Christmas Season

This year, Christmas has been pretty spread out. We've been celebrating since December 10 and will finally wrap it up New Year's Eve. Here are a few photos from our Texas Christmas.

Taking in some late lunch with the aunts and grandparents at Kerbey Lane SW.

Plotting trouble

E with Aunts M & C

Aunt C giving Ellie a tutorial on how to hack into the iPhone.

So glad to see Aunt C.

P and Grandpa ready to take on the best of TX BBQ in the Fiat (Dante). They took their own utensils since many BBQ joints don't offer any.

Placing the first order of the Crawl.

Holy Sausages!!!

Firewood is SERIOUS business.

Highlights of that trip were the traditional trip to Mighty Fine (Ellie will have a photo album of photos taken in front of the Diversacut Sprint there), P and Grandpa went on a BBQ Crawl (6 lbs of meat!), we got to see Aunt d and Aunt c as well as cousins and Great Grandma. And, my personal highlight was the thoughtfulness put into several gifts that were heavily inspired by Pinterest. Love that website! It was nice to just kick back and enjoy some family time. We did do a fair amount of running around, but Ellie managed to stay on her sleep schedule pretty well for most of the trip. Five days was about our limit though. I have never been so glad to see my own pillow.

Now, we have to get back in the regular routine. I'm slowly unpacking and trying to figure out where all these new things go. However, I need to get the kitchen counter cleared soon or I'm going to lose my mind. Nothing bugs me like a cluttered kitchen.

Reading a new Dr. Seuss upside down and backwards

Enjoying a plush reading chair from Santa and untying bows like a pro.

In other news, I briefly thought I was going to get a chance at a rebranding project, but that looks like it probably won't pan out. However, I have a lot on my plate getting the Gardening Show booklet ready for the January 21st date. And, once I get that taken care of, I need to clean the craft room so hopefully I can finish the painting I started a month ago. I recently cleared space for P to set up a computer gaming station next to my iMac, so we can spend some quality time together while I'm designing or painting or whatever and he's shooting aliens. I'm already coveting his cushy chair, so I may have to replace my current clean lined chair with a padded match from Staples. My back has been acting up for a few days, so the stylishly contemporary molded plywood version I've been using just isn't cutting the mustard anymore.

We're thinking of how we want to celebrate New Year's and what our resolutions will be. Currently, we're planning an afternoon with the family celebrating Christmas #6. After Ellie goes to bed, we may cuddle up to watch both parts of Harry Potter 7. The top resolution idea is to get our affairs in order and finally make our wills. We've only been talking about it for a year and a half.... We (meaning me) should probably also start curbing the sailor talk. Ellie is going to start repeating what I say before I know it.