Celebrating Christmas with the Nelson family...

We exchanged gifts and had our "Christmas dinner" with my side of the family a couple of days before Christmas, bc. I had to work the holiday this year. My mom's birthday is also on the 22nd, so she gets to pick the restaurant, and it was good.....Pappadeaux! Here are some pics from the night, the food was sooooo good and we had a lot of fun with Eli and opening gifts!
Mom, Dad and Kelly at dinner

Our little family

First time to use the timer on my new camera! Not too bad!

Entertaining E before presents

Gifts...

Dad being goofy with his new presents

Eli taking a break from the presents

Why do we buy all these toys?

Eli has lots of toys, they all either light up, move, talk or sing, etc.... We find ourselves trying to find the latest and greatest toy that you just know he will love! So as every other parent does, "Santa" brought him some more fun stuff!! Now don't get me wrong he likes the new stuff, but ever since he has been crawling around and exploring his world, he LOVE'S the door stops...of coarse!! I think it so cute and he knows where each and every one of them are in the house.....

Pulling up!

Eli has a new trick, pulling up! One morning a couple of weeks ago, he was talking and babbling very loudly after is am nap, so I went in to see this.....

My chunk o monk was pulling up on the side of the bumpers and looking out over the top of his bed!! When I walked in he was so happy to see me and tried to reach out for me! I knew at this point we definetly HAD to lower is bed now!! Here are some pics of him pulling up on pillows. This is bc there is not alot of things for him to pull up on in our living room, so I put these down to see if he would do it, and as you can tell he was all over them!

Just a funny pic, he was talking to me...

He is getting around....

Eli is staring to "crawl" if you want to call it that. He is basically using all his upper body strength and pulling himself around the room. He is fast though! Check him out...

It's Snowing!

In this part of Texas we hardly ever get to see snow, so when we had our first snow of the season we had to take pictures and let Eli experience it! It was Eli's first snow also....

The morning it snowed, Ryan woke me up to let me know what was happening. I was excited, and couldn't believe it! The first thought in my head was Eli and what should I do? We got him up and walked outside with him. At this point it was just a few flurries and he didn't' notice. Ryan left for work and we just stayed inside watching the weather. After about 15 more min it started to come down harder, so I knew I had to get E out in it! I really wanted to get pics of him in his 1st snow, so I just put a hat on him and plopped him down on a blanket in the front yard! Ha...the things you do to get pics as a mom! I was cold and I am sure he was too, his poor little nose was soooo red! He looked around alot and stared at all the flurries coming down and wanted to touch it!

Christmas is around the corner....

Here are some pics of Ryan putting up our outside lights, and the trimming of the tree this year. I wasn't going to put it up bc. I was worried about Eli getting into everything and pulling it over on himself, but I decided to put it up in the dining room.

My mom came over to help us out, especially since Eli was apart of the action this year!

Here is Eli enjoying the Christmas ornaments...so cute I must say!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Thanksgiving 09

Since I am a nurse, as you know the hospital NEVER closes, thus we have to take our turns working the holidays. This year I was off for Thanksgiving and I have to work Christmas. I was kinda sad at first, considering that this would be Eli's 1st Christmas, but he will only be 8 months old and really has no clue what is going on. We did put up our Christmas tree and all he knows is that is it something else he can try and eat! HA! Here are some pics from Thanksgiving....we went to Louisiana, as we do for most major holidays to visit with all of my mom's side of the family. Kelly was off and got to drive down from Tennessee to join us for a few days. We had some GREAT food and fun times with family.

The first night that we arrived, my cousin Ross came back from hunting and he got a deer! We all went outside to see! Congrats Ross!

After a long day of traveling..daddy and Eli were so tired!

Thanksgiving AM...he slept well...

Preparing the food...mmmmm! It was so good to eat all that good food for Thanksgiving...too bad I will miss it for Christmas :(

My plate!

After lunch Eli opened his first Christmas present...an ornament, so cute....he was trying really hard to eat the wrapping paper

The weather was so nice the whole week/weekend so we were outside a lot, enjoying fall. I was also practicing with my new camera so Eli was of coarse the test subject...

This is Dora, Granji's donkey, Emily named her...we think she is going to have a baby soon! She was pretty skid dish, but Ryan got an apple and she actually came up to him to eat it! I had to stay pretty far away with the camera not to spook her!

Some more practice pics.....my 2 handsome subjects!

Emily playing with Eli the night before we left...