Christmas Again

I can't believe Christmas has come and gone again. It may make me sound old, but it seems like it comes faster each year.

Christmas was a little bittersweet this year. Not only did it occur mere days after my Grandfather's funeral, but everything was so hectic and frazzled that I didn't feel like I could really enjoy the holiday. But time with friends and family should always be cherished.

My family did our traditional Christmas Eve gift exchange at our house this year. I made oyster stew in honor of Grandpa (though I didn't eat any of it - YUCK) and potato soup (which I ate lots of). We had lots of delicious other snacks, too. And of course, there were lots of presents.

Pretty tree and pretty presents.

Eating.

Daddy told the Nativity story before we opened presents.

Present time! Salem slapped some duct tape on her present, just like Grandpa used to.

Go Broncos!

On Christmas Day we had a big dinner at my parents' house, with meat, potatoes, and all the trimmings. Plus some delicious desserts. Then some of us went to see Les Miserables, which was pretty awesome. Anne Hathaway = awesome. Really.

A few very short days after Christmas we were on our way back to Kansas to have Christmas with Matt's family. First, we stopped in El Dorado to see Grandma. Like so many times before, we watched football together, visited about life and family, and ate a delicious meal cooked by my grandmother. But this was the first such occasion without Grandpa, which made the experience bittersweet. It was tough to leave and make our way down to Matt's folks' house, but we were also excited to enjoy time with his family. 

After our family's little gift exchange, we made our plans to wake early in the morning to head down to Oklahoma City for our Christmas celebration with extended family. Sadly, Matt's uncle got ridiculously sick, resulting in the entire event being cancelled. We tried to salvage the day by meeting a cousin at Olive Garden, but the rest of the time was spent watching football and relaxing.

Our last day of our little Christmas trip, was supposed to include a fun gathering of our friends and their beautiful children, but we had some cancellations on that day, too. At least we were still able to see our buddies Dac and Alisha and their new baby, Reid. Baby and friend time was fun! And I was able to give little Reid his Christmas present.

It was a little monster I made! I made one for Ruby (John and Anna's kiddo), too, and I was told she liked it when she opened it at home.

And then, on the first day of the new year, we finally headed home and tried to settle down into normalcy. But, while I can't deny that this holiday season was funky, sad, and stressful, it was also great to see family and friends. 

Happy Birthday, Evie!

One year ago today, baby Evelyn was born.

Aww. A baby.

Last weekend we had a little party to celebrate her first birthday. I'm pretty sure she had no idea what was going on, but I think she had fun anyway.

I made the birthday cakes for the occasion. I made a small cake for her to destroy, and a larger one for the grown-ups to enjoy.

My expert decorating skills. This was Evie's cake. I'm getting pretty awesome with a star tip. Unfortunately, I'm ridiculously awful with any other decorating tip.

Yay parties! Yes, I'm wearing a SpongeBob hat. I really dislike SpongeBob, but I really like silly party hats.

We showered Evie with presents.

She loved this weird blue thing.

Cuddling with Grover.

This is when Mommy and Sissy were helping her open the books Matt and I got her. She was more interested in something under the dog bed. Hopefully, she'll enjoy our gift later, when there's less distraction.

Then it was cake time! As I'm sure you know, it's tradition to let the kiddo tear into her first cake. We layed out the plastic and stripped the baby down to her diaper.

She cried when we sang "Happy Birthday."

Once the cake was in front of her, she was much happier.

She was a little hesitant at first...

...but was quickly diving right in.

Yum. Cake.

The "after" cake. Not very appetizing anymore.

I think Evie enjoyed having everyone dote on her all afternoon. Of course, everyone dotes on her all the time. But this time, she got cake. And everything's better with cake.

Yay for Mommies!

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. For the mothers in my family (my mom and my two sisters) I made my first attempt at paper-crafting and card-making.


I'm pretty proud of what I pulled off. I didn't really have much to work with because a lot of the tools and cute scrap-booking decorations cost a lot of money. So, I cut out all my own letters and decorations by hand with tiny scissors. Very time consuming. Once I get more into this, I'll have to purchase some cool stuff.

We went over to my folks' house today to spend some time with my mom. We had fun hanging out and laughing at the baby. She's getting much better at grabbing and holding on to things.


Salem had way too much fun putting the bottle just out of her reach, so she had to work for it. It was pretty cute.

I think it was a nice, relaxing day for the moms in my family. Hopefully, it was the same for all you moms!!

Crazy, Crazy Thanksgiving Week

What a week! I didn't work much this last week, but I feel like I need a vacation!

This is a random collection of things that happened in the last week.

First, look at my flowers! They opened up and got prettier.

After my sister had the baby on Tuesday, my niece and I went home to made cookies for Thanksgiving.



Wednesday, we found out Evie was in the NICU and wasn't going to be able to go home with my sister. That made Thanksgiving a little bittersweet. It was nice to see the extended family that came out from Kansas, but we really missed the baby.

Because Thanksgiving was my mother's birthday this year, I cooked the dinner! It was pretty crazy! I had a lot of help from my Grandma and Aunt, but I still cooked a lot.



There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, creamy corn, asparagus, sweet potatoes, fruit salad, green salad, and dinner rolls. Plus desserts and snacky-appetizers. But we had 17 people, so we needed a lot of food.


My aunt and uncle stayed at our place over the holiday. It was nice to chat with them a little because we don't see them very often. On Friday night, we went to Australia. The movie, not the country/continent. I wish we went to the country. Maybe I could have found a Hugh Jackman. That would have been cool. Anyway, the movie was really good. A little long, but really good.

On Saturday, there was a nice coating of snow on the ground. It was the first snow of the year that lasted more than a few hours.


It got me in the Christmas mood, so Matt and I put up our little dinky tree and decorated our house.






Evie finally got to go home on Saturday! To give Jess and Chris a little time with her without a six-year-old distraction, Mom and Dad were baby-sitting the big sister over the weekend. But they wanted to go the Avs game on Saturday night, so Matt and I got to hang with her for a bit.


We played Aggravation and watched Enchanted. It was fun getting to spend time with the kid without a ton of other people around. We hadn't baby-sat for her since early this summer. And she was very good, of course.

Sunday, I went down south with Mom and Dad to see the little one. We hadn't gotten to hold her yet because she was in the NICU all week.

She's pretty darn cute.





And today it was back to work. How sad.

That's all.

My Sister Had a Baby!

Today, I thought it would be fun to hang out in the hospital for a while. I'd heard there was something going on with a baby. I guess my sister had one. Whatever, I just went for the uncomfortable chairs and expensive vending machine food.

Just kidding, of course. I was thrilled to visit my sister and meet my newest neice today!

Here we are anxiously awaiting any news.

Unrelated: We ate snacks out of the vending machines. Mine got stuck, but my neice has magic tapping fingers, and she was able to tap the glass until it fell.

Then my brother-in-law showed up. A beautiful baby girl was born! After hours and hours of labor, my sister Jess did fantastic during the delivery. Chris was still a little stunned, but I think he was pretty proud, too.

The two aunts are wanting to see our new neice! This is me and Salem waiting.

And still waiting.

Finally, we got to see her! Proud Mommy. And Grandpa, and Daddy in the background. And there's the beautiful girl!

The pictures are a little dark because I didn't want to flash the poor thing's eyes. But you can get the idea.

Evelyn Lilith I got to go back later in the day so that Matt and my grandparents could see her. She's pretty exhausted at this point. After all, she's had a long day.

Me with my SIXTH neice!