicken nuggets before with the girl and she wasn't that crazy about them. But She loved them Wednesday night...go figure. So, I have added dino shaped chicken nuggets to the grocery list. I mean I will try anything to get the girl eating better. Move over green beans and peas...this could be Bree's new favorite food. We will just have to wait and see I guess. Well that is about the highlights of our week. I hope everyone has a blessed and warm weekend!XOXOX

We have been so busy around our house lately. Kerry has been working so hard to get the outside of the house ready to be painted. A lot of the boards and trim on the house had to be replaced and there was a lot of caulking and insulating to be done. After getting that done Kerry did most of the primer painting. I can only take credit for painting a small portion of the front of our house. The primer is tinted in the color that the upper half of our house is going to be painted, Sand Dollar. So, we were able to get an idea of how the color will look. We are going to paint the brick and trim on our house a darker shade called Sands of Time. Hopefully, we can get the house painted in the next few weeks. We have also been working hard on starting a garden. Yes, we are having a family garden in the pasture directly behind our house. Kerry and his Dad have done most of the work thus far, but last Sunday afternoon Brandon and his boys came over and we all worked out there for a little while. The boys and Bree mostly just wanted to play in the freshly plowed dirt, but they occasionally helped with the dirt work and enjoyed riding on the tractor with Kerry and Brandon. It was a beautiful day and it felt great to be out in the fresh air. We have already planted our winter vegetables and the garden has been very therapeutic to all of us. Our plan is to just let our friends and family help us work in it and then we can all share the produce. It was an idea Gramps first mentioned, but one that Kerry and I had already talked about. We both want to enjoy the land and it is even better sharing it with the family. We both grew up helping our Grandparents work in their gardens, but as for us doing this on our own.....well, it's a learning experience that is for sure. It should be interesting! Bree loves being outside and she is learning to steer her jeep. She is getting very good at it and you have to watch her closely or she will be gone before you know it. She is talking in short sentences all the time now. And she loves to sit at her piano and sing in the microphone. It is so sweet. She has the cutest voice and holds nothing back. The girl loves to jam!! I even got it on video the other night and I love to replay it over and over again. It is so sweet!! Last week she started running a fever and had a lil cold. It was so sad to see her feeling bad. We took it easy most of the week and by Friday she was on the mend. Since Bree had been sick all week she hadn't got to see Bebe and Gramps much. Bebe is helping a lot with the care of her mother Gigi, who is battling cancer and we knew Bebe couldn't be around Bree and Gigi. So once Bree was better, Bebe and Gramps came over to see us. Bree was so glad to see them. She wanted the both of them to sit in the floor and play with her. She definitely has been missing them. And they had some good news to share as well. Gigi got a good report on Friday and the chemo is working and her tumors are shrinking. Yeah!! That was great to hear. Later, Saturday we went to lunch with my Mom and Grandparents and then went to Lilly's 1st B-day party. Lilly is my cousin Tori & Clay's angel. She is so cute. Bree really enjoys seeing her and we all had fun at her party. Bree also really enjoyed gathering up the candy that Tori had sprinkled on the tables. She had both her hands full. You would think we never let her have candy. We do, we just don't give it to her all at once. So, when she can she gathers as much of it up as possible. She gets her sweet tooth from her Momma, so what can I say.Clay gave her a sack so she could keep it for later and that made her pretty happy. The girls are 9 months apart so I know they will have fun together when they get a lil bigger. Thanks for checking on us. XOXOX

Bree amazes me every day. The cutie patootie is just so smart. I know this is a mother thing, but she seriously is communicating so well. Last Sat. while Kerry was cooking breakfast Bree wanted to help so I put her in her high chair and gave her some things to work on. Well this lasted for a few minutes and then she started saying "Me want down." Wow! Three words together, I thought. I mean that is a short sentence. Kerry and I were truly impressed. I know to most this sounds silly, but it is a huge deal to us. Later that day we were getting ready to go outside to see what Daddy and Gramps and Lannie were working on (They have been getting the outside of our house ready to be painted.)and as I went to put her coat on she said, "Me can do it." Again, I stopped and just looked at my precious daughter who a few months ago she was barely talking and now she is talking in sentences. She has learnt so many new words and what they mean and now she is putting those words together to form sentences. Before, she would just say, "down" and we would know she wanted down, and now she is speaking so much clearer and making combinations out of her words. Amazing, isn't it? Oh and if you were wondering, yes, she is Miss Independent. She loves to try to do everything herself. Dressing, brushing her teeth, eating, putting her shoes on, even bathing herself. Everything I am telling you. She plays so big with all her dolls too. And I do mean all of them at once. She has to have her bed completely full with her dolls. There are like 10 of them on there at once. It is so funny. She has such a good imagination as well. She pretends to be feeding and caring for her dolls and her puppy so well. The girl is just growing way to fast! Everyday I am just blown away at the things she says and does. Lil ones are just so much fun and sooo cute!! How did we ever survive without Bree in our lives is a mystery to me.

I had to wait til after Christmas to tell about the Christmas pictures we had made to give our family as part of their gift. Bebe got the Kindle boys these adorable matching Christmas sweaters and shirts and the girls beautiful red dresses. So all the Kindle grandchildren had matching Christmas attire. Well, Jennifer and I thought it would be a nice surprise to have all the kids pictures made since Bebe had gotten them such precious clothing. The idea itself sounded pretty simple, until we actually tried to get 5 kids six years old and under to all sit still, look at the camera and smile at the same time. Talk about crazy. They all did pretty well, it was just a lil challenging to showcase each child's beauty at the same time. But the kiddos all looked so sweet in their outfits, so it really didn't matter if they were looking or not, they were adorable. Cara at Magical Memories took the pictures and boy did she earn her money. Ha! I just know I was tired when we left, so she must have been exhausted!! But they turned out precious! The Grandparents were delighted, too. So it was well worth the chaotic hour and a half it took to get the pictures we wanted. Thanks Cara!! I absolutely love the pictures!

The other day I gave Bree a chocolate pudding to snack on. She is getting to the point where she tells us what she wants and doesn't want to eat. Pudding is still at the top of the list. So, while I was unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the kitchen I occupied her with a pudding. I thought that was a good idea until I turned around to see her covered in pudding and our dog Alex licking it off the wall and floor. She had it everywhere!! Normally she is pretty good at hitting the target, but by the way it was all on the wall I think she must have found a new target. However it did make a cute picture and we went from the kitchen straight to the tub. Its quite hilarious now when I think about it.

I know I am so behind and have so much to share with everyone. Our Christmas was awesome! It was so fun playing Santa. Bree woke up around 7am and I got the video camera and caught her all on tape. She hid behind the couch and peeked out to look at all the toys Santa had left her. She was so bashful about it. It was the cutest thing ever. She was really into unwrapping the packages. She really wasn't that concerned with what was in them though. She grabbed the candy overflowing from her stocking and tried to hide it in her arms. She was not about to let us take it away from her. She got a Barbie jeep and a pink four wheeler, among many other cool toys and within minutes was a pro at driving them both. Although it is a game to see what she can run over, she can drive pretty good when she wants to. The day was full of fun and Bree made everything even sweeter. We celebrated Christmas for the next 4 days. Our last party was on Dec. 29th. Bree seemed very overwhelmed when it was over. However, we all enjoyed the time we had with family and friends. I was off all of last week and it was tough coming back to work today. I thoroughly enjoyed relaxing at home with my family. We did a lot of eating out and shopping and visiting with loved ones. It was so nice. Bree plays dolls all the time. It is so fun to watch her feed and care for them. She got the doll bed, stroller , carrier, diaper bag and bassinet and loves to play with them. She has started putting words together and even some phrases. Although, at times she still talkes in her own language. We rung in the new year at the Phillips and enjoyed spending time with everyone. Bree and Finlee wore their Friends Forever shirts and played so well together. They mainly spent the night pushing each other in the doll stroller and cooking in Finlee's kitchen. Hard to believe they are so big. Happy New Year to everyone!!! XOXO