december photo project -- day 21 through 31

December 21st was my dad's birthday. We had a really great time going to Mama's pizza and eating my grandma's cherry chocolate cake. Yum! My dad was nice and let Alice help him blow out the candles.


On Christmas Eve, we went over to my parents' house for pizza and brownies. Yum! We tried to have a low-key dinner this year due to the weather and illness, but my mom still used a table cloth and candles. How fancy! We decided to drive home, despite the impending blizzard, so we could celebrate Christmas morning in our own house.


That night, Santa visited!


On Christmas morning, I was so excited to watch Alice open her presents that I forgot to take pictures! Oh well, I think it was more important for me to be present in that moment than for me to be a slave to my camera. Sometimes in my constant need to document everything, I forget to enjoy myself! I took this picture of Justin playing with his new Droid phone and Alice playing with her new dollhouse -- these were the two BIG presents of Christmas, and they are both still so happy with these gifts. In fact, as I sit here typing this on December 31, both of them are sitting in the room with me STILL playing with their Droid and dollhouse!


After lunch, my dad came over to pick us up. At this point, Omaha already had over 9 inches of snow on the ground with blizzard conditions to boot! Due to my pregnant state and Justin's case of pneumonia, there was no way we were going to be able to dig ourselves out. Even if we had, I'm not sure our Subaru would have made it though the deep snow.


But, we made it to Mom and Dad's house and had a really nice time opening gifts and eating turkey dinner. Alice definitely "gets" Christmas now. Next year, she will be totally nutso about Santa and presents for weeks in advance, I'm sure.


After it was all said and done, Omaha received over a foot of snow! Because the interstate was still closed on December 26, we had to delay our trip to Kearney. When we were finally able to get on the road, our typical 3-hour drive took 5 and 1/2 hours! It was not fun driving 15-20 miles an hour with our 2-year-old in tow. Yuck. Once we got to Kearney, Alice enjoyed playing chess with grandpa and...


playing outside with grandma!

We are all hoping next year's Christmas is a bit healthier and a lot less snowy!

december photo project -- day 20

Justin has the FLU. He started showing symptoms while he was at work on Friday, and by Friday night, he had the full-blown flu. Yesterday he called his doctor, and because he lives with a pregnant woman and a 2-year-old, the doctor prescribed Tamiflu. This afternoon his fever broke, but he's still pretty miserable. Hopefully he will be better by Christmas AND he won't give this to anyone else! Yuck.

december photo project -- day 15 through day 19

It was a busy week! Not only was it the last week of the semester and finals week at school, but Alice's Christmas program and our neighborhood Christmas party were both this week, too! I was exhausted by the time it was all said and done last night. Now, I just have to get my act together and finish the rest of my Christmas tasks: Make and send Christmas cards, finish shopping, wrap gifts, and bake cookies... not sure which of those things will actually happen, but I am pretty positive not all of them will get done. Oh well, this year I get to play the "pregnancy card."

Jessica came over on Tuesday night and we tried to take some pictures for our Christmas card. She took tons of shots, and I think this one is probably the best of the bunch. It's so hard to take pictures of a tired two-year-old!



Thursday night was Alice's Christmas program at school. Most of Alice's class came onto the "stage" in tears. Alice was one of the crying toddlers. She immediately came running over to me, and I had to somehow convince her to go back up front and continue with the show. Luckily, one of her teachers, Mr. Byron, held her for most of the program. She really likes him, so she cheered up pretty fast. Alice did a good job of singing songs, shouting out answers to her teacher's questions, and dancing. It was fun to see how she probably behaves when she's at school. My parents and Jessica came to see the program too.



Last night one of our neighbors had their annual Christmas party, and since Alice is now of the age where she understands the concept of Santa, we were invited. Justin has come down with some type of illness, so I went to the party without him. "Father Christmas" came and told all of us whether or not we'd made the nice list, he read the kids a story, and he gave each of the kids a present. Alice had a blast!


This morning, I went over to my parents' house for a little visit. This is a picture of my dad showing Alice parts of my mom's Christmas village. My mom owns dozens of these Department 56 houses and a lot of the accessories and people, too. Alice thinks they're pretty cool! And she's finally at an age where she understands that she can't touch them. Yay!

december photo project -- day 14

december photo project -- day 13

Alice loves to build "towers" with her Daddy. I think Justin may enjoy it even more than she does!


I spent time in front of the TV tonight getting the annual office gifts put together. I take a lot of pleasure in the details. Alice and I made the tags ourselves earlier today. Alice enjoyed helping me glue the pieces together and setting the eyelets. I know the tags just end up in the trash, but that doesn't take away from the fun of it for me!

december photo project -- day 12, part B

Just messing around with the manual settings on the camera.


And then I forgot to switch back to auto when I wanted to take a real picture of Alice playing hide-and-seek. Oops. Every night after dinner we play a few games of hide-and-seek. Alice has gotten pretty good at finding hiding spots, but she doesn't understand that she's supposed to stay in her hiding spot until she's found. As soon as we say, "Ready or not, here I come," she comes squealing out of her spot. It's pretty funny. I know someday she will figure it out, but I kind of like her own little toddler twist on the game.

december photo project -- day 12, part A

I didn't post yesterday, so I'll make 2 posts today. I love the surly look on Alice's face here. One of her favorite songs right now is "Science is Real," a song by They Might Be Giants from one of their kids' albums. Justin downloaded a bunch of these songs, and they're all housed on his MP3 player. Alice begs him to play it for her, and she loves listening through the earphones. Cute!