christmas

Here are just a few pics from Christmas Day.

The first few are what happens when Jim is left alone with a baby, a very cooperative and slow-moving dog and a camera. Poor Crosby. He was a good sport and I think Croz knew it was just a matter of time really.

Here is Maddie getting ready to go to Jen's house. She really enjoyed this snowglobe and stared at it for what seemed like hours in babytime (probaby about 5 minutes).

And here is the entire family at Jen's house on Christmas night. I dont have any pics of us all opening gifts, but you can see by the look on our faces we're all very happy with our loot and happy that we were able to spend it together.

open presents when? for who? huh?

With our family expanding and our houses seemingly getting smaller and smaller each year - we had to do bend some of the Christmas traditions at my parents house in order to make things a little easier logistically for everyone.

My mom hosted the family to her house for brunch and to open the presents that were under my parents tree on Christmas Eve since we were headed to my sisters on Christmas Day to open the rest of the presents and its sort of a nightmare to tote presents back and forth from house to house. We were all a little concerned that bending the Christmas traditions would somehow ruin Christmas (and gave my mom a really hard time about it leading up to the day- hence the title of the post)... but it didnt and in fact I think it made Christmas seem like it was two days long instead of it all being over in just a few hours Christmas morning. Kinda nice. Here are some pics of Christmas Eve.

Maddie and her Aunt Lorla

The girls

Cousin Taylor (somehow Maddie's pants turned into knickers. Guess its time to put them in the "too small" box)

We had a really great day of yummy food, lots of gift opening and some "Clue" playing. Im not sure if this new way of doing Christmas will stick but I think it was fun. At night we did our traditional Chinese Buffet dinner with our cousins, over to Billie and Danny's for gift exchanging, driving around town to check out the light displays (we saw some doozies!) and then home to get into our Christmas PJs and get ready for Santa.

Maddie had her very first ever reading of the Night Before Christmas and the Christmas Story from her Daddy. This is a Herndon Family tradition that we are happy to pass down to Maddie. My mom bought Maddie the prettiest Night Before Christmas book illustrated by Mary Englebreit . Maddie was so interested in the book - moreso then we've ever seen her interested in a book or even a toy before. She touched each page and looked all the bright colors while Jim read. It was so cute.

After reading that and then the Christmas Story (you know... the Baby Jesus one) it was time to put our baby to bed!!!

To be continued...

and...we're back!

We made it back from our traveling adventure!

We're back safe and sound at home reflecting on the last three weeks and the whirlwind that is Christmas.

Maddie had a great time at my parents house with Nana and Pop-Pops meeting all the aunts and cousins and then hit the ground running in North Carolina staying at Grandma and Grandaddy Herndons house for a few days in Apex visiting with and meeting the aunts and relatives there. We had a LONG car ride home but made it back in one piece.

I have lots of pictures to post... so bare with me.

Let's start with our visit to my best friend Kristins in Lunenburg, MA! Its become an annual tradition to get together at Kristins house with our friends Melissa and Mike whenever Im home to visit and catch up and of course- hang out with her kids (my favorite part). Melissa and Mike have a new addition to their family this year too so it was so nice to see them and meet their new sweet baby girl Sara. I wish we lived closer to them ... but until we do we're just going to have to do our best to get together every chance we get.

Here are her kids opening up their presents from us. They had no idea what the movies were or why they needed backpacks with their names on them... but they were all smiles and all excited anyway. I wish I had taken a picture of Kate walking around the house with the silver gift bag on her shoulder like a purse... too cute. Is she a girlie girl, or what?

And here is Maddie being held by Auntie Kristin. Kate was so sweet with Madelyn. So gentle and caring. Look at her petting Maddie's foot!!! She would make a GREAT big sister. :)

Here are the babies. Its hard to believe that Kristins kids don't make the baby picture! Yikes.

Here is Kate holding Maddie for a picture. So cute.

And here are the kids on the floor crashing out after a Wiggles dance party.

Maddie leaving her mark on Auntie Kristin.

The girls and their babies. Even Rita got to sneak into the picture.

I'll finish up this post with our visit to Kristins and write more posts to document our Christmas adventure chronologically. I have a hard time uploading photos in blogger and not having the spacing get all weird (if some one knows how to fix this, please let me know). So... stay tuned. More to come.

Cousin CCs Christmas Party

While home for the holidays, Maddie got to go to her very first Christmas Party at Cousin CC's house. This party is known for its good food, great decorations (including a village that gets bigger and bigger every year) and sambuca. We were really happy we were able to introduce Maddie to all her cousins and family members.

Here are some pics of the event... thanks to Mandi and C for your pictures!

Maddie and Mommy

Maddie with Mere and Trev (no, its not Zac Efron)

Maddie and Cousin Willow

Camden and Maddie checking eachother out

Nana and Sleeping Beauty

The hostess herself with Cousin Willow and Jack (too scary for me)

I couldnt resist putting this picture on the blog. This is sweet little Julia. This was my first time meeting Julia and she just melted my heart with those big eyes and blonde curls! It doesn't get much cuter than this.

This next series of pictures is always one of the highlights of the party (at least for me). Its become a tradition that each generation takes a picture together on the steps. Its mostly the same cast of characters with some additions and some folks missing every year - and someday it will be fun to look back on these pictures and see how we've changed!

Here is the first generation. These are the only people in the room who are ACTUALLY cousins. This is significant as we all call eachother cousin but we're really more like 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th cousins... but who's counting!!

Generation One

The "outlaws" (aka: the inlaws)

The second generation. Pretty poor showing this year... what happened?

And last and definitely the cutest... the third generation. This was Maddie's debut. We'll work on the smile for next year! :)

I've got tons more pictures of the party, but this computer is so slow its taken my about 30 minutes to type this post! Yikes! Thanks C for another fun party!!!

santa baby

It's safe to say you've never seen a Santa as cute as this one, right? We had a little impromptu photo shoot last night.

Santa with Nana and Pop-Pops

happier times, happier posts

We're back and we're back to normal. The airport trauma experience is behind us, Maddie and I have finally caught up on our sleep and we're enjoying the White Christmas here in New England.

My camera is out of power (and we're waiting for Jim to come with the charger on Friday) and my parents computer gets very easily stressed out - so Im sorry for the lack of posts. Im doing my best between using my parents camera, no image editor and computer freezes!

Maddie is soaking up all the love here at Nana and Pop-Pops house and making the most of it. She's trying her best to convince me that she should sleep in Nana's arms all the time... even at night... and is hamming it up being the center of attention. She's smiling and cooing at everyone and is even fascinated in Crosby the Dog. We went Christmas shopping yesterday and of COURSE ended up in the baby department at Macy's (that somehow always happens when you're with Nana) and got some amazing deals on winter clothes. $36.00 outfits for $4.49! Can't beat that. Maddie was an angel at the mall and even endured her first trip to the Cape and the Daniel Webster Inn like a champ.

Here are a few pics since we've been here.

worst. travel experience. ever.

Maddie and I made it to Nana and Pop-Pops house today just 27 hours after leaving Atlanta. Yup. 27 hours.

Never again will I ever take a non-direct flight. Ever. Anywhere. I don't care if its costs $500 dollars more to fly direct... it will be worth it.

So - for those of you who aren't aware... Nana and Pop-Pops live in Southeastern Mass. and the closest airport is Providence. Maddie and I were traveling up there to start our Christmas celebration early and got caught in DC because of a huge snowstorm hitting the northeast. The storm hit 4 hours earlier than "predicted" and the airport shut down just 2 hours after the snow started... when does that happen? We were stranded after sitting in the airport for 6 hours waiting for them to officially cancel our flight. The guy at the ticket counter had the nerve to tell me my "best bet" was to take the Amtrak train... which was 7-8 hours. He has obviously never had to take care of a 3 month old baby. We eventually made it to a hotel in Crystal City (sans luggage) where my beloved, wonderful, thoughtful, amazing, godsend of a sister met me from Baltimore and stayed with Maddie and I (did I mention I love her and she's amazing? She even brought me a toothbrush and fresh undies). We got up at 5am this morning (second morning in a row) to make it on the 7:30am flight. I got to see the same grumpy people in the same clothes even more grumpy than they were the day before... it was fun. Maddie was a little less than stellar on the flight - but the poor thing had such a rough day and night (sleeping in a hotel room with no pjs, swaddle, bassinet, etc) I didn't really care.

Anywhoo... I don't think Ive ever felt such a sense of relief in my life as when I saw my parents at the airport. Just to be able to hand Maddie to her Nana to hold was like a huge weight had been lifted and I could relax. Ive been business traveling for 8+ years and this was by FAR the hardest travel experience Ive ever had. No one seemed to care or even notice that I was lugging around a fussy baby, a stroller, carseat, a baby bjorn (which Maddie was in most of the time) a diaper bag and another diaper bag all while trying to change tickets, call US Airways, call my family to keep them in the loop, get another ticket, etc etc. I was about to slap those stupid crackberry's outof all those fools hands as I walked by them. Yes - I had a complete meltdown at the airport. My mom called to check on me and I lost it. Luckily all of the stupid male 30-something bsiness travelers around me were too involved with their crackberry's to notice. But...we made it thru and what doesnt kill you makes you stronger right?

Well- that post turned into something it wasn't intended to but that's the long drawn out story of our trip home!! We made it and are safe and happy now. Everythings covered in snow and we're headed out to get a Christmas tree tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have lots of fun pics to post but for now I need to catch up on some MUCH NEEDED sleep!

Ciao for now!

maddie sees the atlantic!

As a follow up the previous post... here are some pics of the crew taking in the ocean which was just a few feet from our phat (that means good mom) beach house. While it was a very quick trip to the coast and most of our time was spent at the marathon- we made sure we were able to take in the most beautiful sight on earth... the ocean!

the house

Here's our house. We could see the ocean from our bedroom and from the decks although "oceanview" was a little bit of a stretch.

the linkers walking the path from the house

jim and his baby girl

jim shows maddie the ocean

This was Maddie's first time seeing the ocean. She didn't seem to thrilled by it and its a good thing it wasn't warmer or daddy might have had her body surfing. Notice the shorts though.. it was incredibly warm there for December. High 70s during the day and 50s at night! Nice.

the family

Like I said before- we had a great time. Perfect location, perfect weather and perfect friends to spend the time with. I'm not sure if it was a perfect marathon or not but the boys seemed pretty happy with it. I'm still exhausted from the weekend and Maddie keeps waking up earlier and earlier each morning (today she was wide-eyed at 6:30am!) so I think I'm going to bed. Night all!

a long run and two sweet girls

We had an fabulous weekend with our friends the Linkers at Seabrook Island, SC. We were down there for the boys to run the Kiawah Island Marathon on Saturday. This was Jim's first marathon ever and he did amazing job. It was also so nice to spend some quality time with the Linkers and their precious new baby Evy who is just a few months older than Madelyn. While we missed Campbell terribly we know she had a great time with her KaKa and Sugar (we need to find a relative we can call "Sugar." Anyone volunteer? Its the cutest thing ever.)

Here's some commentary on the race. I'll post more tomorrow when I'm not quite so tired.

Jamie and Evy waiting for the boys

And here they are passing us at mile 13. They don't quite look tired enough, do they?

Here's John about to cross the finish line.

And here's Daddy Jim crossing the finish. Woo hoo! Go Daddy! We're so proud of him.

The guys and their medals

And here's the money shot you've all been waiting for. Who wants to see sweaty boys when you have these two angels to look at? Here are the girls on the bench waiting for their daddies.

Evy and Maddie just chillin' out

I've got more pics of the beach and our beach house that I'll try and post tomorrow. Good night!

If I didn't blog it...

it didn't happen, right?

So far three people have asked me if we were getting a tree this year. I told them - of course! We got it the Monday after Thanksgiving... how come you thought we werent getting one? Well... you didnt BLOG about it. HA! Its so true. Blogs are such a nice way to keep up with your friends lives but Im feeling a little overwhelmed to get all my posts up to date before the next Herndon Family Adventure (which happens to be Jim running a marathon on the coast this weekend).

Here is our tree. Its so pretty. I love all the white lights and how it makes the livingroom glow (I squeezed by another year with white lights... I told Jim we would rotate white/colored lights every year once we got married and we have yet to buy a strand of colored lights). Madelyn did help us pick out the tree but she went to bed before the decorating began.

I absolutely love Christmastime and am getting more and more into it every year. Ive started "collecting" Christmas decorations for the house which I know scares the heck out of Jim. Oh well - it could be worse. I was so happy when I took out my Jim Shore Nativity Scene that I bought for 18.00 after the holidays last year. And my Santa collection is small but almost takes up a whole shelf (hint hint.. I LOVE the Jim Shore Santa's!). Although I love decorating my house, I can't wait to go home to mom and dads (woops, Nana and Pop-Pops) and spend Christmas there. Their house is so cute and always looks GREAT for the holidays.