Merry Christmas to All...

Christmas this year was a bit different. Still fun, but different. Christmas Eve is usually spent with my family in Kingfisher, but this year it was postponed until the day after Christmas. Christmas Eve was spent this year scrounging around the pantry and concocting a new Christmas Eve meal called "Next Year We Will Make Sure We Go Grocery Shopping No Matter How Wrong We Think the Weathermen Are" casserole. Ok, it was spaghetti with a few extras thrown in. We also let Daddy open a Christmas present early and watched a movie.

Christmas morning we celebrated with our little family first. K had some presents to open from Mommy and Daddy and Santa even left her a couple, guess she must have been good. Of course, she went for the book first thing!! Then we made it over to Brian's parent's

house and had a late lunch with the whole family, but Aunt Julie. (She was really missed) Then it was back home to spend it with my family. Katelynn made out like a bandit, once again. She got some cute outfits and pj's and a lot of toys. Uncle Paul and Aunt Angela got her a pair of John Deere boots and she loves them! Nanaw got her her first Cabbage Patch Baby, Marilyn Mandy (And I thought the names would get better.) and her first OU jersey. I think she looks pretty cute. (Not too far off from a gen-u-wine Sooner Fan, if you ask me. BOOMER!!)

Like I said, Saturday we made it to Kingfisher to be with my family. It wouldn't have been Christmas with out seeing my cousins and their kids. K was hanging with the big boys and playing in the toy room with the best of 'em. Baby Gabrielle was there so next year, her and K will be ready to play together.

I know it is time for me to take all the decorations down, but I hate it when I have to do that. Besides it being a ton of work, I love the way our house looks when it is all festive. Oh well, it has to be done so that will probably be our job on Friday. A couple of more nights with the living room lit up by Christmas Tree lights will make me a happy camper.

I hope all had a safe holiday. Happy New Year to you all.

What Have I Been Doing With My Time?

I have been asking myself this a lot, lately. Time just seems to keep slipping away from me. Thanksgiving was just here and now I look up and it's almost time for Christmas. I promised myself I would get started with all my shopping early so I could enjoy the holiday. Well, I did get a lot of shopping done, early, but then majorly slacked!! Oh well. I have been finding other ways to keep myself busy. One way is with the Clothespin Peeps. This is what I call them. My cousins and I have taken over my Grandma B's ritual of creating clothespin people for the family for Christmas. Unfortunately this year, we slacked. OK, that is a gross understatement since we will all be gathering together on Christmas Eve and they are still not done. So I started working on these little guys. They are ending up pretty cute, but nothing like we have done in the past. Next year, we start early...Like January!!

Katelynn has been a little under the weather. She had a bit of a cold but it has lasted 3 weeks so we went to see the doctor last week. She has a sinus infection. So we have started the antibiotics and all seems to be going well. She hates to have her nose wiped, but who doesn't? She received a package in the mail the other day and it was a birthday present from my Mema Bugg. She made Katelynn a beret!! It is pretty cute and K will actually wear it for a bit. Thanks Mema!! (OK, in this picture she doesn't look too thrilled, but like I said, we've been sick!)

Finally..a new post.

It has been a crazy few weeks for us. Lots of family in town and lots of things going on so I have kinda let posting fall through the cracks. My bad!

Thanksgiving was a good time! We went to Brian's parent's house and spent the day with family!! We ate some amazing food, played Cranium and Katelynn modeled a new hair bow. Things I learned: Em needs to brush up on television shows (namely Star Trek) and Claudia can do a mean Elvis impersonation!

Brian and I tackled the holiday decorating on our Friday off (well, we pulled everything out of the attic) and while he was at the game on Saturday (BOOMER! Sorry A.) Katelynn and I decided to set it all up. I love this time of year! I love having green and red throughout the house. I love turning on the tree lights and turning off every other light in the house and just looking at the tree. I ordered new stockings and I was so excited to hang them. Monogrammed stockings with our names, so festive!!

Katelynn has done better with the

tree than I thought. She took one ornament off the tree and I have since let her have that one. Anytime she gets near the tree, which hasn't been all that often, I give her "her" ornament and she plays with that one. I had to bait her last night though to get some pictures for our Christmas cards. SO I am hoping that hasn't planted the seed that grabbing for the ornaments is a good thing.

Oh! We also made the final monthly trip to the photographer and took K's 1 year picture. I am so happy to be finished with that ritual. I love that we did it and we will definitely do the same with the next child, but I am relieved to be finished with it for now. This last one was a little rough. They couldn't get us in until 7:30 pm and of course they were running behind so K was getting a little fussy. But we got a couple of cute pictures out of it and that is all that matters.