Hello 2012

As usual, the Christmas holidays seem like a blur now that it's already the new year. I tried really hard to spread out some of the fun times this year, and we did pretty much celebrate Christmas over the whole month of December. Now that Elisabeth is old enough to know what's going on, it is especially fun for all of us.
We did our usual family trip to the Fantasy of Lights. Terry and Elisabeth had already been once during the day on a field trip with her school, but she was thrilled to go again. We also enjoyed looking at all the lights in the country club neighborhood, but discovered that Elisabeth has inherited her mama's motion sickness, and our night ended in somewhat of a mess. (Turns out that was somewhat of a theme for us this month!) 

I have such wonderful memories of baking with my mom I was super-excited to try baking with Elisabeth. The cookies we made for the neighbors turned out to be fun & yummy. The cut-out cookies that seemed like such a good idea when I bought the cookie cutters turned out to be a HUGE pain in the rear. E was highly upset that I was making a big mess because I kept having to add so much flour to my wax paper and rolling pin. We'll have to see if I'm brave/foolish enough to repeat that next year.

It would certainly not be Christmastime without a visit to Santa. Last year, Elisabeth was so excited to see Santa, but then absolutely terrified when we got up to him. Not so this year.  She was delighted to sit in his lap, and thanks to some technical difficulty with the elves and their camera, she had about 10 minutes to chat with him. Turns out his mommy is in Heaven and his favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin (too bad for him he doesn't get those at our house!).  She asked him for Skippyjon Jones, and of course, he delivered 5 of them on Christmas Day. That was the only thing Elisabeth has asked for since early November when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  Terry has been thrilled at how funny those books are. They are a little long, but are certainly more interesting than lots of other kids' books.

Christmas Day was great! Dad came on the 23 and spent a few days. We all went to a nice service at our church on Sunday morning. Then our hectic week began. We got up on Monday and went to visit my family in Irving. We had a great time and Elisabeth was thrilled to play with her cousins Ben and Kayla. Since she doesn't have any first cousins, we try to arrange for her to see some third cousins at least a couple of times a year. I got a new camera for Christmas but in true pregnant-lady style totally forgot to take any pictures of the kids/family that day. Then on Tuesday we drove to Tyler and stayed until Thursday. We visited Terry's family and my dad, and even got to visit with some family friends at El Charro--yum!  One of our favorite parts of visiting Tyler is stopping in Sherman at the Chick-Fil-A (or chicken flay as E calls it).  We stop both on the way and on the way back. However, on the way back,---again in true pregnant-lady style---I got horribly sick in the car about 3 minutes from the restaurant. It was bizarre because E got sick in the exact same spot when coming back from spring break. Maybe she really is my girl!  At any rate, it was 12:30, Chick-Fil-A was packed, and I had to change clothes in the parking lot of a very busy shopping center. Elisabeth was crying and hysterical because she was so upset that mama "choked." Terry held a blanket around me and I had the car for some cover, but I'm sure someone probably saw something they will never be able to unsee.  It was NOT the highlight of my break, but I'm sure my kids will enjoy laughing about it someday. 
And on that note, it's farewell to 2011 and hello to 2012!  Hopefully I will have an update with a somewhat complete nursery for William in the very near future.