Blessing

If you look at the blogs I follow, you will see the Rogers' Neighborhood, which is Pauline's blog. You will see these pictures on there (sorry Pauline, I needed them too!), but I had to also put them on here, because you need to know my side of the story:) We are so blessed to have Pauline take care of Alina. Alina and Josiah (Jo-Jo), who is 2 1/2, are such good friends. I have such a peace knowing that each day she is going to a place where they can't wait for her to get there. Alina loves the Rogers children and they feel the same about her. She has a great time and even takes a bottle from Pauline, which if you know about Alina, you will understand!

Thank you Pauline (and the rest of the family) for all you do for us!

Merry Christmas!

To match the snow outside, my mom set up this amazing table with snacks on Christmas day. Justin loves to give her a hard time and kept calling it a cloud, when she kept insisting it was snow. She made great food and we all enjoyed being together!
Alina's first snow experience, she was a bit confused by all the white stuff. I guess she doesn't yet know what it means to not have a white Christmas!
We enjoyed a couple of snow fights in my parents yard. Here is my brother, Mark, about to peg Justin with a snowball. From what I understand, Justin got him pretty good too:)

The snow made for some beautiful scenery at my parents house. We all took lots of pictures and loved having such a perfect Christmas day!

Here is Alina once again surrounded by presents, many of them for her. However, here she is more interested in a toy Major and Macy received because it squeaked!
Nina and Papa Ovi bought Alina a toy to ride on that also plays music and has moving characters. She loves it and has gotten so good at riding around the house in it!
It was a long day for my niece, Lily, who is only 3 months old. Its a lot of work to be so cute! Here she is with my brother-in-law, Justin (her daddy, yes my sister and I have husbands with the same name)
For dessert Alina got to have pumpkin pie on Christmas day. She ate a whole piece!
Ten years ago this was not even in my imagination. Here are my best friend Cindy's kids, Ben and Kinsey with Alina and my niece Lily. Wow, time flies and we may be getting old!

White Christmas!

Well, Alina's first Christmas will be a white Christmas. We can't remember the last time this happened right on Christmas, but it is exciting. It started snowing this afternoon and by 5pm the grass, houses, trees and even the roads were covered in white. It is supposed to continue snowing and stay well below freezing, so we should wake up to a blanket of white in the morning. The weather did keep us from going to Christmas Eve service, which is our favorite, but we decided it was better to stay safe and warm. So we'll enjoy some hot chocolate and wait for Santa!

This is the backyard at Justin's parents' house.

Earlier this week we did presents/Christmas with Justin's family because his sister and brother-in-law will be out flying. We had a nice time together and Alina loved the gifts, bows, paper and excitement. We are looking forward to having Christmas with my family tomorrow!

Presents taste good too!

Teeth!

Well, we were pretty sure Alina would be gumming things the rest of her life, but it looks like she will actually have teeth! Her bottom two are about to come through, she must have been waiting to get them when she's with her grandmothers, that way she'll get even MORE attention! She's been a little more fussy and clingy, but the Tylenol helps. We'll see how tonight goes. As you probably can guess, there's no way to get a picture yet, we'll have to wait until you can really see them and get her to smile big. Meanwhile, enjoy another cute Alina picture, with her daddy's Carolina hat on.

On the move

Alina has been a little slower on the gross motor skills, so she's just starting to pull up. She's getting better and better at it though. She likes to hold on to her toy chest (that Justin made for her) and grab at the toys. She has also started to army crawl. Its amazing how once she gets something, she's gone! Friday she started to move around her room and yesterday, she crawled from her room into my room to our bathroom in no time. She's decided its time to get moving!
Alina has gotten faster and faster at scooting around on her bottom. Yesterday, she was in the kitchen with me and before I knew it she was off. I walked away for less than a minute and when I came back, she had decided to join the dogs as they ate their dinner. Luckily, they are very patient with her and let her watch them eat.

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Saturday we went to our first Carolina-Clemson game, we've always just watched it on TV, but this year we actually got to go. Our friends, Ted and Sarah, were so sweet to invite us to go with them and we also took Justin's dad for his birthday. They were visiting for Thanksgiving, and Justin was so excited to be able to share this experience with his dad. (Justin's mom kept Alina at home for us, which we are grateful for). We tailgated for a little bit before the game and then went in. While we were there, we realized that we were just a few rows above our friends, Chris and Marcie, who now live in Atlanta, but come in for the games. The game did not start out very promising, as Spiller ran back the kick-off for a touchdown. But it was all Carolina from there! They didn't score again until the fourth quarter. It was great. College football is huge here, and this game is about as big as it gets! We are so glad we got to go and had a wonderful time. Now we get bragging rights for a whole year:)

Yes, Sarah is a Clemson fan, but we love her anyway

Sarah, not happy with Clemson's playing

State Champs:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This was Alina's first Thanksgiving and we had a blast. Justin's parents were able to come in on Wednesday and celebrate with us. We enjoyed a great meal, especially Alina! She loved the green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. On Friday, Jana and I went shopping with Colleen, which is our tradition, four years running. We got a lot of shopping in, mostly clothes for Alina. They are just irresistable That evening, even Alina got our for a little black Friday shopping! At TJ Max she tried to get toys into the cart as her grandpa Randy pushed her around in the cart. She loves to go to stores, I think we have some fun shopping ahead of us:)

'Boot' Scootin Boogie and More!

Lately Alina has taken to scooting around the house. She's not much interested in crawling, but has decided that she'll still get where she wants to get by scooting on her 'booty.' She can get from the living room to under the dining room table in no time. Today she decided to explore around the fire place. Luckily we don't have a hearth, but I will soon need to move some of the decorative items that wouldn't be good for her to get a hold of.


Alina also likes to ride on her new toy giraffe. She thinks its so much fun to sit on it and have us push her around the house. A bit spoiled yes, but fun anyway! Alina thinks its especially funny when Macy seems scared of her riding towards her and runs away, she laughs so hard! We are having so much fun with our big girl!

A Girl and Her Dog

When we brought Alina home, we didn't know how the dogs would react. We knew Major always loved everyone, but Macy was a bit skiddish so we didn't know what would happen. They have really surprised us. Major doesn't care too much about her, to him, she's just there. I think he will love her more when she is older and can play more. For now, he just walks by her once in a while and licks her toes. Macy however, absolutely loves Alina! She seems to want to take care of her by always laying next to her and letting Alina do whatever she wants (pull on her ears, poke her eye, tug on her collar, etc.). Here you can see just how much they enjoy each other.

First Halloween

This was Alina's first Halloween and we spent it together as a family. On Saturday morning, we drove to Clinton so that Pauline and I could run in our first 5k! We started and finished on the campus of Presbyterian College. It felt good to complete this, we've been training for 9 weeks. Justin and Alina were there to support Mommy!

This is me shocked to find out that I won first in my age group (I think there were only like 3 in the group, but hey I beat someone)

That evening we went to the Fall Festival at church. Below you can see pictures of our ladybug, possibly the cutest pictures ever! We helped out by watching the inflatable jump house things. Alina enjoyed seeing all the kids, music and colors. It was a great night.

Do ladybugs eat grass? Well, this one does:)