Can you see the difference?

Meredith @ 3 months <----

Tinsley @ 3

months

---->

Another reason to love my job

Yesterday I contracted a balloon and body artist to come entertain our students on the first day of classes. Meredith received a couple of Mommy's perks today.

Testing my Faith

My faith has really been tested the last few months because of a heartbreaking situation occurring with a friend of mine. Her daughter has been battling a rare form of cancer and just when things were looking up, right before Thanksgiving they learned another tumor had formed, several actually. Yesterday, the family learned that the cancer has spread everywhere and have had to make the hardest decision any parent can ever have to make. They have arranged for hospice care and will try to enjoy what could be the last few weeks of her life (I hope Aubrey proves them wrong and holds on longer).


I cannot even begin to imagine what they are going through. I pray for them every night and I question why God lets this happen, especially to innocent children. But then I think that He has a bigger plan and we just don't know what that is. I know that God is taking care of me and He will continue to take care of Aubrey and her family. Please pray for them to have strength and get through this.

Happy New Year

I hope you all are enjoying the new year so far (all 9.5 hours of it). Mine has been great, but most of it has been spent sleeping. What parent can't call that paradise.

Anyway, I wanted to let the blogging world know of my resolution. I usually don't make them, but I felt like I should this year. I resolve to participate in a 5K every month. Notice I said participate and not necessarily run. I am not a runner so I am sure that there will be lots of walking in the beginning. But maybe I will become a runner by the end of this.

My first one is at the end of the month. I am doing it with my aunt who started doing this stuff last year. I will keep you updated.

Our Christmas

Our Christmas season began with us going to have our pictures made at our favorite portrait studio, Portrait Innovations. Tinsley did pretty good for her first time getting her picture taken.

My mom came in to town the Tuesday before Christmas and the girls and I got to have some fun with her while Bill worked. We went to Kohl's our favorite place to shop and then we went to a couple cute places in Watkinsville. On Christmas Eve we met my godparents and my godfather's mom (who is 100 years young) at Chequers (note the spelling, not the burger joint) for a nice dinner and then we went to look at some Christmas lights on the way home. We just can't bring ourselves to pay $40 or more to look at lights.

As is our tradition we stayed home on Christmas and enjoyed our morning. Tinsley was ready to watch everything that was going on.

Meredith really had a great time opening her gifts. Well that is when we could pry her away from the things that were already out. The first gift she spotted was her Cozy Coupe from Santa.

She loved it! So much so that once she was in it, she didn't want to get out, even to open her other gifts. We would say but you have more presents to open and she would say "NO!"

Here I am trying to get her out of her car. As I am writing this she is in her car now taking her babies for a ride.

Tisnley got a Bumbo seat from Santa and she seemed to enjoy being in it.

She doesn't like to be confined that much so I was very impressed that she sat in it for about 10 minutes on the first go around.

The Morgan side of the family came over for Christmas dinner and the girls got a few more gifts. The adults opted to not exchange gifts this year and instead are making a donation to the Special Olympics in my Uncle Richard's name. Here, my Aunt Pam teaches Meredith how to drink her tea from the tea set she got. We laughed because Meredith already knew to stick her pinkie out while drinking. Meredith also switches back and forth in calling it tea and coffee. She knows what a coffee cup looks like so she likes to pretend she is having "mommy's coffee."

This holiday has been a rough one for my family as it is the first one since my Uncle Richard passed. He always brought us something to laugh about and his holiday spirit is greatly missed. However, Aunt Pam made all the families a memory pillow from some of my uncle's favorite clothing. She also made Meredith a bunny from his clothes, which she squeezed tightly. I hope Meredith loves that bunny just like I loved my snuggle bear that Uncle Richard gave me when I was about her age.

Princesses and Mickey are all the rage in our house right now. Here Meredith models the latest in princess fashion and tries to get pretty.

And finally here is our happy girl on one of our many outings while Mom was here. She rarely smiles in her carseat so we had to take a picture.

Ever since Tinsley arrived Meredith has been obsessed with all things baby and is always putting her "babies" in all of Tinsley's things. So my mom got Meredith her very own baby, complete with all the "stuff". Meredith loves it and has to put the baby to bed every night. However, in true Norton fashion, anything that belongs to the baby belongs to him. This is where we found him yesterday morning.
I wonder how he is going to feel about all this stuff when Meredith decides she wants to dress him up and haul him around like her baby?

Besides my girls, the best part of Christmas this year was a night out with my husband. He booked us a room at Chateau Elan and we went on Saturday to the winery tour, had a 25 minute massage, and then went for a nice dinner before returning to our room to get some much needed sleep. I am very thankful to him for doing this and to my mom for watching the girls to allow us to be able to get away.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are ready for the New Year.

Catch up pictures and such

Finally I have downloaded all our pictures from Thanksgiving and other days since. Hope you enjoy!

Chillin' at Mimi's

Chillin' at Mimi's

Mom's cat Shoe

Our little turkey

Tinsley and Mimi

Our time with Santa, Meredith was not interested in sitting in his lap.

Mommy and her girls

Daddy's little Yellow Jacket

Working Girl

I am behind on blogging and I hope to get some pics from Thanksgiving posted soon. I went back to work on Monday. Things have been good on my end, not so much on Tinsley's until today. After almost two months of trying bottles everyday and being unsuccessful she has finally sucked down three 4oz bottles (as of 3:30pm and Bill was getting ready to feed her again). I am so lucky to have a wonderful, patient husband who has worked hard with her the past three days. We had been having so many issues with her that I must admit I was a little glad to leave on Monday just to be an adult. Like many people say, it was easier to leave the second child. Don't get me wrong, I love her and would rather be home any day of the week with my kid's than at work, but the last two weeks have been really trying. We did discover that she has reflux and now that she has medicine she is doing great.

So here's to making it through two weeks at work then trying to keep Tinsley on the bottle while on break.