Here comes Santa Claus

Now that we've seen Santa Claus (who knew about our Elf on the Shelf when Elisabeth told him! he IS real!), the kids are ready for Christmas. Are you?

I'm in love.

Smitten, actually, with someone I haven't even "met" yet. Well, at least not face-to-face.  That's right, I'm in love with our tiny, 12 weeks and 4 days old peanut who has about 27 nicknames already.  Max. Sheldon (my new fave). Kate. Baby. Tister. Bwudder. And the names of every single one of Elisabeth's classmates.

^ Those might be the cutest little fingers I have ever seen.

And look at that little profile! Sure, there are a ton of teeth that give a sort of Puppet effect (and let me tell you, that effect is multiplied by 10 when you see your little baby moving on the monitor and opening and closing its mouth), but still - have I mentioned that I'm in love?  Can you see the ear? And the arm raised up by the side of its head? Sigh...

We can't wait to meet this little miracle that I tried so desperately to avoid making. I'm so glad I apparently don't know a thing about my own fertility.  ♥

sparkly and beautiful

This is Elisabeth. 

She just overcame a huge obstacle.

The potty accidents she was having?  Well she made a goal of making it 20 days in a row without having an accident. For her, that is a huge accomplishment considering where we were a few months ago.  She has pushed through so many physical and emotional factors to get to this point and we couldn't be more proud of her.

Of course she had some sparkly motivation of her own as well.

Well, Miss Elisabeth, ask and you shall receive.

And receive she did, this past weekend as evidenced in the photo above. She's not going to lie, getting her ears pierced hurt bad.  Much more than the pinch that her friend told her it would be.  But I don't think she would have changed a thing.  She walked out of there one proud kiddo.

And we are very proud of her for finding her own motivation and working so hard to achieve her goal.

PS -- today is day 23 and she's still going strong!