Christmas 2008

You can dream of a white Christmas or being home for the holidays, but you can't have both.

Welcome to Seattle, the city that has only 14 snow plows.

Everyone is still abuzz with "where were you when the snow hit? What's your story?"

At my house, events that I had been looking forward to for months and weeks were cancelled, including my own ornament exchange which I was co-hosting with Lauren.

My Paper Whites bloomed on Christmas Eve, so exciting!

It's our driveway, obviously.

B, D and Emelyn tracking Santa's exact location during Christmas Eve on the Internet

On Christmas Eve it was clear that my dad and his wife weren't going to make it for Christmas. I pouted, but when we woke up to an additional 4 inches of snow on top of our existing two feet, I decided that it was okay not to spend our day digging each other's cars out of snow drifts.

Christmas was quiet and simple. We had Brody and Emelyn here and that's it. We slept in, I made eggs Benedict (with great success, I might add) and we opened the presents under our tree. Most of them were for Dahlia and she opened everything until she was tired.

Unwrapping Gifts

Muppet keeps Brody warm.

The calm after the storm.

We were all tired. B and I put D down for her nap at noon and then we all returned to our respective rooms and took two hour naps! After we woke up, we prepared for dinner by chopping tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and pickles. We all got our snow clothes on and played in our fluffy, frosty wonderland while B made amazing hamburgers on the BBQ.

We drank beer, ate chips and sat in the snow, as our patio furniture was unmovable.

It was non-traditional and I loved it.

Emelyn and I made a snowman.

Playing in the snow without a sled. The laundry basket works.

We couldn't not leave the house to get coffee every day. What an adventure!

Since 12/25, we have been catching up with family and I still need to celebrate Christmas with my mom. Spaced out Christmas is fun too.

Tomorrow, Emelyn leaves and Christmas will be over. I've already started rocking T.C., as is my New Year Resolution. I have offered to remove Christmas trees for my neighbors free of charge. I'm still trying to get my name out there and get more clients.

December Photos

Teaching Dahlia about Christmas has been a lot of fun.

We put a tree in the living room, hang socks by the fireplace and dress the dog in a sweater and she doesn't question our sanity.

This is D fake smiling in front of our tree.

"Train"

I pulled a bunch of "new" Christmas toys from smelly storage boxes and D got right to work.

Thanks to my Auntie BJ in Atlanta for this awesome advent train. For now it's decoration, but someday, we'll add chocolates in each drawer.

Muppet being a good sport. She despises clothing.

Muppet was stinky and I like to have her groomed before Uncle Brody gets here for Christmas, since he's allergic, so she was rockin' a fine haircut when she begged me to put the sweater and scarf on her. She posed in front of the Christmas tree for hours, put the camera on remote and took this shot of herself. I think it's so great, I'm having an 8x10 made. So holiday! I can hear the Christmas carols in the background now...

"Hi!" from us

You can see my bruised chin where a soccer ball made my face into a pancake. It's almost healed now.

Since Dahlia is learning several words every day, she can name lots of different things on the Christmas tree. My favorite is when she says "tiki". We have a tiki ornament from Hawaii and Nanny Brenna taught her what it was.

D learns really well with flashcard-type books. I think it's how she learned the word "cookie". Among many others, she loves to say "potty" and "poo" too. Other favorites are "ut-oh" and the old baby classic "bye-bye!"