Christmas Part I

Christmas with our families starts Christmas Eve with dinner with my mom and sisters and their families. The McHusband also opens his birthday presents from them that night since we don't typically see them on the 26th, and we don't want his birthday to get lost in the shuffle on Christmas.

We had our traditional Stouffer's lasagna - yum! - and hung out with the babies. Lyla had her crack pipe/nebulizer, and Owen was sweet as could be as he was passed from one set of arms to another.

Poor Lyla. She was sick with bronchitis and pneumonia in one lung. In order to loosen up the stuff in her chest, she had to have breathing treatments, which she didn't seem to mind.




























And here she is playing afterward. I believe the expression for the look on her face is "baked."














Owen, with a reindeer on his butt, was full of the Christmas spirit.














Doesn't he look like a little elf with his hat on?














And, of course, my wonderful sisters pawned their kids off on me all night.

Yep, one of these days, I'm gonna have to put a stop to that. But not yet.

McMerry Christmas!!!

(Thanks, Aunt Charlotte, for the inspiration for the name of this post.)

We've had a wonderful Christmas and I have the pictures and even a couple of videos to prove it. However, it's late and I'm tired so I'm going to post a quick poem and call it a night. I promise, I'll have pictures soon.

Jingle Bells (Year of the Baby version)

Jingle bells, diapers smell
Babies everywhere
Lyla's sick and Chase is big
And Owen's got lots of hair.

Jingle bells, diapers smell
Babies everywhere
Oh what fun that first year is
But now we need a drink!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Containment!

This post is a little late - our fence was actually finished on the 12th, but we were so busy painting that I didn't get any pictures that weekend and then it's too dark by the time I get home from work to take pictures. Lucky for you, I remembered to take pictures today.

Here's the fence with the double gate at the end of the driveway. Or is it the beginning of the driveway? The McHusband has grand plans of building a detached garage so it would go on the other side of the double gate.














And here's what we see, from left to right, when we're out on the deck surveying our domain.










































And here're Morgan and Tucker wondering what I'm doing and, more importantly, why they can't be doing it with me.



















The McHusband plans to put in a paver pathway from the deck stairs to the man-gate by the driveway.



















In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm going to add a second picture of the future location of our pathway. See that stack of stuff on the right? That's a Mustang hood and two bathroom mirrors from the old house.



















You know, just in case. You never know when you might need a Mustang hood that fits a model of a car you no longer own and two builder-standard bathroom mirrors.

Toes and tummy time

Let's see, I've done, what, three house posts in a row? I guess I need to throw some baby pictures into the mix, huh?

Lyla has found something new to play with. And it works out great because they're always around and, now that she's found them once, hard to lose.














The McMom (a.k.a. Grammie) was down in SC last week helping out while Jenny went into the office. Here's Chase during some tummy time:














And here he is looking just like his daddy. For those of you know know Kevin - is Chase not the spitting image? Maybe it's just the bald head...














And, finally, here's Chase sleeping on the pillow Grammie left behind. He promised to take good care of it until they bring it back to her next week.



















I don't know, Grammie. If Chase is anything like his Uncle McHusband, he's going to be pretty attached to that pillow and might not be willing to give it back.

Christmas decorations

Wow, is Christmas really only one week away? Where did the year go? Oh yeah, it went to baby showers, visiting babies, moving, babies, painting, babies... Bri, Shannon, and Jenny - can you guys try to coordinate on Baby #2 so that you aren't all due with that one within 4 months of each other? Thanks, 'preciate it.

I decorated differently than usual. Our Christmas tree was "pretty" this year instead of full of all the ornaments we've collected over the years. I think next year that I will get a small and PRE-LIT (emphasis on the pre-lit) tree for our foyer and then I can put our ornaments on that one.

The Christmas tree went in the same place as it did in the old house - in the bay window in the dining room.

Here it is with the lights off:

And here it is using the night setting on the camera:


















I was really excited about my stairs actually having a banister that I could decorate. It's the little things, you know?



























And you guys already saw my Carolers in the pictures of the new paint, but here they are again. Because I know you care.



























Wow, that's not even at all, is it? Note to self: Learn the meaning of "symmetrical" and apply new knowledge to next year's Christmas mantle.

Painted!

Side note: My den and kitchen were almost the same color as the garage floor. We ended up going with a shade lighter than the husband chose for the garge - Nomadic Desert instead of Latte.

Here's the den before and here's the kitchen before.

And here's how they looked once we were done painting:














The hole with my Carolers. Got any ideas for what I should put up there after Christmas?














The view from the kitchen.














The eating area. I'm desperate to get some window treatments up to add some color to both rooms. Once I put the Christmas stuff away, it's going to be pretty blah in there.

See the color inside the arch? That's what color both rooms were. So I know the new paint color isn't too exciting but, contrary to what the McHusband kept saying, it really is noticeably different from what was there before.

And even though it looks really light in this picture (courtesy of the camera's flash), the painted part of the island is the same color as the walls.

The downstairs bathroom and the dining room are probably next, but I don't think we'll get to them this year.

So, Mom, what're you doing mid-January...?

Painting

My mom came up this past weekend (Thank you, Mom!) and helped us paint the kitchen and the den. We chose a pretty boring neutral for the two rooms, but even that little bit of color really helped warm things up and it definitely made all the white moldings pop.

We did the kitchen on Saturday and the den on Sunday.

I think it took us almost as long to tape things off as to actually paint. The McHusband did a great job of taping along the arches and curved corners so that we'd have a nice smooth line of paint at a consistent point on all the walls.



















The McHusband left my mom and I to our own devices most of the afternoon while he did manly man stuff outside, but then it was getting dark and he had no choice but to come inside and pick up a paintbrush. He worked on the island while Tucker kept him company.

My mom is the queen of trimming/cutting in (or whatever you want to call "painting around the edges") so she did that while I rolled.

She was so excited to get back to work Sunday morning that she didn't even change out of her pj's, she just grabbed a paintbrush and got to work. That's the attitude we like to see in our free labor.



















Meanwhile, the McHusband was on hole duty. We have one of those lovely over-the-fireplace TV niches that neither the McHusband nor I are fond of. Since we don't like our TV over the fireplace, we have to figure out what to do with the hole. I'm actually a proponent of just sheetrocking over it, but the McHubby didn't like that idea.

Well, he didn't before he painted the hole; he might be wishing he'd gone with that idea at this point.


























The McHusband's about 6'2" so I wasn't kidding about the hole being big.

After he finished with the hole, the McHusband helped me roll a second coat.













"You missed a spot."


























"Are we done yet?"

Such a good helper!

I was making the guest bed Thursday night and Tucker decided to help. He could see how unruly some of the covers could be so he decided to hold them down for me.

"And stay down!"

Thanksgiving traditions

Most people have some kind of holiday traditions whether they know it or not. From picking out a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving to eating the same array of foods to that uncle who always drinks a little too much and ends up telling inappropriate jokes before dozing off in the easy chair.

Hey, some traditions are better than others. And, as with relatives, you can't always pick 'em.

In McMom's house at Thanksgiving, Jenny and I have another kind of tradition: We scrape the bottoms off of stuff that the McMom burns.

Which would be a lot more interesting if we had one of those aforementioned drunken uncles.

A couple Thanksgivings ago, we scraped the burnt bottoms off Stuffing Balls. The McMom played it safe this year and went with Stovetop. Jenny and I thought we were in the clear, but we were sadly mistaken.

For Thanksgiving '08, it was burnt crescent rolls.

Here we are hard at work with only a minute or two to spare before it was time to eat:














Notice the McMom innocently looking over our shoulders to check on our progress.

And here are the fruits of our labor.














I'll have you know - those suckers were straight out of the oven and they were hot!

Yes, holiday traditions can be very nice things. But not always.

You've heard of mohawks...

My mom captioned this photo, "Oh hawk!"














I swear, I've never seen a baby with such crazy hair. The Jolie-Pitt boys would be jealous of Owen's naturally-occurring mohawk that they seem to work so hard for.

Final 2008 baby

Congratulations to Byron, Lisa, and Melaney on the new addition to their family - Lindsey Elisabeth was born on December 4th and weighed in at 8lbs, 1oz.



















And here's Melaney looking like a very proud big sister. She has no idea what she's in for down the road...



















I think Lindsey wraps up the 2008 babies in our lives. Here's the rundown:
--June: Lyla
--September: Chase
--October: Owen; two sets of neighbors also had babies
--December: Lindsey

Congrats to everyone on their (most-of-the-time) bundles of joy.

A dose of cuteness

Chase says, "RAWRRRRR!"














Lyla says, "I love prunes - gimme more!"

Thanksgiving Part II

I got to spend some time with Chase on Thursday. It's been about a month since we saw him and he grew so much!















After Thanksgiving dinner, the McHusband was on bottle duty.

















Then he and Chase spent some quality time together just hanging out.
















Look at that happy baby.















Brewster, meanwhile, took advantage of everyone being distracted to curl up in a most coveted spot.
















Earlier, Jenny gave Chase a bath that transformed him from a regular baby to a Snowbaby. See for yourself. Chase:

















A Snowbaby:

He doesn't look too thrilled, does he?

And, finally, a family picture.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!