Traditions

For my book club we just read Christmas Jars and it was an excellent read! I highly recommend it. It's a really short book so it won't take too much time to read. Anyway, the book got me thinking about traditions. This time of year a lot of people have traditions they do with their families and this has me thinking of traditions I've shared with my family and new traditions we're hoping to make with our daughter.

When I was growing up on Christmas eve my family always went a movie. It was the only time of year Dad would go to the movies and we looked forward to it all year. We saw some funny movies, such as "The Santa Clause" and "Earnest Saves Christmas" and some real duds, such as "Mousehunt." We still tease Dad for picking that one---it was terrible! Anyway, when we would go home, we would go our seperate ways, but usually at some point Mom and I would end up in front of the tree and she always said "this is the prettiest tree we've ever had" and I would retort, "you always say that." On Christmas morning we had to wait until we were all together to walk in to the tree and it used to bug me to death because my brother was really hard to get up and I was always SO READY to see what Santa had brought. He would finally drag himself out of bed and then we would open our gifts one at a time, talking and laughing. I love those memories and I really do cherish them.

We don't have many traditions with our daughter, but this year I'm hoping to begin one. I'm going to make a Gingerbread house with her this year. Of course, I'll be making most of it, but hopefully we can start the tradition of making one every year so she'll be able to help later on. After it's been made, we can enjoy using it as a centerpiece for a week or so and then all eat it together after dinner on Christmas Eve. I'm hoping this will catch one, but I may be really bad at making the houses, so we'll see. I know I'll enjoy doing it this year, if for no other reason than it will be a memory I'll have forever.

Pics!

Aren't they cute?




Caroline must have been ready to come home---she climbed right in the suitcase while I was packing up!



Here are Caroline and Annalise, her cousin, playing before dinner.

First Blog

My first blog!

We just got home from spending Thanksgiving with Aaron's family. We got to spend a lot of time with Karen and Justin, which was wonderful! We haven't been able to see them since their wedding, so we were excited to spend time with them. All I can say is this: Balderdash=FUN TIMES. I love playing games with our family!

Caroline isn't the best sleeper when she's not in her bed, which STINKS for Mom and Dad. We were up with her quite a bit, but come to find out, it might have only been because of being gone in part. She's got an ear infection. Poor thing. Since she has tubes, in order to identify an infection we have to look for drainage and today she had a lot of nasty looking drainage. She's asleep right now. I know she'll wake up starving because she conked out before lunch---another reason I know she doesn't feel good! I've already gotten her ear drops (we had some on file at the Pharmacy) so hopefully she'll be better soon.

I took her today (before I noticed her ear) for her One year portraits. Since she wasn't feeling good she didn't do the greatest, and I only got a couple of shots that were really good. I decided to go ahead and order them though, and we're hoping to have another family portrait done after the first of the year, so maybe I can get some better shots of her then.

Nothing much else is going on. I'm planning to go see "Twilight" on Friday night with some friends. I'm really looking forward to it. We might have dinner first, we haven't made any specific plans yet, but hopefully. I could really use a girls night out! Saturday night Aaron and I have to go to his company Christmas party, so our friends the Hinsons are going to watch Caroline for us. She loves their youngest son, Hunter. She will just giggle and grin at him, even when he's not doing anything at all. She loves him!

Well, I've basically rambled for this blog, but I'll try and have better ones in the future!