Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful Christmas at home with just the 3.5 of us, plus 2 anxious dogs and a cat who could care less. Audrey woke up at 7:15 Christmas morning and said, "we need to go downstairs, I think there are more presents under the tree." She was so excited and produced all the oohs, aahs, and "oh boys" we could have hoped for. (It's on video but we have not gotten around to that yet). The big gifts this year were the Tinkerbell tent, the nursery care center and baby boy doll and the bookcase (who cares about that, right). Jeff and I and the puppies all opened our gifts and enjoyed ourselves as well. We had Christmas dinner that late afternoon, which was followed by red velvet Happy Birthday Jesus cupcakes. The best part (for Mom and Dad) was the morning after when a normally early riser woke up singing and went right into her playroom where she played contently with her new toys for 3 and a half hours. We slept in. Yes!

Making cookies for Santa

Quality control
The tree before Santa visited
Santa ate most of the cookies and the reindeer feasted on carrots
Cinderella in the Tinkerbell tent
Feeding her new baby
Trying on some of Great Grandma Mac's gifts
Hannah Montana wig from Yaya
Murphy is exhausted after playing with his new toy

High Five!

This morning while I was lying in bed Audrey had her hand on my belly and felt the baby kick. She said, "Mommy, baby Ben gave me a high five!" How cute. We also got to go to the Dr. today to see more pictures of the baby. Audrey was very excited, and of course we were too. The baby now weighs 2.5 pounds and is supposedly in the 65th percentile for size. Everything looks good. Here are some pictures from the visit.

Rain on my Parade

No rain today...that was ALL last week. However, that did not stop Audrey from going outside in her rain coat and new Little Pony umbrella ($1.50 special at the consignment store) and pretending it was raining. I told her it wasn't going to rain today and she seemed ok with pretending that it was raining. It is apparent that she changed her mind and decided that pretend rain just was not much fun to play in as real rain.

The face of disappointment.

26 Weeks and 1 day....

and feeling like I have a little too much in common with Santa this Christmas. Give me a hat and a sack full of presents and we might be mistaken for one another. I really feel like I have grown considerably in the past 3 weeks or so. I'm definitely as big at 26 weeks this time as I was at 32 or 33 weeks or more with Audrey. Se la vi.

Easy like Sunday morning.

Audrey was showing Murphy some Christmas love this morning as we got ready for church. Murphy is such a glutton for punishment, er, I mean such a lover. You may notice that there are never any pictures of Ridley and Audrey. That's because Ridley has become wise in his middle age and realizes that children are way too high maintenance for him. He's usually lounging in the living room where he endures plenty of torture (love) from Audrey as well. He just never goes looking for it. Murphy, a mere child himself, has to be in the middle of everything!

Busy Bees

That's what we have been the last few days. This holiday season has crept up on us and has been very busy the past few days. We had 2 holiday parties yesterday and a birthday party today. We had a great time at all of them. (Despite that Audrey is 3 now and her listening skills are starting to be very selective). Today was a fun gymnastics party and I managed to snag several pictures of it. Happy birthday Lily! Thanks for having us, Audrey had a wonderful time.

the Birthday Girl blowing out her candles

Jumping on the trampoline
Monkeying around
More monkeying

Christmas Program

This week Audrey has her pre-school Christmas program and a Happy Birthday Jesus party. What fun! Audrey reaffirmed the fact the she is a total ham for audiences and for cameras. She danced and hopped and waved around as much as possible until it was time to start. The 2 year old class sang 2 songs and then we watched the 4 year olds act out the Christmas story. They all did a great job and we enjoyed watching them very much! I just hope I don't have to make one of those sheep costumes when Audrey is in the 4 year old class.

Waving to Mommy and Daddy
Bouncing around the get warmed up.
Prayerfully considering the words to the next song?

Audrey and Mommy watching the 4 year olds.

Two Good Pictures

Here are two pictures I thought I'd share. One is Jeff and I at this year's company Christmas party, and the other is one I snapped of Audrey while she was singing Twinkle, Twinkle. I thought it was pretty cute.

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

Ok, so it's not rubber, or a baby buggy bumper, but it is the new crib bumper for Baby Ben's room. My mom had the task of recovering Audrey's crib bumper in some new fabric and I just received some proof that it turned out great! Thanks to Aunt Barb for helping Mom out. I know you two get a little silly when you're together, but looks like you stayed on task. Looks great!

Week 25

Here's a picture of week 25 of this pregnancy. It looks a lot like week 24, but several people have told me that I looked a lot bigger this week than I did the week before. I'd like to thank the color black and Gap Maternity for their generous sizing and allowing me to still think that I am an XS.

Twinkle, Twinkle

I have a feeling this might be a preview of the pre-school Christmas program coming up this week.
Enjoy.

Ho ho ho.

It's Santa again! That man really gets around. The first Santa visit was very impromptu and this 2nd was planned as he was the same guy (of course it's the same guy, there's only ONE Santa) we've seen for the past 3 years. It worked out though because Audrey told us that she forgot to tell Santa some of the things she wanted. Audrey wanted to make sure we went "together as a family" so we had to go on a Sunday and were not the only ones who had that idea that day. This is the first year Audrey was not crying and/or afraid of the jolly old man. Jeff almost ruined everything though as he accidentally hit Audrey in the head with the camera just a few short minutes before it was our turn. Thank goodness Mommy keeps emergency candy in her bag!!!

All smiles with Santa

Playing with the Polar Express gadgets as we waited in line.

Furry Friend

Who needs one of those life sized stuffed dogs that barks and wags its tail when you've got a plush pal like Murphy? Here's a typical day for Murphy and Audrey...

Christmas Fun

Yesterday the family, including Yaya and Pop headed downtown to some Christmas festivities. We missed the parade, but did have fun at the town hall making crafts and seeing Santa. This is the first year Audrey has not been afraid of Santa. She was a little nervous but was dead set on telling him what she wanted for Christmas. She did great and Santa was very nice! One the way home I fielded dozens of questions about exactly how Santa came down the chimney, why he used the chimney instead of the doors or windows, how he got back up the chimney, where the reindeer were when he was in the chimney and how he did all of this without waking any of us up. She's tricky, this little one.

Getting her face painted.
Cutting string for her ornament.
My name is Audrey, and....
I want a My Little Pony and...
a black and white soccer ball.

The Ghosts of Christmas (cards) past....

Now that our Christmas cards are out I thought I'd compile all of our Christmas card pictures through the years. I am missing one- but I know I'll find it in the next few days. Until then, please enjoy the pics from days of yore and yesteryear.

2008

2007
2007- 1st runner up. I thought the picture of Audrey was cuter than the sum of us combined in the family picture.
2006
2005 (There was no official Christmas card this year, but a birth announcement instead)
2004
2003
2002 (MIA)

2001

2000

You asked for it....

So here it is. A belly pic. This is also a new haircut debut pic all rolled into one. This is 24 weeks on the dot with baby boy House.

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

Christmas. And when I say beginning, I really mean it. We're not all the way there yet with decorating. I can't get into the attic to get all the decorations down and we can't find some of them since we moved during Christmas last year. We did manage to get the tree down and get a few things up and out. Audrey is VERY excited about Christmas this year. She gets the whole Santa thing and was very helpful and eager to put the decorations on the tree and is listening to Christmas music all day long. It think this year is going to be a lot of fun come Christmas morning.

Yay! We're going to decorate the tree!!! Audrey was afraid I was going to decorate the tree without her last night, so she kept getting out of bed to ask what I was doing. At 5:30 this morning she came in and said, "it's morning time, let's decorate the tree!"

One if my favorite Christmas decorations is a Nativity set that my mom made. Two years ago Ridley ate one of the sheep. Hopefully it will be intact this year.