Birthday with Mr. Chuck E. Cheese

Yesterday was our friend Ben's birthday:

We benefitted because we were able to join them at Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. A friend of mine compares it to the seventh circle of hell, but on a random Tuesday night it was actually a lot of fun. The pizza wasn't even as bad as I remembered it. And they had Cherry Coke! But most of all Emma had fun.

Madeline: 8 months

Once again, this post is late, for several reasons. One, I was waiting for Madeline's nose to stop running before I took pictures. I keep thinking that any day now a new tooth is going to show up (hence the nose running--she has no other cold symptoms), but not yet. Two, after I took these pictures I lost the camera for a few days. So now she's closer to 9 months, but I didn't want to pass up posting completely. Madeline is so fun right now--this is one of my favorite ages. She is such a busy girl. I thought I'd share some things about her personality:
Likes:
--Cereal, especially in puffed form.
--Sophie the giraffe.
--Most fruits, in pureed form.

Dislikes:
--Vegetables in all forms, especially green ones.
--Having her nose blown.
--Drinking from a cup (though she can do it just fine).

Hobbies:
--Dumping out baskets of books, toys, DVDs, etc.
--Crawling around the kitchen in search of stray Cheerios.
--Chewing on books.
--Ripping up any paper she can find.

She is getting tall, but I think she'll be off the charts in weight at her next appointment.

Christmas 2009 in Videos

These are mostly for the grandparents. The first is Emma with her stocking:

This one is especially for Mimi:

Christmas 2009 in Pictures

Christmas Eve

We had a nice, quiet Christmas Eve, for the most part. After several weeks of lots of work and little sleep, Dave's numerous ailments led him to the doctor, who gave him some powerful drugs. Great stocking stuffer! :) Emma and I made some sugar cookies together. In the late afternoon we brought some treats to friends. We had chili for dinner (Emma's favorite), watched a Christmas movie, and read the picture-book version of the Christmas story. (We must cater to our audience, after all).

Outside the snow actually WAS blowing! We hope to live in Texas for a while but we will probably not see that again. I took some pictures to document, then Dave and I settled in front of "It's a Wonderful Life" to wrap presents. With only 2 little girls, both of whom were completely without expectations, it only took an hour.

Day 24: Open a Present

I can still remember the agonizing wait to open presents when I was a kid. When I was growing up we had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. Lot of people do pajamas for this first present, but my girls already had Christmas pajamas, so I decided on a new tradition for our family: books.