And a very merry Christmas to all...

...and to all an incredibly short Christmas summary in the form of very few phone pictures. We're pretty tired around here. But for all of the best reasons. Except for a lingering cough for our poor sick baby; that is not one of the best reasons. Sigh. Almost there. I'm extremely grateful for all of my helpers over the last week and really miss them. Love you, family.

Presents are pretty cool, Dad

We bought chocolate chips with the intent to bake goodies...but so far they've only served as a toy for the baby.

Story time with Auntie Manda!! Please also observe the proximity of the cat to this situation and chalk it up to a Christmas miracle.

Christmas is exhausting, y'all. Also, I'm totally about to outgrow my space egg swing. Yeeps.

Stranger danger has not yet set in

At least not when Holden has a full tummy and is kinda sleepy. Or possibly as long as he has some hair to tug on. Because our first meeting with Santa went extremely well!

We went to the Santa at Shops of Legacy out of pure convenience since we had a birthday brunch for Craig at Jasper's on Sunday morning with his mom, and this particular Santa was about a three minute walk away. And yes, we're those people who shelled out $50 for a sheet of photos and a digital copy of the image, but it was SO EASY. Minimal wait, happy helpers, and a generally pleasant experience. Yay!!

Holden was just so cute with him - he sat there and gazed at his face, then nuzzled in like he wanted to take a nap in all that fluff. You'll notice Santa kinda has Holden's right arm tucked down - yup, there was some serious thumb sucking going on (sleepy baby!), and we needed to try and get a smile. So out of frame is mom playing peekaboo (currently the hottest game in town) to encourage grins, and it actually worked.

Oh, and rest assured that beard is legit - Holden gave it a mighty tug for us.

Happy holidays, little bug - can wait to create all of these memories and start new traditions with you. This whole holiday season business has me feeling pretty mushy this year.

Do you know how excited I am about this?!?

Baby's first Christmas!! It's going to be the utmost of adorableness, even though Holden will probably just be really confused. And while I'm late to the game on getting personalized Etsy awesomeness I was planning on for Christmas gifts ("no longer accepting holiday orders"...oops, I should have started these projects before Thanksgiving), I was totally on the ball with ordering Holden a really cute first Christmas ornament. Now it just needs the perfect spot on the tree.

Thankful

Come Thanksgiving you used to find me taking pictures of pies. Now I pretty much just take pictures of my baby (it can't be helped, his adorableness attracts the camera!), so I really don't have any Thanksgiving shots to share with you that don't feature Holden in some form or fashion. Oh, but rest assured there were pies. This time only three for the six (and a half) of us, an extremely reasonable ratio.

As we scarfed down turkey and cornbread dressing and allll the other good stuff last Thursday, I paused for a moment and felt especially thankful for my amazing parents this year. I'm also really thankful for pie, but having a baby is kinda a big deal...and while coconut cream pie would have helped, I don't really know if I would have survived those first couple of weeks without my mom and dad by my side. Maybe more details on the survival of the early days will be provided a little later, and maybe not - I got a little teary just thinking about it now, so apparently six months later the waves of exhaustion and newborn terror are still palpable. So for now I'll continue to pause briefly and say thank to my parents. For everything. Absolutely everything.

Holden enjoying some naptime with Grandpa over Thanksgiving weekend...

...and doing the same thing six months ago when he was almost a week old.

Can you believe how much he's grown and changed?!? Me either.

Mustaches and bowties

A month ago (a whole month ago!) my dear, wonderful, amazing friends threw an adorable "mustaches and bowties" baby shower to celebrate Baby Holden, yay!!  In the midst of the tax crazy, it was so nice to just take 48 hours away from my desk (ok, really more like 44.5 hours...a whirlwind from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon when I was back at my desk around 4:00, blech) and spend some quality time with family and friends getting ready for the little guy's arrival.

I'm such a lucky gal to have such wonderful friends - love you girls!!  A few pictures from the festivities...

Me and the mommies...well, the grandmommies-to-be!

little man onesies

My cravings!  Clementines and...sugary little kid cereals. :) Transformed by Kami into delicious Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bar treats.  SO GOOD.

The wonderful hostesses and party-throwers extraordinaire

Everything's more delicious through a mustache straw!

Piles and piles o' wonderful presents and the great start to Holden's library

My wonderful mom made Holden the most adorable rocking horse quilt - I love it!!

Demonstrates improvement in social skills, although expect decline in coming week

Harrison is somewhat notorious for being...well...less than welcoming to visitors in our home. Or even to those who live in said home, although he and Zach have come light years from that initial meeting and the infamous Death Yodel.  However, he actually didn't cause physical harm or mental trauma to anyone during the last two social occasions at our house - huzzah!!

Event #1 - our annual Super Bowl party, which I'm also referring to as Dipapalooza 2014.  We seriously could have just made a meal out of chips and dips, although the giant piles of delicious smoked meat would have been sad and lonely.

Quite the spread...and yes, there was a Manning jersey and Denver Broncos supporter in our house for the Super Bowl party.  I'm surprised Craig let him in the door.

Harry mostly stayed in hiding and didn't scream at anyone.  After he and Grace literally had a run-in at a prior Super Bowl party, this was pretty epic progress.  I was really proud of him for basically just staying out of the way.  Maybe he was feeding off of Craig's happy vibes about the slightly lopsided victory for his Sea Birds.

Event #2 - Momma Dale came to visit last weekend, and he didn't yell at her ONCE, even when he got shocked on the nose due to excessive amounts of static electricity rippling through our air.  Just some minor nighttime stalking, but there was no screaming or death yodeling attached, and they even shared a chair (although this was really just Harry more standing his ground than willingly sharing).

While Dale was here we also did fun things like eat our body weight in fried chicken at Babe's (now THAT is how you celebrate Valentine's Day with a pregnant lady - it was amazeballs) and get Dale her Texas steak fix at The Keg and do some cutesy shopping for Baby P (I'll let you guess which two out of three activities Craig participated in out of that list).  Since it all flew by too quickly, can't weekend time move at half the speed of weekday time?  Or even if weekend time stays the same, then weekday time speeds up? Something feels a little off about this whole split.

And look, we progressed to utilizing a lesser degree of caution when in close proximity to the cat!  They played Candy Crush together by the end of the weekend!

However, I think all of this "progress" (which probably isn't even actual progress, just strange coincidences or possibly Harrison's decreased lack of giving a shizz as he ages) may go to crap when Uncle Wes comes to stay this weekend.  No love lost between those two, so any ground gained may go right out the window. Literally, if Harry traps Wes in a corner and he has to escape through a window.  It's possible.

I realize this entire post is sad.  The social antics of my cat.  Craig has requested that we get him a Prozac prescription before the baby comes...it's probably a good idea.  Sigh.

Wrap it up

I genuinely LOVE wrapping presents.  Using excessive amounts of tape (although I think I've really toned it down in recent years - people were actually able to open their gifts this year without using pocketknives or excessive amounts of force) and folding corners and making all the shiny things go together just gives me great joy.  Most of this wrapping has been destroyed by now, but fortunately I have just a little more wrapping to do tonight for friend festivities tomorrow night - yay!  Shiny shiny shiny...

Yes, I'm insane and ridiculous and who actually enjoys spending hours wrapping presents?  This girl!!

Counting down to Christmas

Before we left for Thanksgiving, a little elf by the name of Trinity stopped by with a very special gift for Craig...a custom-made beer Advent calendar.  How awesome is that?!?  Check out the impressive wrapping for his own version last year, and here's the customized beer crate with a bottle for each day:

Craig didn't want the pregnant lady to feel left out, so he got me this adorableness at Target so I could have an Advent calendar, too.  Which prompted me to actually go learn about Advent, and...we really are just counting down to Christmas, y'all.  Unless there's more to it and I'm just not a very good scholar.  My attention span is a little short these days.  At any rate, let's count down the days, Craig with beer and me with chocolate.  That's not a bad way to do it.

Here's beer #1, which Craig enjoyed last night while we watched death and destruction (well, that's not really keeping with the holiday spirit, is it?  We'll try to get some Christmas movies in the rotation...).  We're already big fans of Shiner Cheer around here, so you know this one was well received.

Trinity, you should go into business and sell these crates on Etsy.  It's brilliant.

Happy anniversary eve!

Holy jeez, where have the last two years gone??  And yes, it's only anniversary EVE, not actual anniversary, but I needed something to write about tonight and was feeling a little mushy.  To celebrate two whooooole years of marriage, we took off to Seattle for a few days to celebrate (which I'll tell you all about in this month o' blogging), a little before our actual anniversary to make time for important things like University of Washington football games.  Last year at this time we were having red rocks adventures and relaxing in Sedona, celebrating one whooooole year of marriage...

...and then two years ago I'm certain I was having trouble trying to wind down and go to sleep because I was just a little excited about the whole "I'm getting married tomorrow!!" thing.  But it was all worth it for this.

Happy almost anniversary, husband!  And just when Craig is FINALLY HOME from the Great Houston Adventure, he's out of town again this week for work training in Orlando.  But I have some really wonderful friends who are going to celebrate birthaversary with me tomorrow (birthday dinner on the anniversary, of course), so I think I'll be ok.  Two down and many, many more to go.

More vacation, please

Back in June we went to Cabo San Lucas for a few days to celebrate our good friends Dan & Jeremy...and also just RELAX.  I mean, just look at that.  Sigh.  I want to go back to there.

Woooooah, we're halfway there! Woooah-OH!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was preparing to enjoy a well-deserved freebie day off after the busy season ridiculousness, I woke up to a cryptic note from the husband telling me to be at Meddlesome Moth at 5:45 (ummm, ok, we had talked about going to dinner, but why are we dining at early bird special hour?), feed the dog before I left (so we're going to be gone for a little while...), and wear comfortable shoes.  I followed up the shoe guidance with a "could my shoes get dirty?" question, which was answered with a maybe...so I really had no idea what I was in for.

Show up for dinner and Carolyn and Allen are there, too - hooray, friends, I like this surprise!  And they're totally dressed normally with their comfortable shoes, so I'm not too worried about things.  Sit down, order drinks, and then Craig somewhat unceremoniously presents me with four pieces of paper.  Ooohh, are these tickets?!?  Lion King is going on tonight at Fair Park!  What, it's not Lion King?  I'm sorry that was my first reaction...as Craig just sighs and shakes his head.  Actually, I had mentioned months ago "oh, Bon Jovi's coming to the AAC!  That could be kinda fun..." and then didn't think twice about it.  Guess who was paying attention?  That's right, kids, all four of us are going to go rock out to Bon Jovi tonight!  Happy birthday to me!  Enjoy some semi-pathetic phone pics of Bon Jovi dashing by and the band doing what it does.  It was awesome.

Because he's ridiculous, Husband also surprised me with a cool new computer as an additional birthaversary present (birthday 10/31 + anniversary 11/5 = birthaversary awesomeness!) - it took a million years to transfer all my files from the old computer, mostly because I have eleventy bajillion pictures.

Also, this whole Windows 8 and touch screen situation?  It's SO confusing and frustrating and I think I'm actually going to have to sit down and read about it so I can actually figure out how to close things.  But give me a week or so and I bet I think it's really cool.

You rock, husband.

Sewing...an actual garment...for me to WEAR...in public...

The last thing I attempted to sew that was actually meant to worn on my own body was a pair of pajama pants, circa sometime early 2000s...heck, let's call it a decade or so ago...and it was pretty much an epic fail.  Sorry to break it to you like that.  It did come together relatively smoothly - the legs ended up actually being about the length of my legs, my waist wasn't horribly constricted by some ridiculous elastic situation, the fabric was cute and everything.  I triumphantly pulled them on and went to curl up on the couch - and the entire crotch area riiiiiiiiiiipped apart because I did a horrible job of taking care of an important seam.  So much to learn about reinforcing and stitch length and so on and so forth.  I think I got frustrated and threw them in the trash.

Well, we've come a long way, people.  Skillz acquired and ready to go.  And when my dear friends Dan & Jeremy said "hey y'all, we're getting married in Mexico, you SO must be there, please wear white because it'll look awesome and beachy!!"...I thought big.  I mean, first I looked on ModCloth and scoped out my options, but then since I'm an insane crazy person I relish in at least starting craftastic projects, I thought about sewing a dress.  Yeah, let's go for it!  I can do this!!  I'm going to buy Rae's Washi Dress pattern and DO this thing!!!  So excited, LET'S BUY THE PERFECT FABRIC!!!!

There you go - March 9, 2013 - captured for posterity in a sad phone pic - found some great seersucker with a bronzey metallic thread running through it, super cute, tons of possibilities.  Let's do this thing, for reals.  I have approximately three months to make this dress happen, and I'm feeling dang good about things.

So excited that by MAY 27, two and half months into this three month window, I had done THIS with the fabric...

...yeah, that's right, I totally washed AND dried it.  And refolded it.  And let it sit.  Until Memorial Day weekend, about two and a half weeks before we were hopping on a plane to Cabo San Lucas.  I figured this holiday weekend better count for something, so I made some epic progress, like actually getting the pattern assembled (PDF patterns from online purchases...yup, you print those bad boys out on regular ol' paper, tape it together, and then cut it out - just putting the pattern together was a little tedious, yeeps)...

...and cutting out the pieces for this thing, where I gladly used whatever typical household tools were available to assist and was extremely grateful that we shelled out for the extra-long dining room table, which basically serves as a craft station far more frequently than it actually functions as a dining room table. 

Then I actually started sewing, and the piles of fabric started to come together in something remotely resembling a garment.  Holy hell, I'm feeling kinda good about this, even with the late start.

I mean, I have helpers and everything!

Craig helped by bringing me a glass of wine (a sewing machine doesn't count as heavy machinery, right?), and Harry and Zach are totally helpful when it comes to sewing.  Just look at all of that encouragement surrounding me.  And those shelves that still haven't made it onto a wall, but let's not think about that right now.

And then the dress really did start looking like a dress, which happens when you decide to line the dress (since it's white...I mean, come on, we need another layer of fabric in there), which means you're basically sewing two dresses instead of one and one of the dresses just happens to get sewn into the other dress.  Phew.  We're getting there.

Mission-critical pinning-together of the dress and the lining - fingers crossed!

So, at this point, I've basically exploded all over the dining room AND my office/craftastic room...

...and everyone's worried, even the dog, who is usually pretty laid-back about most things in life, so now I'm getting worried, too.

Mom, WHAT exactly are you doing??

And then it all went wrong when I botched the lining and basically sewed everything together backwards and cursed the day I decided to freaking sew a dress wondered what I had gotten myself into and spent more time than I would like to admit to picking out stitches and redoing hours of work.

Yes, I finished the dress the night before we left.  And it worked.  Thank goodness.

I'm going to call this one a craftastic win, even with my procrastination.  Because, I mean, just look how cute we are.  Phew.

I knew you were coming, so I went ahead and baked a cake

A month ago (yeah, I know, July disappeared, too) we had some visitors (hi, Mom and Dad!!), and since one of them was having a birthday, it really was the perfect reason to bake a cake.  So I did.  At, like, midnight the night before because I have poor time management skills when it comes to prioritizing things and strongly feel that sometimes watching crap TV is number one.  Oops.  Let's commence with the caking.

Is it scary when the stuff IN the mixer matches the color OF the mixer?  Only a little bit...

And that's why you slap on a crumb coat - look at that hot mess of a cake

There, that's better!  Thumbs up to the cake!

This is Dad we're talking about, so I knew red velvet was the way to go.  And yes, it's kinda ridiculous to bake a giant cake for four people to maybe have one piece each, but when has that ever stopped me?  So we kept on celebrating by doing the present thing...

birthday present opening while wearing Father's Day present - now, that's pretty cool, Dad

...and journeying over to Ft. Worth and eating some really delicious Mexican food at El Rancho Grande, where we've been going as a family since before I can remember...

...and doing some definite Dad-style shopping, where Craig was more than just a little out of his element.

"What the heck are these things?" - oh, Craig, so much horse education to go

It was a little on the crazy-hot side, but we explored the stockyards for a little while and found some horsey friends.

Then back home to just sit in air conditioning where certain animals were a little less inclined to be friends...

...but then pretty much got over it and decided these guys weren't so bad after all.

oh, kitten, you are ridiculous

Happy birthday, Dad, creepy dripping candles and all!