Bowl Bust

The Baylor Bears actually were invited to a BOWL GAME this year! We bought tickets with Doug's sister and family, and off we went last night to the game, since it was here in Houston. In the beginning, it was all so exciting - the theme of "Rise Up" for the BU team, the band playing, the cheering - but then reality set in as they began to play. They played awful! Yeah, there were some bad calls - but, we also fumbled the ball, missed two touchdown opportunities - sigh. I'm not even that big of a football fan! I just like to watch games when I have some connection to the team that is playing. They played Illinois, I have never heard of this school and know nothing about them. Except, they beat our team and they were not always classy about it. But anyway. I did take some pictures, so, thought I would post them!

Brother in law Mike and nephew Aaron before the game.

Sister in law Laura and family. Laura went to Baylor.

"Paws" raised for That Good 'Ol Baylor Line

The best part of the evening (besides our two touchdowns) was seeing the Illinois and Baylor bands come together to play "Texas, Our Texas." I really really like that Illinois had to play a Texas song!!!!!

Shaving like Daddy

Many times in the morning, Eli will wake up before Doug leaves for work, so, Doug will take him in the bathroom and keep an eye on him while he gets ready and I get about 20 minutes more of sleep. There have been several times E has smelled like shaving cream, and I always wondered why. I think finally I got to actually see Eli "shave" with Daddy on a Sunday morning- it's the cutest thing ever. When Doug is putting shaving cream on his own face, Eli always seems fascinated, so Doug started putting shaving cream on E's face too. What is surprising to us is how E will just leave it there, and wait for Doug to "shave" him, using his finger to swoop off the shaving cream. At Doug's parents' house this past weekend, I was able to actually take a few pictures of this special little tradition they have going (since at home, I'm usually still in bed, or not awake enough to go get my camera, and Doug is in his underwear so it's really not that good of a photo moment). I always feel like I have to add this disclaimer when the pictures are somewhat out of focus - used that manual focus lens again so I could get more light!

I think it is so neat and incredibly special that Doug just thought to do this one day with him! Doug continues to make my heart melt.

Christmas highlights

Couldn't let December slip away without posting some pictures of our Christmas celebrations! We like to open our presents to/from our immediate little family (Doug, Eli, and myself) at home in our own celebration, so we did that last Wednesday. On Thursday, we went to Pa and Meme's house (Doug's parents) for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; came home to Katy Sat evening. On Sunday, we went to my Mom's house for opening presents with my side of the family! Oh, and forgot to mention, had Christmas with my extended family the previous Saturday. Whew! It's tiring just writing it all out. It was wonderful spending time with our families, but also wonderful to be home too. When Eli is off his routine, it makes me tense, even though I try to be all relaxed-mom-not-superfreak-about-routines. But as I have learned, EVERYONE does better on a routine! (I'm chasing rabbits here, better get back on topic. I'm getting into a whole other blog topic!)

Christmas Eve has always had a sort of "magical" feel about it for me, ever since childhood. This year, I felt like I lost a little bit of that feeling, and that makes me sad! I know it can't be, or feel, just like it did when I was a child - but I want it to. I think as E gets older and we establish more routines at our home for Christmas, I can re-capture some of that special eve feeling. Can't wait for E to understand more and more every year what Christmas is really all about!

On to the pictures.....

Ever since we were engaged, we have read the Christmas story from the Bible before we open presents. Now we use the Bible that we signed during our wedding ceremony. This picture shows how interested a 15 month old is in listening to a story with lots of words and no pictures.....

One of his presents from mom and dad - a shopping cart and pretend food! He loved it. Eli also got an aqua doodle and little rocking chair that looks like a little recliner.

Opening presents at Pa and Meme's house...

After three attempts, all looking like this, of trying to get a nice Christmas Eve picture of the three cousins, I gave up.

Candlelight Christmas Eve service at Doug's parent's church. Yes, I had my camera in church. I didn't use a flash and just took a couple, I promise.

Santa Came! Santa Came! Santa brought Eli Mike the chomping lawn mower, a little train on a small track, and some toy cars in his stocking!

Christmas at mom's house. My sister is so mean - she knows Grace HATES feet, so she and Phil thought this white elephant gift of a prosthetic foot was perfect for her. We don't usually give W.Elephant to family, this one present was an exception.

Nice pic of Laura and Collin.

My little dude, finally getting a chance to wear his winter coat.

A quick shot of our little family!

I hope YOUR Christmas was just as wonderful!

Ornament Memory Lane

I love getting out the ornaments for the tree. We have such an eccletic collection, and I absolutely love it, wouldn't have it any other way. Growing up, we had brightly colored ornaments on our tree, commercial-store bought ones mixed in with popsicle stick frames and glitter, pictures of us three kids from various stages in elementary school. Some folks have all matchy-matchy trees, using only silver or gold ornaments, big red bows strategically placed; and that's great - for them. Not for me! When I was single and living in different apartments, I always had a tree, and would buy random ornaments in addition to ones that were more "special." Through the years, I've tried to weed out the more random ornaments, focusing on keeping the ones that bring a smile, a memory, a laugh. This year, the ornaments are crowded on the top half to two-thirds of the tree, since I wasn't sure how Eli was going to react having such brightly colored, fun (and breakable) little trinkets within easy reach. So far so good, he will touch the soft ones purposely placed at the bottom of the tree, but has in general left it alone. Feeling nostalgic about my ornaments, I decided tonight to take some pictures of a few favorites and post them. Lighting isn't the best, so please forgive my slightly out of focus pictures - but they are good enough to tell the story.

Eli's name is on the other side of this one - bought last year, our first family ornament.

The Christmas Ghost. Doug bought this for me last year from a shop in Old Town Spring (on our annual date day), thinking it was a snowman - but nope, it's a ghost.

Got the dancing ballerina snow-girl at a work ornament exchange more than five years ago, and I just love her!

I can't explain why I just love this santa in an airplane one. Bought it years ago, something about it just appealed to me, and the tree is not complete without it.

Ornament we bought on our visit to Amsterdam.

Nativity ornament from Peru, when Doug and I went when we were first dating! Such a GREAT Trip.

Eli's little handprint last year in late November, he was only 3 months old but I took him to the ceramic place and somehow managed to get his handprint on one side, and tiny footprint on the other.

My Aunt Marlene gave this bear to me one year, because it reminded her of me and the Baylor Bears. She passed away last year, just a month or so before Eli was born. I still miss her, what a fabulous lady. She was very special to me.

Eli's first Christmas ornament, bought by me. He was given probably 4 or 5 other "Baby's First Christmas," but this one holds a special place since his momma picked it out!

Hard to see this on in the picture, but it's a globe. Bought it last year or year before, and it totally made me think of my dad - he loved maps - so I bought it in his honor and memory. Looking at it makes me think of him.

One of my favorite ornaments from my mom. Several years in a row she has given me an ornament, and is passing that tradition on to her grandchildren. She said the colors and design made her think of me. I love it!

"Our Frist Christmas" together ornament bought the year we were  married (and it was our first Christmas!)

I worked in an after school program sophomore through senior year in college; the artist who made these came to the school and sold them one day. My good friend Eva, who worked with me but also went to Baylor and was the same major, bought this for me as a gift. It always makes me think of her. We truly crossed cultural lines and stereotypes at Baylor (and in Waco) to become very good friends.

Random snowman I bought in Pennsylvania while at a convention. Just really like him!

So, that sums up quite a few favorites. There are more, but, not enough room to include them all. While I was working on this post, Doug asked, "whatcha writing about? how much you love your husband?" So, to conclude my post - have I mentioned lately how much I really do love my dear sweet husband? He's the best!

Bloopers

I just really needed to share this blooper picture. I was taking pictures of friends from church last week, and brought Eli with me since Doug wasn't home yet when it was time to leave. For some reason, he just couldn't leave this family alone, he kept wanting to be with the 'crowd,' and also was enjoying running his toy car over the rocks they were sitting on. He stayed in his stroller most of the time, but E is not one to be restrained for too long and needed to get out and run around. So, here is the result of letting your child run around while you are trying to take a family picture - someone ELSE'S family picture -

This completely cracks me up!!!! He's even smiling, like he knows he's up to no good! I don't think this family would mind being on my blog, but since I didn't ask them, I went ahead and swirled out their faces.

While I'm bloopering - this is another one that cracks me up. Oh, to be so limber to just put your head down on the ground while sitting criss-cross! Does this say "I'm over it!"  or what?! Since we can't see her face I figured was ok to post.

I have others, I think I may really start a bloopers page. Fun stuff.

Not right. Not right at all.

So, husband Doug is a manager and has 8 people on his team. I think it's nice for him to give them a little "something" around Christmas-time, just something simple - like, one year, we gave everyone $5 gift cards to Starbucks in a little mug. That kind of thing. Last year I bought treat boxes after Christmas on sale, knowing we would use those this year. I thought I would make those slice and back cookies, the peanut butter kind with a hershy's kiss in the middle - you know the ones, right? - but Target was out of peanut butter dough. And, I was at Target, determined not to go anywhere else, I am so sick of running errands everyday, so, had to make another choice. Bought sugar cookie dough and figured I would put minature reese's peanut butter cups in them. Brilliant, right? Well, am I the only one out there that can mess up SLICE AND BAKE COOKIES????

Look at these! Totally flat, with smushed out reese's. Not appealing at all! You might think, well, they will taste good, right, and that's all that matters?

See exhibit A on the lower right. A half eaten cookie by me. Rare is it that I only eat half a cookie, so you know it did not taste that good at all!

Since I am on a roll, thought I would point out my other little Cheryl-ism that happens when I cook. That upper left "oops" was a blob of leftover dough that I smushed on the corner, that spilled over the corner and started burning on the burner in the oven, making a rather unpleasant odor, therefore causing me to take the cookies out of the oven a little early, further ensuring they were not.going.to.taste.or.look.good.

Sigh.

At least I was able to set the white balance on my camera ok in manual mode, something I hardly ever get right, so that's one positive thing! Good thing Doug planned on stopping by the store and getting ingredients for making gingerbread cookies and is making those himself tonight!

More Tis the Season Experiences

Our church choir sang at a community Christmas event today, so we all headed out this afternoon to check it out (and with Doug being IN the choir and all, was pretty much a necessity that we go). It was great - free Santa pics, pony rides, horse-drawn wagon rides, a real reindeer - not cold weather, but windy and not hot, so we'll take it. I couldn't believe that Eli sat on Santa's lap and let me take a picture! I thought for sure this year, he would have the whole stranger anxiety thing going on, but he totally surprised me. So proud of my little guy.

Making Cookies

I thought it would be fun to see how Eli would like to help make Christmas cookies; since Aunt Laura, Rachel, and Aaron were coming over this week, we decided it was perfect timing for a cousin-cookie-decorating kind of day.

Rachel stirring up the dough.

Rolling it out....

Cutting out our shapes with cookie cutters....

Assisting Mr. E. He really got into hitting the dough with the cookie cutter.

Spreading on icing. He actually slapped a little on before ditching the spatula and sticking his fingers in it. We did hand-over-hand at first so he would understand what to do.

Spreading the icing didn't last long - much more fun to eat the cookie!!

Our masterpieces in the making.