Grace Parker White

She's finally here!! Grace was born on December 30th around noon. She is a BEAUTIFUL tiny miracle from above, and we were so blessed to finally meet her yesterday!! (it seems like we've been waiting forever!!) Grace- you have some of the most amazing parents ever- we love the new and improved White family and can't wait for a playdate!!!

Kim- you are awesome!!!

Beautiful White family

the guys are in awe of how tiny and perfect she is!!

I think I need some pink in my life...

Lee and Sally with baby Grace

new daddy club

I could not get enough of her!!

beautiful sunset the night she was born...God is so good!!

cupcakes that we took to the hospital for Grace's birthday....I don't know why I was so anxious all day for her to get here....so I focused my nervous energy on a project!

Sleeping and Scootching

At 9 1/2 months, Colby is getting a HUGE personality!!! Some of his new things are sleeping with his little hiney up in the air, and scootching on the carpet...still no crawling, but that's ok! We'll get there...for now I'm enjoying the immobility. He's working on cutting his EIGHTH tooth, and his favorite game is peek-a-boo. He laughs SO HARD when you pop out and surprise him. :) Some other favorite new things are reaching for people and kicking his legs like crazy when he gets really excited.

I love this little boy!!!!

Travis moved his bed down to the lowest level....he was starting to pull up, so we decided it was time

hiney in the air!

up on his hands and knees....he'll rock back and forth and then just flop back down to his tummy

not sure what this is all about....below is a video that I caught of him doing some scootchin'

RANCH Christmas

This summer, my mom's parents moved down to the D'Hanis house to truly retire. They were ready to slow down to the small town pace in the town that my grandmother grew up in. They live right next door to her sister-in-law and close to lots of other friends and family. I think they are loving it!

The day after Christmas, we went down to stay with them for the weekend. All together, there were 19 adults, 2 small children, one baby and 4 small dogs in the same house! :) It was fun!! Colby slept in his pack-n-play in my grandparents' closet! haha....it was perfect. We even had his fan and video monitor set up for him in there. The wonderful thing was that there were no windows and no light, so one morning he slept until 9am!

Every year we get together with my mom's extended family- about 60 adults and 25 kids. You wouldn't believe it unless you could see it! The adults do a Chinese gift exchange and the kids 18 and younger get stocking stuffers from everyone. The amazing thing is that we have done this every year for as long as I can remember....and we have video from BEFORE I can remember. I never thought I'd actually have a chance to see MY baby get his own ranch stocking. (and ironically, his stocking is my old stocking!!) It's always an awesome day, and this year was no different. Colby definitely got sleepy and cranky, but my baby-whisperer cousin, Jordan took him outside and walked around with him and he loved it. Thank you Jordan!!

babies and stockings (baby John in the striped shirt is 6 months, Colby is 9 months, and then Brynlea in the green is 12 months- SO CUTE)

Family picture at the Ranch

older kids with stockings

Grandmas!

When we got back to the D'Hanis house (back down to 22 people) we had dinner (YUM) and Macey family Christmas. All of the kids draw names and exchange gifts...I got the cutest picture frame from HB that says "Blessings come in all shapes and sizes". We put a family picture in it and hung it in Colby's room- it's perfect!!!!

Colby with daddy, Pops and Uncle Doug

Jayci was so sweet with Colby :)

This sums it all up!!

A time for Giving

After the Anthony's Christmas, we went to meet my dad's side of the family at my grandmother's house. (Colby napped at Nona and Pappy's house for the afternoon.) Since Gram has moved into the Garden Estates, it's time to start thinking about cleaning out her house and putting it up for sale at some point. If your grandparents are anything like mine, you know that grandparents have TONS of stuff! It's awesome stuff, but it's TONS of stuff! This was the perfect time to look through some of her things with her since my cousin was in town from Chicago (even though we missed Julie!!! She had planned to come for Christmas Eve, but since the weather was bad she didn't make it and she had to work on Christmas day...sad!!)

There's LOTS to post about this, so I'm going to save it for it's own post later on when I have time to give it the blog justice it deserves. :)

After we left my grandma's house (with 2 trucks and 2 Tahoes loaded up with stuff), we went to my parents house for dinner and Streater Christmas! Starting last year, my cousin, Kelli, had the fabulous idea of doing something a little bit different for Christmas. Instead of buying big gifts for everyone, we all draw names, and think of something we can do in honor of that person that will help someone else in need. It's awesome to see all of the different things that come out of this. Kelli drew my name, and when I opened my gift, it was an ugly sweater!! haha...I'm pretty sure she has a picture of me wearing it, I'll have to try to get it from her, but the purpose of giving me the sweater was that Kelli and her boyfriend, Chad did a charity BAR CRAWL in Chicago!! How fun does that sound?!? The 2 "rules" were that you had to wear ugly sweaters and you had to bring toys to donate. If you did, you got a free beer at each of the bars that participated. haha....I thought that was perfect! :)

Julie drew Travis' name and she donated money to a very worthy children's healthcare charity through greatergood.org.

As a family we rang the Salvation Army bell, we donated gifts to children, cookies to families, phone cards to soldiers overseas, money to several charities including CTLC (that my grandpa worked so closely with) and Love Cures, and we even sponsored a Ralph Wilson's Youth Club basketball team. It's an awesome feeling knowing that we did these things "together" during the crazy Christmas season!!

Colby with Kelli and Aunt Mary Jane

playing with Kelli and Chad

Colby went to bed before we took this picture, but I love it anyway!!!

Anthony Family Christmas

When Colby woke up from his nap, we headed to Travis' parent's house for Christmas lunch. We opened presents first, then had a delicious turkey lunch!! Erika is home from London for a few weeks, so it was great to hang out with her and for Colby to hang out with her for a little while. We'll miss her when she goes back!!

CHRISTMAS MORNING!

I looooooooooved waking up on Christmas morning in our cozy little house, making coffee, getting the video camera ready and waiting for Colby to wake up! (YES- I actually woke up before Colby I was so excited.) Travis got up just in time to go get Colby out of bed while I videod his first Christmas morning. We fed him, opened gifts, played for a little bit and then put him down for a nap. The perfect morning! :)

thank you for helping, Buddy

look at the mess we made!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS! What an amazing gift that God sent us so many years ago.

"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

I can't help but think about Jesus being a baby just like Colby...Mary and Joseph took care of him just like we're taking care of Colby. God sent him as a tiny infant...wow!

Later Christmas Eve

Remember how I said that God is teaching me that I'm not really in control even though I think I am?? Well, he sent another reminder on Christmas Eve. The plans were set, but then thanks to the winter weather, our family couldn't come in from Comanche and Lampasas for our Christmas Eve celebration....they were going to come on Christmas Day instead.

That is great except for the fact that we already have our own little family Christmas, Christmas with my parents and Christmas with Trav's parents on Christmas Day also!! The stress monster came over me for a few minutes, but I finally talked myself into ENJOYING the fact that we are so blessed. We would just go with the flow and try not to feel rushed from place to place.

Luckily, my parents volunteered to have their Christmas on Christmas Eve night so that we would have one less place to go. Instead of having Christmas morning breakfast, we did Christmas Eve breakfast for dinner! It was perfect! We even wore our pajamas!!

playing with daddy

opening his first Christmas present!

loooooooove this face!!

xoxox

Uncle Doug gave me a moose!

White Christmas?!?

YES! It actually snowed off and on ALL day at our house on Christmas Eve. We started our day off with another new family tradition- pancakes for breakfast!! Colby LOVED them!! Buddy even got to participate since I burnt the first 2 or 3 pancakes...it was my first time to make pancakes at home, so I thought that was pretty good! :)

Then, starting around noon, the snow began to blow in. I couldn't believe it. Of course nothing accumulated since it had been 70 degrees the day before, but it was still so fun. It was Colby's first time to see snow and it was awesome that Travis and I were both home with him to experience it!!

you can't really tell that it's snowing in these, but trust me, it is! I love Colby's face when my hair is blowing!!

yay snow!!

Here's a little video that I got of Colby and daddy while it was snowing