Day 126: Wall of Christmas love

I'm fairly sure we've gotten all the Christmas cards we're going to get. I like to post them all on a "wall of love" each year. I'm actually really impressed with anyone that's been able to continue sending us cards each year. Since Jamin and I have been married, we've had a different address EVERY Christmas, so we've been rather difficult to keep track of. Let's see if I can remember all the nicknames of the places in the last 7 Christmases: the Highway House (an apt. in St. Louis Park), Downtown Ritz (in Portland), The Tree Fort, Isengaard, Casa de Cassie, Bag End, and now the Rocket Cave.

Day 124: Christmas for ACTS group

It's January 5th, and we just had our small group Christmas party. I grabbed a couple of nice action shots. The one above has a couple of individuals that weren't around last Christmas party, and one that missed this Christmas, but is due soon. Standing are Angela and Barry (the expecting parents), grabbing a present is Scott, with Gia-Hue holding their little Claire, then we have Pat holding our youngest groupie present, Violet, little Grace enjoying some food, Emily, and just a bit of our hostess with the mostest, Mandy.

Below is Asher, who is just a week older than Zaria and very cute in his pajamas, his mom Chloe, and Janet and Rick. Last year I didn't make it to the small group Christmas party because I had just given birth to Zaria and was still recovering in the hospital. I had visits from a few of these folks, though, some on their way to the party.

Day 117: Family time

New Christmas tradition started today: The weekend after Christmas, we spend family time together and go shopping for one last present, taking advantage of the after-Christmas sales. We started out by brushing teeth as a family, on the couch of course. Jamin and I have brushed and flossed together from the very first time we ever hung out. He had eaten at my place, and we'd had corn on the cob, so it was necessary to floss. Jamin's also known for brushing his teeth all over the house, and mentioned that his old roommate Rob would get a kick out of this photo.

Day 113: Happy Christmas!

The above photo makes me laugh-- they were just laughing about something and you can see my dad in the middle of making one more wise crack. Grandma Alpha also has a nice smile here.

Below Zaria does a little people-watching in between present-opening. She's holding some fuzzy socks she got from my mother-in-law, her Grandma Marla. It was pretty neat to be able to bring Jamin's folks with us to have Christmas dinner with my dad's side of the family. Marla often has to work on holidays, but had today off. She enjoyed sharing a bit of her family history that went back to Red Wing, where we celebrated. Her family is currently in California, so it was interesting to hear a little of her Minnesota roots. We missed Jamin's siblings today, all of whom are now in Colorado. They also got together to celebrate and we talked to them briefly over the phone.

Day 111: Silly jumper

Sure enough, Jamin got sick this morning. We also had a major winter storm that made the roads very treacherous, so the Christmas get-together we had planned at my dad's is officially postponed. I was feeling much better, so Zaria and I had fun playing and hanging out. Notice where her hands are in the photo--she found out she could stand up and poke them through.

I was still on the mend, however, so I napped when she did and continued to eat real slow. Jamin had trouble with that Jello he made yesterday, so he's in rough shape.

Day 107: Stockings are hung on what?

Zaria just got her own stocking tonight, a gift from "Auntie" Cassie. It's very lovely, but perhaps it's strange that we've hung our stockings up on our china cabinet.
"Their stockings were hung on the China cabinet with care, with hopes that the dishwashers soon would be there."
On another note, Zaria was very sick today. Too much partying, perhaps? Anyway, she ralphed a few times, but seems to be out of danger now, and didn't show any dangerous signs of dehydration. It was interesting because at Mother's Fellowship this morning we volunteered at Feed My Starving Children, and my poor baby couldn't eat today!

Day 102: Making cookies and baby shower

Sadly, I don't have any pics from Angela and Barry's baby shower. I was in charge of games, so I ended up being a little too busy between heading stuff up and keeping an eye on Zaria (or making sure Jamin or someone else was). It was a lot of fun to get a baby boy name game together and hear everyone try to think of songs with "baby," "born" or "birth" in them. This was a variation from a shower the Friday Night Group did for me. I thought it would be a little easier to have the 3 words to think of since they're in a lot of Christmas songs, but I think I only heard 5 or 6 Christmas songs. We only made it around the group 3 or 4 times, but it was a pretty big group so that's understandable. It was pretty funny that Pastor Matt ended up winning the game with "Baby Got Back." Angela & Barry are cloth diapering, so we got them a bunch of Fuzzi Bunz, and the last game was a diaper-changing contest that Jamin won. (=

I also baked cookies today with my mom, which was really fun. I made some pretty complicated cookies-- Bittersweet chocolate cream cheese cookies which you coat with vanilla flavored candy coating and sprinkle with peppermint candy bits. I also did some cinnamon and some spearmint for color and taste preferences (there's a couple of people at the cookie exchange that don't like mint). I ran out of vanilla candy coating, so ended up finishing my bag of chocolate chips and using the melted chips for topping. They looked beautiful and Christmasy, but it was a LOT of work. I was glad to have Mom's help to take trays out of the oven and watch Zaria while I had fun making candy cane, snowman and Christmas tree shapes out of the dough.

Day 101: Christmas lights

Oh, how I love Christmas lights! They totally make up for it being cold and dark outside in December. So these are the Christmas light I put up above our garage. Of course I waited until we had our first big snowfall, which was a cold time to choose. I thought it was fun that you can also see my car gages in this photo, taken while I was pulling out of the garage to go do some Christmas shopping. I think by this time, Zaria and Jamin were both already down for the night, and I did some major grocery shopping late at night after getting a couple of presents.

Day 99: Christmas wordfind

It's easier to read on the above photo-- Cassie and I did a Boggle-type word find out of the Upwords board with all Christmas words. Some of them are more of a stretch, like bud and neck, but all of the words are supposed to be related to Christmas. Some to look for: Emanuel, Mary, Bethlehem, Vixon, Jingle Bells, Comit, Cozy. Like the cozy fireplace we sat by.

Day 95: Shoveling snow

I bought this tiny car shovel at Target last Saturday when it snowed a bunch-- it's actually nice for having in the car, and it helped me shovel Cassie's walkway when I went to visit her on Monday (after that I used a real shovel for the driveway and got completely worn out before I even finished). I didn't use it as much today since I forgot my gloves when I was out and about, and it's only snowed a couple of extra inches. Jamin used it to shovel in front of our garage when I was putting up Christmas lights around our garage door. I'll have to get a picture of that another day.

Day 90: Christmas picture outtake

"Zaria! Look at the camera!"
I dressed up a bit for the Women's Tea at FBC this morning, so I convinced Jamin and Zaria to dress up for a picture with me before I left. This was one of our outtakes, as the title would suggest. And by the way, we did have lots of snow today as predicted.

Day 86: Coats are in play

As you can see, we have a mass of pink coats that have invaded our downstairs coat closet. Thankfully, we also have a gold coat that is the major winter weather coat for Zaria, and it happens to be a very similar coat to mine, though mine is less shiny. So it's kind of fun to go around in our matching winter wear. Thanks go out to Mom for picking out Zaria's coat and my stepmom, Dawn for picking out my coat as a Christmas present last year.

Day 84: Jamin plays his horn again

Jamin played his french horn at church today, the first time he's performed for some years. I didn't catch him during the performance because I was up working the soundboard today. I found out that's a terrible place to take pictures from for lighting, and Zaria didn't help much by trying to grab the camera from me. I'm lucky I got this shot while they were practicing for the Christmas show.

Day 62: Early Christmas

We celebrated an early Christmas and birthday for Becca after a nice shopping trip with all us girls. Renee bought a few things she needed and a bunch of clothes for Zaria for her birthday and for Christmas (both Becca and Zaria have December birthdays). Mom and I had fun watching the girls open presents. Tricia had the most fun trying to eat the wrapping. She was getting a head start in this photo.