We started the party on Friday night by going to see Santa. We talked Santa up the whole way there, telling Rory he was our friend and that he brought presents, etc.  She was SO EXCITED to see “Claus” as she calls him.

And then we got there and she had a little freak out and said, repeatedly, “oh no Claus! oooohhhh no Claus!” and clung to me with all her might. It was hysterical.

Ryder sat in his lap like a big girl and pulled his beard as hard as she could the entire time.

So all in all- completely successful, no?

And then Christmas came!

It all started at 2:oo AM when Rory came into our room saying “a Claus? a Claus?” and I said “oh no missy- Claus hasn’t been here yet!”.

So then at 5:45 she woke up and was ready to go. We went into the living room and opened all the wrapped gifts and then we showed her the new playroom and her big presents.

The “before” pictures of all the presents.

The kitchen we made Rory. I will do a whole blog post about this one sometime this week!

And the opening of presents/after pictures. She didn’t stop for even a second the entire morning. It was wonderful seeing how excited she was all day long! She cooked up about 9823 cheeseburgers and served a whole ton of tea!

and of course, we learned how to climb into the kitchen and hide really quick!

And then about an hour after Rory woke up, Ryder decided to wake up and see what Santa had brought her as well! She was EXCITED! Of course, Rory had to help open the gifts.

I tried, in vain of course, to get their picture together in their pjs on Christmas morning….

And then Ryder almost jumped out of the bumbo trying to get to her dog!

We went to church and it was a wonderful service. I’m so glad we went! Ryder wore the dress her Aunt Telena got her for Christmas! (again, the tongue is always out these days!)

After church, we ate a huge lunch- ham, potatoes, pasta salad, corn, and cornbread. (Too bad we skipped out on carbs this year- HA!) Then we all took a long nap and it was so nice. Afterwards, Rory woke up and played so hard until she crashed at about 8.

This was the end of the day. She told me she “cean up kitchen mommy”… ???

Its been a wonderful, quiet Christmas! Hope yours was wonderful too!

]]> http://theharrislife.com/merry-christmas/feed/ 3 http://theharrislife.com/thanksgiving-trip-part-one/ http://theharrislife.com/thanksgiving-trip-part-one/#comments Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:13:52 +0000 Tiffany http://theharrislife.com/?p=4196 Continue reading →]]> Well I am having to break up my Thanksgiving post into parts because I just uploaded 776 photos from my camera and there’s no way I can go through all of them today and put all of them on one post.

Anyways. We had an absolute blast in TN/MS last week! Rory and Ryder were so good most of the time and both enjoyed all the extra spoiling love and attention.

On Saturday we met my dad half way in AR. Rory was so excited to see him. She kept calling him “Papa Mimi” instead of just Papa. It was so cute.

Sunday we went to my parents church and it was wonderful to get to see everyone there. I’m so thankful for my dad’s church family and all of their prayers for Ryder during her surgery. After church I met up with one of my best friends from high school, Jodi, and we went to a Holiday Mart a school in my hometown puts on every year. It was great to catch up with her and hang out without kids.

Monday morning, the girls and I headed over to our great friends’, Katie and Sam, house. They have a little boy, Brooks, who is about 14 months old  who is ADORABLE. Unfortunately, my child refused to share and was so rough so they didn’t have the greatest time playing, but I enjoyed getting to catch up with Katie so much! Oh, and we tried to get pictures of all three kids together. It went so well.

“Stop touching me!”

“Please stop touching me!!!!!!!!!!”

“I’m outta here!”

Monday night we went and hung out at my sister, Telena’s house. Rory absolutely loved playing with Jacks, Jacy, and Riley the whole time.

Tuesday was nasty all day so we just stayed home and had a lazy rainy day.

Wednesday we headed to Dumas, MS. I’ve been informed that its not the middle of nowhere but instead the center of the universe.

Touché. Touché.

We had such an amazing time in MS. Its truly home to me, even if I don’t get back there much. I have dreams of living on my grandparents’ land one day.

My aunt and uncle live there (actually two aunts and uncles) and they have miniature horses. Let me tell you. They were a big hit! Here are all the kids getting to ride one of the horses. My Uncle Frank led them around and all the kids LOVED it. (Uncle Frank is loved by all kids. ALL kids.)

I had to include this. Do you see the boys pointing and laughing? Yep. The horse was peeing and they thought it was hysterical, of course.

Ok, can I just say I want to move Jacy in with me so I could have a babysitter on hand all the time? She was SO MUCH help the entire week with Rory. And Rory absolutely adores her. Jacy- you are the best niece EVER. Please come stay with me this summer… PLEASE???

Landon and Rory rode the pony together. They are the cutest.

My niece, Riley.

Sweet nephew, Jacks.

Cousin, Sadie Beth.

Beautiful niece, Jacy. (Notice that her legs almost touch the ground, ha!)

Cousin, Elizabeth.

Cousin, Maleah.

Sweet nephew, Landon.

Everyone took turns holding Rory… too bad she refused to look at camera.

Okay! That is all I can do today. My house is a DISASTER and we are having company this weekend. I will post part 2 tomorrow!

]]> http://theharrislife.com/thanksgiving-trip-part-one/feed/ 5 http://theharrislife.com/weekend-recap/ http://theharrislife.com/weekend-recap/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:52:02 +0000 Tiffany http://theharrislife.com/?p=3976 Continue reading →]]> A while ago I had told Andy that if he ever wanted to do something extremely romantic, all he had to do was book me a night at a hotel so I could sleep all night and sleep in.

Well, folks. He did it! Friday night he booked me a room at a hotel and it was WONDERFUL! I went to a birthday dinner with friends and then went to the hotel and slept all night and slept in until nine. Bliss. He knows the way to my heart!

And bless his heart… he had a rough night. This is what he looked like that afternoon:

The whole weekend was fantastic. Andy had Friday off (and I wish he did a segment on this blog to tell you how his hunting trip went on Friday morning… lets just say HILARIOUS!) and it was great to have a long weekend together.

Saturday was the local Festival of Pumpkins and I was so excited to take Rory this year. She had a blast too!

The first thing we saw walking up was the dogs from the local humane society. Y’all. This girl LOVES her some dogs. She would see a dog and yell and kick until she got to pet it. She met the sweetest blue tick hound you’ve ever seen. And he was so handsome. His name was Blue. I wanted him and so did Rory. (I had a dog named Blue once too. There is a song about him- ask my dad.)

After that we went to ride the ponies. And oh my word. I’ve never seen so much joy come out of Rory. She giggled the entire time. If I hadn’t of been holding onto her she would have giggled right off that pony!

That night I invited my friend, Julie, over for supper since her husband was out of town. Grady and Rory are friends and I knew Rory would love to play with him.

We were your average heathens on Sunday and skipped church. We didn’t leave the house the entire day and stayed in our PJs. It was wonderful. Church has been so stressful because we have to take Ryder in with us so we decided to just stay home since next week we can (hopefully!) leave her in the nursery.

This morning was rather rough. Rory didn’t sleep good and so she was GRUMPY. She fell asleep at 7 and took a little nap and thankfully woke up happy. I brought Ryder (aka Sister) into Rory’s room so we could play and Rory thought it was AWESOME. She showed Sister all her toys and it was so cute watching Ryder’s expressions as she watched Rory.

This moment made me tear up a bit. Rory went and got her play stethoscope and listened to Ryder’s heart. I told Rory that Ryder had a special heart and she kept saying, “Sister special”. So sweet.

Rory sat her dog that sings up and then sat by Sister to watch. So funny!

And seriously… how cute is this picture?!

Then I got a few pictures of Rory laughing because Sister burped. ha!

Its the small things.

And if you haven’t noticed… Ryder is just your regular old chubster! I told Andy her new nickname is Ms. Piggy. She is all of a sudden eating. Her normal bottle now is 4 oz in 15 minutes. Today she ate 4 oz and was still hungry. She ended up eating 6 oz in 30 minutes! And she’s not spitting any up! Such a miracle!

Have a great week!

Andy’s parents were here over the weekend (will blog that tomorrow) and so we went outside to take pictures.

As I was looking at these pictures, I had to laugh and say “what a typical southern Sunday!”. How many times in my life did my family growing up go outside in front of the house and take pictures? How many times will Rory and Ryder do the same with us?

I’m so thankful that I was raised going to church and raised LOVING church. I had some years after moving away that I didn’t love church so much. But now I’ve fallen in love again because we absolutely love our church and church family. We have been to some WONDERFUL churches (First Baptist Starkville and Calvary in Alexandria) but First Baptist Paris is by far the most we have ever felt apart of the church. It is home. It is family.

I’m also thankful that I was raised by parents who were in love with Jesus and showed it through their marriage and parenting. We have a wonderful relationship now and its because of that love for Jesus. I hope that Rory and Ryder see that in us as well.

Hope you are having a wonderful “Southern Sunday” too!

I can’t tell you how invaluable my parents’ help was while we were at the hospital and coming home. Rory had such a wonderful time with them and is still asking for them constantly. I was so worried about how she was handling being away from me and then I realized that she was having the time of her life getting spoiled by all the grandparents!

She became such a Papa’s girl while he was here. She would wake up every morning saying “Papa! Coffee!” and still is waking up saying that. On Saturday night after they left she woke up at 2 wanting her Papa and it was so sad to see her realize he wasn’t there. It was a long night for all of us!

Her favorite thing about the grandparents being here was playing outside. She had such a blast in the cooler weather. When my dad came back on Thursday they played and played outside.

And she LOVES swinging on her belly now that she learned how!

And she’s a speed demon down the slide!

As far as today goes- its been going really well!

I mean, of course, Rory is her usual stinker self…

Man, my life was so dull before Rory. HA!

And as for stinker #2, Ryder…

Don’t let that little smile fool ya! She has become awfully demanding with her new heart and all. When she wants to eat she means NOW. There is no warning or prep time. Its getting more and more clear that I will have two stinkers on my hands. Please pray for me.

—

And on a serious note- Please, please pray for my friends Emily and William. Their father, Rhea Dabney (who by the way is the sweetest man on earth), has terminal cancer and isn’t expected to live much longer. My heart is breaking for this family.

Also, sweet little Ruby Harris has been scheduled for a surgery much like Ryder’s to fix her heart. Hannah, her mom, and I “met” over the internet and I’ve been following their struggle of eatings, infections, etc. Please pray that Ruby gets to have her surgery soon and that the whole family gets well soon!

Thanks, friends!

(I guess I should warn you that this will be a rather long post with probably too many pictures. But I want to document all of it for myself, so hopefully you don’t get bored, ha!)

So Rory Fun Days were born and I can’t wait to do it again! We had the absolute best weekend. It could not have been any better. Rory had a blast and she was so sweet all weekend long!

Friday we just stayed at home and had fun together. I went and got my hair cut for the first time in over a year and decided to try something “fun” and get purple put in it! Its so cute… or at least I think so!

On Saturday we went to the Children’s Museum in Commerce! It was so fun! Rory had an absolute blast. She played in a boat, space ship, airplane and fort! She drove a cattle driven wagon and rode a horse! Then she did some grocery shopping, cooked some great food in a kitchen, and freed all the dogs from the local kennel! She drove a train and played with all sorts of other things!

On Sunday we went to church and stayed home the rest of the day. Both girls took 3+ hour naps AT THE SAME TIME so Andy and I napped and rested as well. It was wonderful!

Yesterday we woke up to the most gorgeous weather. It was such a nice break from the 100+++ heat we have had since June.

First we went to Grady’s first birthday party and then played outside!

Please note that the lady put 1th instead of 1st on Grady’s cake! HA!

You may be wondering what little Ryder did the whole time….

Well its safe to say she had a great weekend too!

So exhausted, in fact, that Sunday night when Ryder woke up to eat at 1:00 am I put the formula in a bottle and went to shake it up without putting the top back on and it went EVERYWHERE. It was very funny… Andy wasn’t laughing as hard as me though.

Andy had a business trip in Memphis and since our hometown is only an hour away from there I decided to go along to have some help with the girls. We had a great but stressful time and it was definitely hard to leave.

It was perfect timing for us to go too- my sister, Tasha, came into town for the week as well! So Tasha, Telena, and I all went shopping on Wednesday afternoon and it was wonderful. We hadn’t been together and spent time together like that in over a year. I’m so mad because I forgot to get a “sister picture”. Oh well.

Anyways! Here are the pictures from the trip:

Cousins Ryder and Clayton- only two months apart! Ryder was impressed with his size, can’t you tell??

She was mad that Clayton was stealing her “current family favorite” (check out the shirts!) role! Poor Clayton is going to have a rough time being between my two girls!

We had these grand plans of taking Clayton and Ryder’s pictures together and them being so so cute. Well. Clearly this did not happen. One day we were all at my parents house and all afternoon it was a chain affect of crying babies. Ryder would cry, then Clayton, then Rory… and it happened over and over. It was a tad overwhelming.

Tasha and Ryder

Telena and Ryder

Josh (my bro-in-law) and Ryder

Telena, Josh and Ryder

Then on Thursday I drove back to Memphis to pick Andy up and then we drove to the TN River where Andy’s parents live. On Friday we took Rory out on the boat for the first time. You will see that she absolutely loved it. Andy’s sweet grandparents were able to come up to meet Ryder and see us and we were so glad!

Sunset on the river

Marlyce, Steve, Ryder, and Rory

Austin and Ryder

Papaw, Mamaw, and Ryder

And here are the pictures from the boat ride- think she liked it?!

The wind was her favorite part! She looked like she was mimicking the movie Titanic a little, ha!

Then we decided to try and get a picture with me and Rory…. it went so well.

Rory learned to drive the boat.

And she got to play on the beach/in the water just a little.

Basically, she loved everything about the river! We had a great time!

Then on Saturday we were back at my parents house. My Aunt Brenda and Uncle Frank came to see us! Jacy had been at church camp all week so she finally got home and I was so glad to spend some time with her.

Rory and Jacy

Jacy and Ryder

Mom, Jacy, Aunt Brenda, Ryder and Jacks

Down the street from my parents is a new little park area, so Dad and I took them there for a minute. It was so hot though so we didn’t stay long. Rory loved it though!

Jacy and Rory

Okay, little side note: the above picture is so crazy to me because I can’t get over how grown up Jacy is now. Especially because of this picture of us back in the day- I was 15 and she was Rory’s age:

And now she’s taller than me! So sad.

Anyways! Back to the trip!

Rory and the dog she wouldn’t leave alone

Riley and Rory (these R’s are getting ridiculous!)

Just Jacks

And then Rory drove us all back (with Papa’s help) to Mimi and Papa’s house

Whew! I’m worn out just recapping the whole thing!

We had a great time though! But I will say, its so nice to get back home and into a routine again!

She also had so much fun with the seller’s little girl. She is about 8 or so and took Rory by the hand immediately and they played the whole time! It was wonderful for Mommy too! Ha! They played with horses and Barbies and played dress up. This is the best picture I could get with my phone but you can see that she loved playing with the jewelry!

We got there a little early so I decided to drive around town and see all the sights. Well it doesn’t take long to drive around town. You see… we are moving to a town with maybe 600 people. Maybe. But man is it cute!

Here is the beauty shop for the town… I just love the name- “Almost Famous”.

Then there is the local doctor’s office…

And my favorite part of the town- the church.

And although Paris is not huge by any means, you can obviously tell its going to be a huge change for us.

But man am I ready! I’m so ready to only be 10 minutes from Andy’s work. I’m so ready to live in this tiny town and have a slower way of life (well, as slow as it gets with two under two!). I’m so ready to cook more and not have the temptation to just go out to eat on a whim. I’m so ready to have two extra hours with my husband every single day.

And speaking of being ready.

I’m so stinking ready to have this baby! Contractions for weeks, soooo many signs of labor, and then as soon as I’m ready to go to the hospital… they quit. UGH. Oh well. She will come when she’s ready I guess!

***

We started off the weekend heading to Dallas for an appointment to check on Ryder again. Everything looked wonderful and the cyst was still gone, so we were released from the specialist! Ryder is 5 lbs now, which is a bit scary because I still have five weeks for her to grow. Slow down little missy! I don’t want a 10 lb baby!!!

We tried to get a 4D ultrasound, but just couldn’t. Andy and I got to see half of her face on it, but she is already in the head down and ready to go position so we just couldn’t get a picture of her at all- not even on 2D! Oh well, just a few short weeks and I will see her sweet face!

After the appointment we went to the Ft. Worth Zoo!

Interruption: PEOPLE IT WAS STINKING HOT! Why oh why oh why oh why did I think it’d be a grand idea to go to the zoo in 90 something degree weather while this pregnant?!!!!!! I am crazy.

Anyways, we had a good time, but were all hot so it wasn’t as enjoyable as we had hoped. Rory wasn’t as impressed with the animals as we thought she would be either.

And I left my camera in Paris so I have no pictures. Oh well, what can you do?

On Saturday we went to a couple of stores and then headed home and have spent the rest of the weekend enjoying this wonderful time together.

Today we finally were able to break out Rory’s new pool that her Gigi got her.

And, of course, she had to wear her patriotic bathing suit!

The water was just a bit cool…

but Rory LOVED it!

After she swam for a while we decided to break out a watermelon.

Because, let’s face it, it isn’t Memorial Day without watermelon!

(or at least that’s the Davis way!)

I just can’t help but think of how proud my Granddaddy would be seeing Rory love watermelon and seeing her eat it like this.

Today is one of those days where I miss my Grandmother and Granddaddy so badly.

Happy Memorial Day!