Family Portraits

I waited to post these pictures because we were giving them as Christmas gifts to our parents. We had them made back in October and I just love how they turned out.

Merry Christmas! (Part 2)

We decided to leave Carlsbad just a little earlier than we originally had planned. I decided maybe we shouldn't be on the desolate highway between Carlsbad and Pecos too late in the evening. I figured we could make it to Myrt Myrt's house as everyone was finishing up opening presents. We weren't planning to see everyone until the next morning, so I thought we'd surprise them and show up early.

Well, I forgot that it was Wednesday night, so everyone went to church and they had waited until after church to do all the festivities! So we got there a little after 8:00, just in time to choose a hat from the box of dorky Christmas hats that Myrt Myrt has amassed over the years. If memory serves, this is the first year that mandatory participation has been required.

The men look thrilled, don't they? They really were good sports. They just had to look tough for the pictures. We headed out back for the pinata and Santa showed up just as the kids were collecting all of their candy. In this picture, Daddy was directing Clara to look at the fence where Old Saint Nick was peeking over.


I snagged your picture, Pam. Hope you don't mind :) Daddy was sporting the festive Christmas pimp look. He must've been scraping the bottom of the barrel to get that hat.

Santa is good. He really does know everything. He had gifts for Clara even though he couldn't have possibly known we would be there.

Brody got to meet Santa for the first time and he was really impressed.

Speaking of Brody, we got to meet him for the first time, too. He is just as sweet and content as can be. He never cried once the two days we were there. Linsey said he never cries. He just sits and looks around wherever you happen to stick him.

We stayed in a hotel while in Pecos. Thirteen people (including two 3 month olds) and four dogs makes for a very full house. It was nice to be able to have a retreat at night. Clara even got a nap both days at the hotel. We got up bright and early Christmas morning and headed over to Bia and Pawpaw's house.

Look what Santa brought Clara. A doll with a hat! Just what she asked him for!

She also got a guitar just like Daddy's so she can play Rock Band, too. In fact, all three of the big kids got guitars. Daddy pulled it out of the box for her and I looked over and saw her strumming it, head back, dancing around, just like on the video game.

Grayson felt left out, so Pawpaw found one just her size for her to play with.

Here I am sporting the newest neice and nephew.

And here's the first picture of Bia and Pawpaw with all five of their grandkids.

Tanya and the kids left the day after Christmas to go visit her family. Clara had lots of fun taking care of Brody. She talked to him, held his hand and gave him lots of kisses. She even got to help give him his bottle.
We spent several hours each day over at Myrt's house eating, visiting and passing around babies while the kids played in the backyard. I forgot to mention, Clara got a camera for Christmas also. As of yesterday, she has taken around 450 pictures. I would guess that five or so of them are salvageable. There are lots of pictures of the back of the driver's seat in the car and her feet while sitting in her carseat. She got lots of good pictures of people's necks, too. Their heads, not so much. She is thoroughly enjoying her camera.

We had originally planned to come back today, but decided that a day of rest before Chris goes back to work would be nice, so we got back yesterday evening. Clara just finished her first day of holiday detox. Hopefully she'll be fully functional in a day or two.

Merry Christmas! (Part 1)

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We were able to see both sides of the family. Although traveling to two places makes for an exhausting holiday, I love it! We headed to Nanny's house in Carlsbad last Sunday and were there through Christmas Eve. Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Tim came, too.

We spent a vast majority of the time hanging out at the house, but did manage to venture out to a restaurant now and again and we drove around looking at Christmas lights one night. We let Clara open her Christmas gift from us a little early so she would have something to play with before Christmas. We gave her a set of wooden blocks and she had a great time with them. She built lots of towers with Grandpa and Daddy and had loads of fun knocking over Mommy's towers.

Clara helped Grandma make cinnamon bread for Christmas Eve morning. Cinnamon bread for Christmas breakfast has been a family tradition for many years, but this year it would be eaten on Christmas Eve instead. It's a yummy tradition.

Grandpa read her Christmas stories before bed each night.

We had Christmas a day early because we would be heading to Pecos that night. I guess I didn't take many pictures of the festivities. Clara was so patient that morning. When it was time to open presents, she went and got them from under the tree and delivered them to the right person. Even after she opened her first present, she still took the time to deliver gifts and watch others open theirs. She's such a sweetie. She got this tunnel and tent set from Grandma and Grandpa. She crawled through it all day and had fun for a long time with Uncle Tim as he let the tunnel pop up around her. Over and over and over.

Dan got Apples to Apples for Christmas, so we played a few rounds. (In case anyone's paying attention, yes, we have the wrong color cards in our hands.) We played the first round wrong. It's much funnier when you play it the right way. Clara even played and she won a couple of hands.

We had Christmas dinner around 3:00 that afternoon. Clara put on her red velvet Christmas dress that Nanny gave her for her birthday. We put a Christmas movie on for Clara as we cleaned up from dinner and got the car packed and later walked in to find her sound asleep. She was pooped from all the fun.

All Aboard!

We went to Chipotle tonight with Glenn and Becky. We've been wanting to take the girls on the trolley and thought tonight would be a great night, so we waited for it at Market Street. When it showed up, the driver said he was only going to the mall and not a round trip since it was the end of the night. We decided to do it anyway and just walk back. The girls had a blast being able to ride without seatbelts.

We made a stop in the new gourmet grocery store, (forgot the name), since Chris and I hadn't been there yet. They had lots of unique stuff there.

"One baby please."

"Ooooh, that looks good. I'll have one, too."

Clara the Red Nosed Reindeer

Clara's Christmas dance recital was last night and her class danced to Rudolph. They were pretty cute in their antlers and red noses. Once they were in their spots just waiting for the music to start, Clara threw her arms in the air and shouted "Look at me!"

She mostly watched her feet and the other girls the whole time and didn't concern herself with actually dancing to the song like she's practiced for months now. Oh well.

This was taken earlier in the day over at Jessica's house. All of us girls fashioned beautiful play-doh nails for ourselves.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Clara has a sinus infection. The doctor did a snot swab at her appointment and sure enough. Poor thing. Hopefully she won't be such a cranky pants once we get it knocked out.

My Hero

I stumbled across this mom's blog a couple of weeks ago and she cracks me up. I can only hope to be as awesome a mom as she is when Clara gets older. You've got to read today's post. Pure genius.

Gingerbread 'Burbs

We hosted a gingerbread house building party this evening and it was a rousing success. Some of us realllly got into it. We decided to invite friends from different circles, so none of the invites knew each other. We had Glenn and Becky, Brynn (Chris' co-worker) and her husband Robert, and Jim (Chris' old co-worker) and his wife Sherry over. The latter two couples had never done a gingerbread house, but you'd never know it by looking at their creations.

Chris made eggnog. I made hot apple cider and apple dumplings and they turned out ok. It was the first time I had made them, so I didn't know what to expect. There was some smoke coming from the oven when the drizzle started dripping, so I wasn't expecting that. Leah came to me and asked if we were having smore's.



Brynn got a little excited about the decorating. She had icing in her hair. I thought we were going to have to pry the icing bag out of her hand, but eventually she ran out.

This is only half the mess. Well, I guess that's not entirely true; Brynn was at this table.

Growing Like a Weed

Clara had her three year check up yesterday. She is 32.5 pounds (50%) and 40 1/4 inches tall (97%). She and Samantha got 3 suckers each during the exam. Clara was very uncooperative for the eye exam, so she was bribed with one then. And then she got her nose swabbed (twice I might add); she no likey that so she got another. We did a swab to hopefully find out what's been causing her to wake almost every night from a coughing fit since September. Her third sucker came after her shot. She did awesome with the shot though. I had to hold her down, but as soon as it was over, she was all smiles.

In the car ride home, Clara told me she was tired. The child would never in her right mind say that. I figured she wasn't feeling great after all that excitement, so we took it easy the rest of the afternoon.

She had dance class that evening. I stopped in the dollar store next door to the studio to get her some hairbands since I forgot to bring some. She was standing in line in her tap shoes, leotard and leg warmers being cute and all and the man in front of us kept looking at her smiling and talking to her. When he started checking out, he took the hairbands from Clara and said, "These are on me. You are just too cute." Score! From now on, I'm taking her everywhere in her dance getup. She has to have the leg warmers though. They make the outfit.

After dance class, I got home and had to quickly get ready to go to my young wives thing. As I was about to walk out, Clara had an accident because she couldn't get her leotard off. Oops. Sorry, sweetie. Gotta run. Have a fun night! Chris had pee soaked tights and an impromptu bath time. I had a nice dinner, conversation and a cookie exchange.

Speaking of accidents, Clara has had five of them since turning three. I'm not liking three too much right now. This morning she pooped in her pants. And then peed a little while later. I'm thinking that she doesn't want to stop playing long enough to go now that there's someone to play with. And there may be a hint of jealousy from having a new kid in the house.

Clara's had a slight cold these last few days, along with Samantha. They've had a cough and runny nose. Today Clara's cheeks were all red, so I put some lotion on them. Then I realized Samantha's were red also. Clara was crabby and clingy all afternoon. She cried halfway to Natalie's school before falling asleep. When the teacher opened the door to let Natalie in, Clara shot up, eyes wide, snot dripping, screaming and crying. The teacher felt sooo bad. She whined when we went over to their house too. Today has been loads of fun.

I was really hoping it wasn't Fifth's Disease, so I mentioned it to Jessica and she said Samantha's looked like eczema. I figured that's what Clara's was at first before she started acting sick, but I didn't know Samantha had it too. I guess it was just a coincidence they had dry, red cheeks on the same day. Clara's feeling better this evening. This was definitely a day I was wishing we could all just take a nap!

Baby's First Snow

It only took three years and two days for Clara to see snow for the first time.

Clara is 3!!!

Yesterday was Clara's birthday. When she woke up, I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said "Go see Daddy", so she got to have a lunch date with Daddy. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but Samantha's mom is actually Chris' co-worker, so Samantha got to have lunch with Mommy too.

We had a little party at home last night. I had lots of fun making stuff for her big day. I made the invitations, cake, dress and party hat. She loved her panda party. She's been telling folks for weeks now that she's going to have a panda party. She told me her favorite part of her party was her panda cake. She got to pick the flavor. Rainbow sprinkle flavored of course.

After I made her dress, I remembered that my mom made me a pink gingham outfit for my 3rd birthday as well. She outdid me though. For my birthday, she made me a Kelsey sized rag doll with yellow yarn pigtails just like mine and a matching outfit. I'm not quite that crafty.