Lucy's 1st Christmas

Merry Christmas, Sleepy Head!

Lucy and her cousin Christi.

She likes those rings!!

Daddy LOVES his baby girl!

My dad was a good boy this year!

"Daddy is a good helper!"

"Hi, mom!"

"I'll put these two teeth to good use!"

Lulu with Daddy's sock hat present and sweet Aunt Cathy.

Lucy's cousin Caroline

Sweet Caroline giving Lucy her bottle.

"Is that big present for me?"

Lucy was a quick learner.

"Push up" break. Lucy loves to do this and has incorporated it with her crawling.

Happy camper! My siter Debi and her family got Lucy a wonderful gift! Lucy loves it and I was excited, too!

More Lulu and Caroline!

The three of us (after I had shopped all day). I can't believe I didn't break the camera.

We are Tennesseeans again...

We left Dallas Thursday the 18th and arrived at my parents home on the 19th. For those of you who do not know, we will be living with my parents for the entirety of John's eight month rotation. They live about 25 miles North of Nashville in Hendersonvile, TN. It has been nice to be close to them and see Lucy interact with her grandparents. Also, my dad has Parkinson's and it feels good for John and I to help out where we can.

Our other big news is that we got an offer on the house 2 days before we were to move! Praise the Lord! We were able to work out all the details and will close on the 31st. Sweet John is driving back to Dallas tonight to oversee the packing and moving. To make matters worse we all have a terrible stomach bug. Even little Lucy was sick last night. John still feels lousy today and is traveling with a small trash can beside him. :( He is such a trooper!

Going Away Party

We hosted a get together a couple of weeks ago to say goodbye to our Dallas friends. We had a nice time and miss everyone so much already.

Lucy being her typical sweet self.

Dearest of all friends: Malen, Lauren, Stephanie, Ladelle and Holly

New piano

Lucy's sweet Grammy (John's mom) sent her this piano before the move. Lucy absolutely loves it. She breaks into a wide smile whevever she hits the keys.


Grammy also got Lucy's these "shades" so we had an Elton John moment.

Santa Visit

Lucy visited with Santa today. I was excited to see her in his lap as I thought of all the Christmases we still have to share. I held her close tonight and was happy thinking that she is all mine and we will be together for a long time! Ebby Halliday (our realty company) had an open house today and Santa was played by one of their agents. Lucy wasn't crazy about Santa. I think she would have been a lot happier had she been able to nap today (we had three showings so were out of the house most of the day). It was so nice to avoid the long lines at the mall. After Santa time we had some refreshments and Lucy got some exercise crawling along the floor.



She was happy to finally be out of a lap.

Can't you tell she is up to no good?

Here is our family. Poor John was feeling terrible. He drove last night to Shreveport to meet our dear friend Jay. Jay has wonderfully decided to take Elvis for us. John was so tired from the 6 hour round trip and has an awful cold. He was such a trooper today.

Mobile baby, Thanksgiving weekend, MeMe Niemann and move thoughts

Good morning! It is very early on my birthday morning and I can't sleep. I woke up around 3:45 to give Lu her medicine (she has another ear infection) and have been hit by a wave of sadness regarding our move. There are just so many goodbye's I'll have to say over the next few weeks and I am not looking forward to it. In addition to all my dear friends, I will miss my house and I can't believe I will be saying goodbye to our dogs. I still wonder how I will ever be okay with giving them up. John is taking Elvis this weekend to our friend Jay and I keep thinking how this is my last Monday, etc. with him.

This move is just so much harder than any other we have ever done. I am really leaning so heavily on the Lord to sustain me right now. If you have any encouraging words I could really use them. I keep questioning if this is the right decision and it doesn't matter anymore because the decision has been made. A dear friend recently reminded me that our emotions often cloud things. I am feeling that right now.

We spent a nice weekend in Nacogdoches with John's parents. It was nice to be away from the house and the worries of keeping it show ready. We took lots and lots of pictures of course! And John's sweet MeMe (his dad's mom) celebrated her 95th birthday yesterday. Her wonderful church hosted a reception in her honor and it was such a joy to be able to celebrate that milestone with her.

Four generations of Niemann gals!

Lucy wore her pretty Christmas dress that I pray will still fit her at Christmas!


Lucy was so tired from all the partying!

We think she is so cute when she is sleeping hard like this!

While we were there daddy got some new boots. Lucy had to try them on.


She had some lap time with Grampy.


And Grammy, too.

We are so sad to be moving so far away from them.

Lucy got a cute new shirt that we had to take some fun pics in.


Lucy is such a joy to us! She is so happy. She sat through the church service yesterday and did very well. She loves paper so the bulletin kept her entertained most of the service. At MeMe's reception she giggled and smiled the entire time.

Oh, and I almost forgot out HUGE news! Lucy is now mobile! I noticed she was super close to crawling so on Thanksgiving morning I put her down on her rug and placed a toy far away from her. Sure enough she crawled all the way over to it. When we got to Nac later that evening I put her down again and she crawled all the way across the room. She has been on the go (slowly) ever since. She looks so funny because she stops often to do what looks like a push up/yoga pose, crawls a little more then stretches out one of her back legs like she has a cramp. It is so cute!