Lauren and her baby

Lately Lauren has grown very attached to her Madame Alexander doll that Aunt Anne gave her for Christmas last year. Although she has always played with her, she now has to take her everywhere and she get's very concerned when she can't find her. However, I think the funniest part are her conversations with "baby." They usually go something like this (the translations are also listed in case you don't speak Lauren).

"Baby help! Come on baby...hand..." -- she is trying to take her sock off and since I was driving, she enlisted her doll to help her.


"Cap baby hands...pat cake, pat cake...sing mamma..." -- she wanted her baby to clap her hands and do pat-a-cake.


"I Hog baby. Give baby sisses" -- I hug baby. I give baby kisses.


"High fife baby." -- High five baby.

Anyway, it's very cute and very funny so here's a video of Lauren jibber-jabbering to her doll.


Lauren and her baby

C-R-A-S-H-E-D

So my laptop died. Please pause briefly for a moment of silence.........

The hard drive had to be replaced and therefore I lost everything that was not backed up, which is about three to four months of photos. I guess it could have been worse. I could have lost the last two and a half years, because that's how long I've had the computer. However, since Patrick got me an external hard drive for Christmas last year, I only lost the stuff that I had not backed up.

The problem is I wasn't too good at backing up and I'm really not sure why. The external drive is literally right next to me and the laptop. I don't even have to get up. I just have to plug it in. URGH!!!

I did learn two valuable lessons from this whole episode:
1. Don't search for blog layouts from Web sites you don't know. That's how you get viruses.
2. Back up nightly.

I should have my laptop back on Monday complete with a new hard drive and anything the computer geeks could salvage. Fingers crossed they can save my pictures.

Now go back up!

Lauren's Second Christmas

I must confess, I started this post a week or so ago, but I never finished it.

So to catch everyone up on Lauren's second Christmas here are the highlights. However, before I begin I must remind everyone that last year she was only 10 months old so she didn't really grasp the whole present concept. This year she's almost two so she understands somewhat. Also last year she was just getting over being sick and Patrick and I were still pretty bad off. So this year we were all well, which added to the festivities.

Christmas officially began as it always does, with everyone gathering at Maw Maw and Paw Paw's house for Christmas Eve. Patrick, Lauren and I got into town around 10 a.m. and we hung out at mom and dad's house for awhile. We went to early Mass at OLS and then over to the great-grandparent's house.

Here is an aerial shot of the chaos that we call present opening


I knew we would be over there pretty late so Lauren attended the event in jammies. They were Christmas themed so it was okay. I was right we were there until about 9 p.m. (10 p.m. Columbus time). We then took our tired infant home and deposited her in her crib. After which, Patrick, Jeff, Holly and I exchanged presents with each other and gave gifts to mom and dad. We always do this on Christmas Eve night. We then hit the hay so a jolly, fat man could make his appearance.

And make an appearance he did. There are only two words to describe the amount of stuff Lauren received this year and those two words are GOOD LORD! Okay, to be fair I should clarify that this Toys R' Us annex is a collection of stuff from me and Patrick, mom and dad, Jeff and holly -- not sure that helps, but whatever.

Lauren enjoyed all of her gifts, but she particularly liked her new books...

...and puzzles...

...and of course...her bus :)

After our traditional Christmas brunch with Maw Maw, Paw Paw and Uncle Nat it was time to head over to Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Charles' house for a Henderson Family Christmas.

Here are Lauren and Dadda enjoying the yummy strawberry cake from Ashley Mac's Bakery -- we are TOTALLY getting that cake for Lauren's b-day party.

In the days following Christmas we traveled to Pell City a couple of times to see Mark, Candacey, Abbey and Emma, as well as Mary and Steve. Lauren commandeered Emma's swing on both visits and she was NOT happy when she had to vacate it.

During our stay in B'ham I took some time to locate all of the original Little People Jeff and Holly played with as kids. Lauren seemed to like them, even though the Little People have gotten quite larger over the years.

We rang in the new year at Aunt Da's party and decided to head back to Columbus the next day. We arrived back home just time to watch Alabama face Utah in the Sugar Bowl, I'm still not sure that the was the same Bama team that went undefeated during the regular season.

Well that about sums up our 2008 holiday season. So sorry it took so long to update. One of my goals this year is to update this thing a couple of times a week. We'll see. Happy New Year!

Pardon our Progress

>>> I'm trying out a new layout and color scheme <<<