The Holiday recap and a video year in review

The holiday time has been a blast. Thanks to everyone with whom we shared our time. A special thanks goes out to our family in Western Ky for hosting us for a few days this December. We had a fantastic time and can't wait to see you guys again real soon.

We hope everyone else has had a wonderful Christmas this year. 2009 has been a rather eventful and interesting year. Here's a video wrapping up this year in Eliza's life. This year she lived in three houses, two towns, turned one, made her first visit to the zoo, Kings Island and Nashville, and learned to walk. Now she's beginning to learn to talk. Here's a trip down memory lane and then some pictures from our Christmas vacation. By the way YouTube didn't like the song we used, so we had to find a different video host. Hope this works okay.

Eliza's 2009 wrap-up from Janie Smith on Vimeo.

Cutie, huh? Can you believe how much she's changed this year?

Sadly, Eliza has caught a bit of a chest cold. She's still the best natured baby in the world and doesn't even seem as though she feels bad. It's amazing that she hasn't gotten sick sooner, with all the running around and visiting we've done this month.

We went to Mayfield and visited with family.




Then we went to Nashville to visit the science museum, the Opryland hotel, and to see Charlie Brown Christmas in ICE. Which was one of the coolest things (literally, too) I've ever seen in my life. If you haven't seen it, run, don't walk, to see this exhibit before it closes.




For our Christmas, we went to my Mom's house Christmas Eve and then spent a very lazy Christmas Day at home. Eliza got a new toy barn that makes all kinds of sounds and has lots of fun buttons to push. She also got her first set of Duplos and her first Hello Kitty doll.

Here's some video of us playing in our living room after Eliza's new toys seemingly exploded all over the place.



Hope everyone else out there had a wonderful holiday time, too.

Have a happy and healthy 2010 and stay tuned for Eliza's 16 month Raggedy Ann picture coming soon!

We're situated, now here's an update.

The Friday before we moved, we got an unexpected visit from my Dad, Eliza's other Grandfather. She hadn't had the chance to meet him, so we all got together for dinner. Here's a little video.



The following couple of days were a complete blur. We were rushed to get the moving completed and we were extremely short on help. Finally, Eliza wasn't very happy with seeing her stuff in a new location and decided to be extremely fussy for her first couple of days.

We spent the week trying to get the place together in time for Eliza's first birthday party this weekend. In the meantime, we attended Caylor Hicks' first birthday party on Saturday. Eliza really seemed to like being around other kids. I think she needs more baby friends.

So now we're settled and really looking forward to the coming weekend so we can celebrate our big girl's first birthday. I was working on a little tribute video for her first birthday and I couldn't help tearing up. This year has flown. It all goes so fast.

Company!

This weekend we had lots of company. It was Lee's birthday, so she came down to hang out. Brian's Dad and Stepmom also planned a visit this weekend. We took a trip over to the new house and Brian played with his new camera.

We're back!

We had a nice weekend in Mayfield. It was good for Eliza to get to see her grandparents and we needed to go and be a family together in our house. I sometimes forget how much I miss being able to spread out and just be us.

We arrived to a bit of broken tree limb damage to our fence. Our yard was an absolute mess. Mayfield looks like a special tree-seeking bomb went off. Luckily, Brian's Dad and Grandfather came over the help us pick up most of the limbs. We're going to go back in March after things have calmed down and do more yard clean-up and put up a nicer FOR SALE sign.

The power seems to be back for most people in town and we saw AT&T working to restore phone service this weekend. It's surreal to see all of the markers of a disaster area. We saw national guard in full army dude uniforms pulling into a gas station in a humvee. They'd been doing door to door checks and had left a yellow sticker on our mailbox. Not sure what that means.


Here are a few pictures of the damage.

Photographic Contrasts - A big photo dump

I've never exactly been an ace with a camera. This past weekend, I decided to dress Eliza up in a little Christmas onesie and attempt to take some Christmasy shots. Heh. What I ended up with were some out of focus 90s alternarock album covers.








Brian is a much better photographer. On Sunday afternooon, we went to Brian's Dad's house to see his stepmother's new grandson Luke and have dinner with all the other grandkids/parents. See? Brian's pictures are much more impressive.


Yes, I am wearing a plastic tiara! Thanks for asking!





Left to right:
Austin, Hannah, Eliza, Jennifer Elizabeth (pretty name! Love those Elizabeths), Luke, Hunter

Eliza's first Halloween

Eliza was bee-utiful in her bee costume from Aunt Cheryl. We took her around to see the relatives and she hung out with Ava at Grandmommy and Granddaddy's house. Now she's exhausted and sleeping in her swing. We're handing out candy and drinking hot cider.









Cousin Ava






More Eliza