Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

We had a WONDERFUL Holiday and hope everyone had a super duper time as well!

Like Thanksgiving, I haven't edited the at all .... so view at your own risk - HA!http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=36641199490461106/l=343042765/g=7281183/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

We've had the cruddies at our house, but here is a semi-Christmas post .... finally.

Christmas was GREAT - really great.
We really enjoy having everyone together. I know Emily really enjoys having everyone here!

Christmas Eve started with Nana and Grandfather coming over with some window clings (Santa eventually melted, but he stayed up for a little over a week!)
Me Me, Paw Paw and Austen came next. Me Me and Paw Paw's truck was loaded down like Santa himself stopped off at their house before they left Winnie!
We had our standard Mexican Christmas Eve meal (Tamales, Chili, Spanish Rice, Beans, Queso, and Guacamole .... Yummy!)
We opened some gifts (Thank you EVERYONE .... wow, we were spoiled!!!) and visited.
We tried to go see Christmas lights, but didn't find too many.
When we came home we had Christmas punch (Big Red and frozen pineapple juice!) and probably opened more gifts (but I can't remember for sure!)

We went to bed late and waited for Santa!

Santa brought Emily a camera and Elliot a ball toy (and ate a plate full of cookies .. I think he's still full!)

Christmas Day brought two rounds of present opening.
First the ones we didn't open on Christmas Eve with Me Me, Paw Paw and Austen and then ones with Chris, Trina, Marshall, Lynda, Cody and Amy (Thank you for all the goodies .... again we were spoiled!!!).
Emily and Elliot were in total present over-load. Emily helped everyone open their presents and Elliot just ate the wrapping paper!

Christmas we had a yummy Ham, (the chicken caught on fire ... so no chicken) green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, potatoes o'brien, cold broccoli salad and a poor attempt at jail house rolls.

After we ate and ate and ate we visited some more.

Elliot was sick and Me Me and Austen were sneezing from their cat allergies (sorry guys!!!), but we were happy to have everyone here!

Emily and Wayne had MORE presents to open in San Antonio on Saturday. Unfortunately Elliot and I didn't get to go because his cold turned into a double ear infection (OWCH!!) but Emily helped us open our gifts when they got home - once again we were completely spoiled!

Thank you again to everyone! I still can't believe it's 2008!!!

PS - our house is completely over-run with toys now - HA

Babies with double ear infections are not happy babies!

Elliot has been congested since the Saturday before Christmas - poor baby.
Since the infant cold medicine recall, there is NOTHING left to give a baby with a nasty snotty, phelmy cough. The only thing we can do for him is turn on the humidifier, spread on the Baby Vick's and pray it passes quickly.

When the snot decides to hang around for too long it collects in little baby ears and will eventually turn into an ear infection. Yesterday when he started pulling on his ears we figured it was time to take a trip to the doctor's office (after going to Walgreen's and begging the pharmacist to "un-recall" the OTC stuff). We took him over to Urgent Care (our regular doc is on vacation and her back up was booked) and found out he has a double ear infection .... siiiigh. The doc took a look in his ear and said "Ouch, he has an infection in there" then he looked in the second ear he said "oh my, this one is worse" .... poor bug!

He's a trooper, but he's not eating or sleeping well so we know he feels icky. And no sleep for baby = no sleep for mommy and daddy = cranky baby AND parents ... HA!

Amoxicillin here we come ...

Caitlyn and Elliot

Hey pretty lady ...

Too cute!
Ummm, that's my car ...

Bath Time!

Elliot loves bathtime! He hasn't figured out exactly what the wash cloth is for ... is it for cleaning, is it for eating?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ....

I am going to pretend I am Emily and say very excitedly ... "Only 5 days until Christmas!!!"

WOW!

Emily = Karaoke Star!

And coming to a town near you ..... Emily ..... Karaoke Star!

Trina and Chris have Jack's Karaoke equipment set up in the garage ..... Emily thinks it's pretty cool!

Emily's Christmas Program

Good Shepherd did their Child Led Worship last week. It was super cute! A little like herding cats, but still super cute. If I can ever figure out how to put the video onto the computer and upload it here, I will.

I haven't figured out how to put pictures side by side instead of straight down - hmmmm, if I had more time in the day, I MIGHT be able to figure out all this technical stuff!

Me Me, Paw Paw and Aunt Franny were able to come down for the "show".
Emily was funny - Franny had to take a cranky Elliot outside so he wouldn't disturb everyone and Emily's first comment after was "I didn't see Franny while I was singing - where was she?"
She's a mess!

Emily feeding Moses after the program

Sooo cute!
Em with Me Me and Paw Paw before the show

Trying to "pet" the Reindeer
In front of the GSL tree!
The girls before
The girls again after

Our trip to see The Nutcracker

On December 2nd Emily and I took Trina to see The Nutcracker!
Emily did really well and enjoyed watching all the dancers!
Believe or not, she didn't start getting antsy until close to the end.

When asked what her favorite parts were she says:
1) when the girls were dancing with their dolls
2) when the "real" wind-up dolls were dancing
* She kept asking "mommy, are those dolls REAL or FAKE?"
3) seeing Blake from school two rows in front of us

It was beautiful and I recommend everyone go see it at least once.
I think we might try to go see the Houston Ballet production next time!

Favorite SeaWorld Picture

Our scanner is still weird, but I found a work around ... HA!
Here is Emily, Nana and Grandfather as they are starting down the log ride!

Santa knows if you've been bad or good!

We didn't think Emily would sit on Santa's lap, but she warmed up to him after awhile.
Santa told her she was on the "Good List" and she's been reminding us all day ....
"Santa said I was on the Good List ... and I reply "Can I call him next time you are "bad"?"

Picture People Pictures

We took pictures at Picture People on December 1st.
Enjoy!!




The last picture cracks me up ... we told Emily all through the session to "look at the camera, not the babies" ... so when Elliot started falling over she did what we told her ... never took her eyes off the camera, but look at her face - HA!