Merry Christmas!

Guess I'd better record about our Christmas before the memory gets swallowed up in pregnancy brain and is lost forever! :)

Well, our Christmas day was wonderful! We got up around 7:30 and even made it up before Eli did. That gave us just enough time to get dressed and for me to get the camera ready before he was awake and coming down the stairs.

The funniest part of the day -- the night before we had let Eli open a couple of presents, one of which was a new Wonder Pets DVD. We told him he could watch it the next day because it was too late that night. Well, wouldn't you know it, the one thing on his mind when he came down the stairs was that movie. He wanted nothing to do with the presents all laid out on the couch or the milk and cookies that Santa had left! He was only thinking of the Wonder Pets and he only wanted to watch that movie. We couldn't persuade him to even open gifts until it was turned on in the background. Hilarious.

We had such a fun morning, our first little family Christmas in our new house. Nathan and I opened presents and Eli finally came around and opened his. Then we made breakfast and just spent some good quality time together as a family. You can see by the photo that we obviously don't do anything lavish. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

We also got some good stuff! :) I was lucky enough to get a Bind-It-All for doing my own homemade scrapbook albums, and Nathan got a season of House and a book about the history of the world. Those were big hits. Eli was not spoiled, thankfully (that came later and Grandma and PawPaw's house, lol). He got a few DVD's, a couple of Diego rescue vehicles (one of which you remember from here), a deluxe tool set and some cute new books. Overall, it was a great morning together.

Eli opening one of his books.





Very excited to read Max and Ruby with Dada.



Diego Rescue truck from cousin Nate.



His tool set, complete with small hard hat:

After we all got showered and dressed, we headed out to Nathan's parents' house and hung out with family there. Eli was thoroughly engulfed in new, fun toys and we had a good time watching him open his presents. Then we had a great turkey dinner and fun times playing Guitar Hero.

Then we had to drive through Christmas Tree Lane (which Nathan's parents live on), which was fun. We had driven it once when Nathan and I were first married, and it had changed a little from year to year. This was Eli's first time down it, and if he hadn't had been so tired, I'm sure he would have loved it even more. :)

A mini view of some of the houses, from the street. I didn't get a picture of the in-laws' house, but I got some other ones. You can just use your imagination. :)

This is a house that had done the Disney princesses as a theme. Here is my favorite Disney princess -- Beauty and the Beast.



A cute little Santa's workshop.



And one of the houses that had almost every surface covered!

It's truly amazing to see what these people who live on this street do to their houses during the holiday season. And people come from all over, thousands a night, just to drive or walk the street and see the lights. One of these years we're going to go out on the driveway and sell hot chocolate and candy canes. I'm sure we'd clean up. :)

So yeah, that was our great Christmas 2008. I'm glad that it went well, but I hate to see it go. I just love the Christmas season and now it's just a countdown to next year (or maybe the birth of our second child, whichever comes first. And lately it seems like it may be the former!).

Naughty...

The sneaky little booger. :)

My mom sent us a box of presents for Christmas, and we put them all under the tree. Well, little man decided that he wanted to open his, so he found the one with his name on it, and proceeded to open it without me realizing. He brought me his new gift, all excited, and I just couldn't resist getting it out so he could play with it. He hasn't put the thing down in 2 days! Go figure.

Here he is enjoying his new Diego Rescue Helicopter. Complete with animals to rescue and helicopter pilot Diego. Thanks, Nana! We love it and we love you! :)

Couple of layouts

I've had a little more time to do some fun layouts lately. I almost forgot how much I love doing this! I'm so grateful to have this creative outlet, it makes me feel happy. Enjoy! :)

(So I guess the template I'm working with is not letting my square layouts show very well. While I wait for Nathan to get home from work so I can figure out how to fix that, just click on the file and you can see the full version on my Flickr page. Sorry 'bout that!)

This is Eli and his dad watching the ducks in the lake up at Big Bear. We went up there to take family photos and I snapped this one of them together. I just love my two guys! :)



Here's Eli 'helping' to decorate the Christmas tree. We both had a fun time and then he started figuring out that he liked taking the ornaments off the tree as much as he liked putting them on! Go figure.

Random

Just thought I'd post some random, unrelated photos from the past little while. I haven't had as much time to blog as I'd like, so this is a little catchup.

my little shaggy-haired grown up child. when did that happen?



being silly by falling off the chair and saying "oof!"



the lights at mission inn, down in riverside. we went there for a little family night and they had all sorts of fun light displays and little vendors and stuff. even santa was there, but that turned out to be not so great for us. lol.



awww, my sweet boys. gotta love them.
(and gotta love my camera that was able to take this picture with an iso of 1600!! woot!)



eli hanging out in the hotel eating a fruit roll up. we went to stay with nathan a couple of weeks ago when he was on a job in woodland hills. it was fun to have cable for a couple of days, but we got bored easily. :)

Things are going well with the house, we're settling in and feeling like we're actually coming 'home' when we drive into the driveway ( at least, I do ). It's fun and daunting having a whole house to ourselves. We don't even go into 2 rooms upstairs! :) But I am certain that we'll grow into them faster than it seems. And besides, that just means that we have extra room for you all when you come and visit us, right?? :)

Also, I've been thinking about my friend from Scrap Girls, Shari. She and her family are going through a heart-breaking situation right now with their unborn daughter, Kelsey. I don't feel like it's my story to share, so I won't go into details, but I would ask that you keep Shari, little Kelsey, and her family in your prayers.

Thanks! Have a great Thursday!!

I Want to Win...

...this wrap over at this blog.



Looks like a comfy one! And I know that I'm going to have to be much more mobile with baby #2 since I am going to have to still chase after my first little lovely toddler.

Do you want a chance to win one too? You'd better hurry -- the deadline is tonight at midnight! Chop chop! :)

Merry Christmas indeed....

....so apparently I was too fast in getting out Christmas cards (just mailed them out today). Because if I had waited a day or two to create said cards, this would have been the picture to send out.

BWAHAHAHAHA. And just in case you can't really appreciate the screaming terror in my child's eyes at seeing this scary Santa man, here is the closeup:



Is it wrong that I think this is the most hilarious thing I've ever seen?

Poor Santa guy, he was just trying to give him a candy cane! Guess Eli knows never to take candy from strangers better than I thought.

::giggle::

I finally scrapped!!

Well, it seems like it's been FOREVER since the last time I actually started, completed, and uploaded a new layout! Just with everything going on with packing, moving, unpacking, preparing for baby, etc., life got too busy.

But luckily, yesterday I had the chance to sit and do a page, just for me. I used the latest sketch challenge by Marnie Adams over at Scrap Girls and some new goodies that are in the boutique. And I have to say, I'm thrilled with the way it turned out! I was afraid I'd lost all my creativity for a while there. Thankfully it's not gone. :)

Enjoy!

Layout by Laurel Lakey uses December 11 Sketch by Marnie Adams, Nostalgia Collection, Dynamic Brush Set: Inky, Scrap Simple Tools - Styles: Grunged Metals 4104, Scrap Simple Embellishment Template: String Fling, Mom's Typewriter font, Holiday in Lights Collection, Abstract Expressionism Collection, Scrap Simple Paper Templates: Beautiful Distress, Love at Home Collection Mini, Color Me Happy Collection Biggie, Brush Set: Breathe Swirls, and Scrap Simple Alpha Templates: Old Chipboard.

This weekend

We've been cycling between extreme sickness and extremely good times, so this post may be all over the place, lol. First, Eli has been throwing up off and on since Friday night. We thought it was just a 24-hour bug or something, since he lost his dinner Friday night, went straight to bed at about 6:30pm, then got up around 10:30, drank some juice and threw up again (of course, both times were all over my bed. Sometimes being the mom isn't that much fun).

So Saturday we didn't really give him much to eat or drink, but he still managed to throw up that afternoon, what little had eaten. Go figure. That night he was still sick, going to bed a little later than normal and getting up Sunday morning at about 5am, throwing up more. Geez, this was getting old.

So then we stayed home from church Sunday and decided to drive up to Big Bear to take some family pictures (I know, not the first thing on the list to do when you've got a sick kid, but he was looking lots better and I knew we needed to get these pictures done that day while Nathan was home). Nathan's been gone a lot lately with different engagements (work assignments). So anyways, we packed up the car and headed out to Big Bear for some good, fresh air, and some (hopefully) good pictures.

Luckily Eli didn't get sick the whole time, even with a few windy roads, and he was such a good boy for the pictures. We ended up getting some for our Christmas card (which I can now finally get sent out!!) and some other cute ones to put up around the house and to use for Christmas presents.

So anyways, we ended up with a half great weekend, and a half crappy weekend. But at least it was half great! :)

Here are some of the pictures we took. I was really glad to get a good family one, as we haven't had a family picture taken since Eli was about 2 weeks old. And how did we get it? Oh yeah, the good ol' fashioned "set up the tripod, click the timer release, run into the picture and hope everyone is looking and smiling by the time the camera clicks" routine. It was pretty comical, but it ended up working! Thank goodness.

Enjoy!

[Warning: I am VERY pregnant. Brace yourself.]

Have a great day! :)

Thanksgiving and such...

I have so much to be thankful for! This Thanksgiving we did our own little family day with great food, a few good friends, and lots of fun. Nathan brined the turkey again, and it was wonderful. We had Summer and Ian over, who brought some yummy food and great company. We even got to play a few games of Settlers, which I'm always happy to do. And of course, I was so occupied with other things that I forgot to take any pictures. Duh. So nothing to post from that day, sorry. :)

But at least we're getting into the swing of things by getting our Christmas tree up, if not yet decorated. :) Slowly but surely, right? I'm just glad we have plenty of room in our house for the tree without having to take out furniture or move a ton of things around. That is a nicety for sure.

All in all, we're getting things settled, loving our new home, and trying to just be happy where we are right now. I know it shouldn't be hard with all of the many blessings that we have, so I'm remembering those things on a daily basis.