Christmas Night

On Christmas night, we celebrate with my mom's side of the family at Gram's house. Another delicious dinner and good time was had by all. At this point, we were slacking on our picture taking....

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was spent at Grandma Sharon's house. We ate a delicious brunch and opened gifts. Grandma Sharon spoiled us as usual. Uncle Mikey went out on Christmas Eve and was in rare form Christmas Day. At one point he was opening gifts while lying on the floor wedged in between the couch and coffee table. I remember those days....(: Michael got Chesley the cutest hand puppet from a vendor in NYC. She smiles every time we play with it.

Christmas Morning

Billy, Chesley, and I spent Christmas morning together checking out what Santa left us in our stockings. Billy and I gave each other a new t.v. and piece of furniture for the t.v., so we decided to only do stockings. I wasn't aware that a stocking was necessary for Chesley this year until everyone said that she needed one, including my ob/gyn! You'll see from the pic that I bought the smallest one I could find, so I didn't have to fill it with much. Here is a pic of Chesley with her new wrist rattles. I also put a rattle in there that she already owned to make it look full. I'm already re-gifting to my own child. On top of that, my sister-in-law, Laura, gave us a plate for cookies for Santa from Chesley. So, although Chelsey does not yet know her days from nights, we're sure that she knew it was Christmas! The dogs also got some new toys that are supposedly okay to chew on because if they eat them, they are digestible. The people at the store forgot to add that they cause horrendous gas!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house with the McCaw side of the family. Sharon and Michael also celebrated with us. We had a delicious lamb dinner. We all thought the lamb (served with mint jelly) was really delicious, which then led to the discussion that my dad and brother had won a bid for the lamb from the local 4-H group in Nicholasville. Dad started telling us how sad all the kids were when the lambs that they had raised went up for auction to be killed. My grandmother and nephew are quite the animal rights activists and didn't care for this information. Needless to say, we all started feeling guilty eating the lamb. The pomegranate martinis helped us get over it. (: It's always so much fun to watch my niece and nephew, John and Lily, open presents. Here is a pic of John with his Indiana Jones whip and Lily with her Hannah Montana guitar......both make lovely sound effects. (:

Santa Came to Town!

Thank goodness Mary and J.O. Owens gave Chesley the perfect Mrs. Claus outfit to wear when Santa came to visit. We actually didn't know that Santa was going to visit, so I hurried to put her in the outfit when he arrived. (You know you've paid your painter a lot of money when you get personal Santa visits on Christmas Eve. ha.) Chesley did a lot of staring at Santa's beard but otherwise came away unscathed from the visit.

Celebrating Hanukkah

We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah at Grandma Sharon's house with my parents and the Mischners. Following saying a blessing and lighting the menorah, we ate a traditional Jewish dinner of brisket and potato latkes with applesauce or sour cream. I, not being up on my Jewish cuisine, brought a Mexicorn dip. ha! We also ate the most delicious bread pudding with chocolate chips made by Chrisman Mill Winery. Yummy! Chesley donned her first pair of tights, and although it was probably torture for her, she looked like a doll!

Supper at AP Suggins

Well, Chesley finally hit 6wks of age, which gave us the go ahead to start going out in public (according to her pediatrician). We thought we'd begin with a Friday night dinner out to one of Billy's favorite childhood restaurants, Suggins. I was a little nervous about our adventure in fear that Chesley would start crying (or screaming), and we would be that annoying family to ruin everyone else's dining experience. I'm not going to lie, I got annoyed at crying babies when I went out to eat, prior baby. Boy how things change! I should have been feeling proud of those parents for going out and trying to have a life! ha. Anywho, everything went well. Billy and I were laughing though because instead of having a conversation with each other, it was like we were walking on eggshells, or eating on eggshells, you get the picture. Somehow, we got in and out of there in like 35 minutes. It felt like I was a teacher again, scarfing down my food at lunch break! I'm sure we will get more comfortable with this as time goes on...I told Billy that I think we should take her out to a different place every Friday that way if she does scream and cry, we won't be repeat offenders in the restaurant. (:

5 weeks and counting...