Christmas 2009

It was a quiet Christmas with just Scott, Peter, and I, but we really enjoyed relaxing. In fact, we had frozen pizza on Christmas Eve and spaghetti and bread sticks on Christmas day. I am thinking that easy meals are going to be a Christmas tradition for us since I am not very passionate about cooking. Maybe we will institute a traditional dessert on Christmas Eve next year.

We all began the morning by sleeping in until almost 10 a.m. (Peter is the best sleeper :)! As we wandered downstairs, Peter took one look at the presents under the tree and his tent, turned around, and ran to the computer. He then turned it on and started talking about "bu bu's" (buttons) and "CC's" (CD's). We had to coax him back into the other room by telling him the lights on the tree needed to be plugged into the outlet. Finally, he became interested in the presents when we showed him how to rip the paper off; he enjoys and is good at destruction. He really liked the toys, but the treats are really what got his attention. Every two seconds during unwrapping, he was begging for treats. Here are the pictures:

Most of my Christmas present was getting a budget to buy some things to hang on the walls. Here are my boys on Christmas Eve posing beneath the first official picture hung in the house. It is about time after living here for six months.

Thank you my sweet hubby for staying up late on Christmas Eve to hang things up!

This is what it looked like after Santa stopped by.

Peter's favorite toys, so far, include an electronic alphabet book/game, his tent, and a battery operated toy drill and flashlight. Here is my cute little handyman in training.

I guess this little handyman needs a lot more training. Drilling into his ear is probably not the greatest idea.

Scott was so enamored with the flash and zoom lens he got for the camera that he did not notice Peter trying to play with a CC while he documented it with a picture.
Our stockings look just like a Santa hat we have, so Peter just assumed it was a hat as well.

I decided to document my growing belly.
Eight weeks until Rigby's ETA!
Knock on wood before I type this next part. I am feeling really good about this pregnancy compared to my pregnancy with Peter. I have gained less weight, hardly any water retention so far, and minimal acne. Hopefully it continues to go so well.

I love this picture of my boys and their power tools. It is so cute to watch Peter go around the house with his drill and flashlight imitating what he has seen Scott do.

Happy New Year everyone!

Our First Christmas Tree

We purchased our first official Christmas tree this year. For the past four years we have been using this little thing that I bought years ago:


This is the first year we are spending Christmas without family, so we decided a larger and more festive Christmas tree was in order:


I really had my heart set on a formally decorated tree, but I have decided that a "hodge-podge tree" (as I call it) has more character and will be more meaningful and fun for our family throughout the years. We have not collected many ornaments yet, so we just purchased some candy canes and glittery snowflakes to fill the tree out.

Peter is absolutely in love with the tree. I told him the candy canes were to stay on the tree and they were just plastic and not treats. However, he saw through my ridiculous bluff and keeps sneaking treats; the candy canes are now on the upper half of the tree. Although, what is even more exciting for him are the lights. No matter how many times he gets in trouble-spanking, time out, lecture-he CANNOT stop plugging and unplugging the lights. I am not even going to attempt putting gifts under the tree because I know it will just be another battle with my curious little boy. Seeing his fascination with plugs, outlets, buttons, electronics, etc. makes me curious to see what he will choose as a future career.

Peter's new favorite activity:

I love it when he sits still and snuggles with me.

Snow in Houston

Yep! You read correctly. This past week we had snow in Houston that actually stuck!!! It melted by the next day, but people here were quite enamored. Schools shut down early, police were directing traffic all over the place, social functions were canceled, and Scott even came home from work early. The main concern was having icy road conditions because people here are not accustomed to driving on ice. Being from a state that gets plenty of snow and ice, I was very amused by people's reactions.

But, since it is so rare, I decided that Peter and I could not pass up an opportunity to go play in the snow and document it with pictures:

Isn't he cute in his little winter gear? Well, as much winter gear as someone in Houston owns.

Here he is throwing a tantrum because I would not let him press buttons on the camera.
Life is tough.

Here are some recent miscellaneous pictures of Peter:

Peter's attempt at applying mascara.

Peter wearing Daddy's sweat shirt.

These cute pictures were taken by Debra at Thanksgiving. Thank you Debra!

Thanksgiving

I know this post is a little late but Peter decided to bring home a nasty bug from nursery and share it with Scott and I right before Thanksgiving. So, we have all been groggy and lazy for the past couple of weeks. Well, better late than never-right?!

We were able to spend Thanksgiving with Seth, Debra, and Sofie who traveled up from the Rio Grande Valley (south Texas near the border with Mexico). Seth and I are childhood friends. We were glad they could come visit because it was much more fun than just the three of us. Also, cooking is not my passion nor my forte, so I appreciated the help.

This is me looking disheveled while cooking the pumpkin chiffon pie. I thought I would put this picture up, not because I wanted to show my lovely 7 month pregnancy physique, but because I wanted to show my poison oak arms for future remembrance.

I promise it looked worse in person. Every time I see this picture I start to itch and have a renewed desire to avoid poison oak at ALL COSTS.

Our table of yummy food-minus the pie, cranberry sauce, and gravy. I felt like we had prepared a million dishes, but this picture shows a rather slim selection. Oh well, it was the first official Thanksgiving without any other family for all of us, and I think we did a decent job.

Peter enjoying the feast. He made a royal mess!

Do you think he could open up his mouth any wider?

Seth feeding cute little Sofie pumpkin chiffon pie.

Sorry no pictures of our photographers, Scott and Debra. I really wish we could have had a group picture taken, but things were really crazy. By the way, I really, really, really appreciate my family's hard work from previous Thanksgivings. This meal wiped me out for days! I think I am done cooking for the rest of the year-sorry my poor boys.