Merry Christmas!

I hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas!! We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents' house. We had our traditional Christmas Eve feast- tamales, with family and close friends.

Four Generations.

Posing in front of the Christmas tree.

With GiGi.

And Uncle B!

*sigh* This was as good as we got of a family photo. Between my cruddy camera and Elise's obsession to stick her fingers in her mouth the second she sees my cruddy camera... well, you can see the result. Better pic in 2010!

Christmas morning was so fun! Santa came and spoiled us all! It was a beautiful day outside and I even got to take my new bike for a spin :)

Elise checking out the goodies.

Look!!!! Santa left Rudolph behind. Doesn't he look thrilled??

All in all, Christmas 2009 was wonderful... and so different from 2008. I feel so blessed and look forward to what this next year has in store for us.

Happy Holidays!!

I realize I haven't blogged a single bit this December (I'm still catching up in November) so I'm just going to do one big post that encompasses this fun month.

December has been a blast and it is totally true that Christmas is more magical when there are children around. We have been busy with holiday parties galore... some for children, some for moms, some for couples, and some to show off those tacky Christmas sweaters!!!

We started off December with a visit with Santa. Elise did okay with the man in the red suit. It wasn't love at first sight, but she warmed up to him.

Then we went to a party geared towards the children, though us moms had a great time too!!! Christmas on Castellani was hosted by Erin and Alecia at Alecia's lovely home. There were 7 kids and all had a blast!

Alecia's spread for the kids; isn't she creative?!

Elise sitting at the "big" kids table!!! I couldn't believe it! She ate her entire lunch sitting in that chair.

Though in true Elise fashion, her manners left a lot to be desired.

Here's a picture of the 4 "babies." I didn't get one with the three toddles :(. This one was hard enough to snap. And not very successful you'll notice.

"But I don't want to go home and take a na-na-nap!"

Ha; she slept for 3.5 hours straight when we got home. It was a wonderful way to start the holidays! (the party, not the nap.)

I also attended Melanie's "No Diapers to Change, Just Cookies to Exchange" party and had a lovely time visiting as the wine flowed! I came home with some yummy treats.

Ornament exchange at Silo

Christmas Gathering at Erin's

As you can see, we had a great December!!

To Be Continued...

Elise is learning to walk!

Here are two recent videos. The first was taken Christmas evening.

The second was taken this evening... sorry for the lighting. Or lack of.


I have a feeling it won't be much longer until she is a full fledged walker!!!!