Passing Time

Merry Christmas Everybody! A few weeks ago the hard drive on my brand new birthday laptop died. Boo! So after talking to Apu in India for a few hours (broken up into two different phone calls) my computer is back up and running. YAY! Unfortunately I lost some pictures, but not too many. I guess that's what backing up files is for. But now I'm up and running again, so here is some pictures from the last few weeks.

This is our new nephew Mark. We got to baby sit him while his parents went to a work Christmas party. He came over the night we were decorating our Christmas tree. He mainly slept the whole time he was here, so that was helpful!

Holly was pretty fascinated with baby Mark. She just kept walking around him, pointing and saying, "Baby, baby, baby". She was fine with him, as long as I wasn't holding him. At that point she would try to climb on my lap and shove him off. I don't think she is ready for baby sibling at this point...thank goodness because I'm not ready either.

I tried to get a nice picture of the 3 little cousins. This picture probably would have been better if I had the camera in the right setting. By the time I switched it over to the right setting it was too late...the kids were not going to sit still for more than 7 seconds!

This year I decided to go with a big tree instead of our little 3 foot tree. So Owen and I went to Lowes to check out their artificial tree selection. They didn't have much. I didn't want a short tree though, so I went with the 9 foot tree. Surely we had at least 9 feet high ceilings...right? Wrong. They must be 8 1/2 feet high. So the tree bends a little at the top and there is no room for a star. That's alright, I don't think we ever had a start at the top of our trees while I was growing up. And many time the trees my parents cut down were too tall for our ceilings. So It feels like tradition! The tree I bought can be made into a 7 foot tree if we wanted, but I like the too tall tree look!

Right after I put the lights on the tree Holly started sucking on them...YIKES! I guess those little colored balls look tasty. Thankfully she didn't electrocute herself, and after a few time of telling her not to, so stopped. Since she can't suck on all the little lights she has decided to take all the ornaments off the tree instead. Compared to electrocution, taking ornaments off the tree doesn't seem too bad. So we let her have fun with them.

Owen loves the Christmas tree! He runs down every morning and plugs the lights in. I can't wait to see our electric bill this month! You may also notice his cute little underwear. We have successfully trained Owen to go #1 in the potty! It wasn't too difficult either. Of course #2 is not going as smoothly, but I'm sure he will pick it up some day...let's hope.

We got our first big snow storm of the year. Owen was excited to get outside and help his dad shovel the snow.

I'm sure Scott was happy to have some help too.

Holly is still eating lots of frozen blueberries. Her little hands seem to be blue constantly. I don't know if it's because she is cold or because she eats so many blueberries her hands are permanently that color. This girl LOVES blueberries!

Owen has even started eating blueberries. He never liked them before, but I guess since Holly likes them he figured he should like them too. I like to give them blueberries while I am making dinner...that way they are eating and not hanging on me begging me to pick them up. It makes cooking a lot easier!

And finally....you probably don't remember, but one of my New Year Resolutions last year was to get our stockings cross stitched. I'm happy to say that one of my resolutions lasted the whole year. I finished Scott's stocking, and I am busy working on mine and Owen's. By next year there should be at least two more stockings on our mantle place. My grandma McCoy was a great help in getting this one finished. I did all the cross stitching, and she sewed it together. I think it turned out pretty fabulous!