Our Last Christmas Sans Children

Well this is our last Christmas without children... sad to see the "just us" go, but super excited for what is in store for our family :) We went to Huntsville the weekend before Christmas to be with Brian's parents, brother & sister-in-law. We had a lot of fun spending time with his side of the family and were glad we were able to visit! We attended our church, North Point Community Church, the Wednesday before Christmas for a "traditional" Christmas Eve service filled with TONS of music, communion and the Christmas story. Baby Hake was jumping all over during the music - he's obviously a fan. Brian and I spent Christmas Eve at my parents house along with: Dad, Mom, Deborah, Mema (dad's mom), Mimi (mom's mom), Aunt Barbara (dad's sister), Amy (Aunt Barbara's daughter), Drew (cousin) & gf, Sydney, Vada and Penny. It was a full house to say the least! But we had some amazingly delicious food: honey baked ham, green beans, my famous "Over the Rainbow Macaroni and Cheese" (as featured on Oprah many years ago), pineapple casserole, rolls, sweet potato casserole and MANY MANY desserts. We opened one gift each (family tradition) on Christmas Eve and then Brian and I returned back to our house to spend Christmas Eve night at home snug in our bed. Christmas morning we returned to my parents' house and began our tradition - we walked down the stairs from oldest to youngest while my dad videotaped, we acted completely surprised that Santa had visited our house, and then we divvied up the gifts to everyone. We opened half our presents then stopped for breakfast intermission (sausage/egg/cheese casserole, hashbrown casserole, upside down pineapple biscuits and fruit medley), only to return to more gifts. While we were eating breakfast it started to snow! This is a HUGE deal for us because the last time it snowed on Christmas Day was in 1993 when I was in 3rd grade!! All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas with Brian's family and with mine. I still cannot believe that this time next year we will have a tiny tot with us on Christmas morning!!!!

24 weeks preg on Christmas Eve
Aunt Deb gave Baby Hake a new toy (we opened this on Christmas Eve)... Penny is a little unsure about all the new things we keep bringing home
My two grandmothers haven't been together in MANY years. Sadly both of my sweet, precious grandfathers have passed away so it was special to have both grandmothers together for Christmas this year. Mema (dad's mom) and Mimi (mom's mom) get along very well and spent a good 2 hours browsing through my mom's copy of our wedding pictures. It was SO sweet!
Penny, Sydney and Vada are all very protective of Baby Hake
4 generations in this picture: Mimi, Mom, me, Baby Hake4 generations in this picture too: Mema, Dad, me, Baby Hake
Christmas breakfast = YUM!!!

Penny & me in the snow
Penny was VERY unsure about the snow

Baby Hake's first snow :)

Our little family of 2 (well 3 including Penny) will soon be expanding!

Penny's First Photo Shoot

When Penny was just 11 weeks old, we decided to let her have her first photo shoot! We asked our best friends Greyson & Adam to come over and be our photographers (so nice of them!).

head tilt

The water bowl we had made for Penny

She's already a Braves fan!!

She hadn't exactly learned the "sit" command yet

romping in the flowers

Penny with her Lovey... she sleeps with it every night now :)

our little Puggle

Our little family :)

Bringing Home Baby

Isn't that the name of a tv show? Maybe? Well, we got to bring home OUR baby and it was such a great moment in our lives. Ellen finished her student teaching (in a 2nd grade classroom) on a Friday in April and that night we drove to TN. We stayed with our fabulous friends Matt & Aubrey and the next day drove to the breeder's to pick up our baby and BRING HER HOME!!!!

Penny instantly loved us. No joke, she warmed right up and was not sad about leaving the breeder, which made us feel really good inside.

She is bound to be a model, she posed for every picture.

Penny weighed about 4 pounds when we brought her home on Saturday, April 3, 2010.

She did OKAY in the car. It was a 5.5 hour drive from the breeder's house in TN to our house in Atlanta and it ended up taking a good 7+ hours. Sweet Penny threw up 4 times within the first 30 minutes. It was a mix of emotions, new people, car sickness, and anxiety. Poor baby. And it was VERY difficult to find "clean" places for her to potty on the way home since she wasn't supposed to touch public surfaces until she had received all her shots. It was a ROUGH car ride home, but once we finally got her to sleep in our arms, it was smooth sailing. Needless to say, we don't think we'll be doing any long car trips with Penny anytime soon...

We got home and introduced her to our backyard. She LOVED it. And we are SO glad we have a fenced in yard for her to play in and not have to watch her every move.

It was a LOOOOONG day for Penny (and us!) and she was tuckered out. We tried to introduce her to the crate and instead she climbed up on Brian's back and fell asleep snuggled up with him. So sweet.

Sophie's Choice

The puppies were born Jan 17, 2010. Puggles have a mommy Beagle and a daddy Pug. Such an odd combination, but such a beautiful baby creation.

Here is the entire litter. Our breeder lives in TN so we drove up when the puppies were a few weeks old to pick which one we wanted. We stayed with our good friends Aubrey & Matt on a Friday and then drove to Westmoreland, TN the next morning to meet the breeder and our future pup.

The mommy had 7 puppies total in her litter but only 2 were female. They were SO tiny, only 0.5 pounds each! It was like Sophie's Choice trying to decide...

After a long discussion on which puppy was best for us, we chose this little munchkin. Brian was in love with her from the first minute.

I, too, was instantly obsessed.

Such a cuddlebug

Time to say goodbye. We put Penny back in the crate with her sister. The sister was crying when she was alone in the crate so as soon as we put Penny in with her, she crawled over to her and snuggled on top of her to comfort her. Tell me that's not so adorable?!? We will be back in April to pick our precious puppy up and bring her home :)