Opening a Present...according to Lilian

Here's how Lilian opens a present. Notice that the present really doesn't matter, just the paper. :)

Baby's First Christmas

Here are some shots of Lilian enjoying her first Christmas. She really liked to grab and eat the paper.
She really looks excited to get these DVD's!
Best gift of all was Lilian herself!
I got these letters on a super sale. It was my best deal of the shopping season! :)

She's found her thumb

Lilian has found her thumb, and I finally got a picture of it!

Merry Christmas! (a little late)

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a great Christmas! We had a great time visiting family. More on that later. Here are some shots of Lilian in her Christmas dress. Thanks Travis for snapping these super cute shots!


You can't see her dress, but her face was too cute!

No Recession

I am so NOT convinced that we are having a recession. I'd rather call it an awakening. It just so happens that this "awakening" is bad for some businesses.

So last weekend, when I went shopping, the stores and streets were all PACKED! And people were carrying bags of stuff out of the stores. Kohl's in particular was so crowded that I decided what I was about to buy wasn't on sale good enough for me to brave the line. So I left it there. Maybe I'll wait 'til the after Christmas sales. :) The shopping trip was productive overall. Garden Ridge had really good stuff. And my best stop was Hobby Lobby. You'll have to see what I got there after Lilian opens her gifts...;) It was a long day, and I had intended on not going home until I was DONE. Well, I almost made it. I'm really, really close to being done.

Now, more about my "awakening" idea. For way too long, my generation has been living by a philosophy of, "I deserve everything without working for it. I should have everything I want right now. And I want the Biggest and Best of the best." This is not how our parents and certainly not our grandparents have lived. I don't know about most of you, but I love hearing my grandma Dorothy tell stories of her family and life. I've tried for years to get her to write some of this stuff down, because I'll never remember it all. Anyways, she was a child during the Great Depression. We've got it pretty darn good compared to those days. Maybe this little economic slow-down is working to make my generation less wasteful and more thoughtful with money. It's just not a bad thing to wait on things you want. To work for them. It makes you more appreciative. Hopefully we can teach our kids better...or maybe it's them, that will teach us.

5 Months

On Wednesday Dec. 3 Lilian turned 5 months old. Here's a few shots of our darling.
And thanks to a terrific update to Picasa, the last pic turned out really well.

Family Togetherness

Here is what I believe is the first time my mom's side of the family has all been in a picture together. It's certainly not professional. But this shot represents many things.

First, there are 3 more people in this picture than there would have been last year. Lilian was born first, 4 weeks later, Evan came along. Then just a few weeks ago, Landon made his grand arrival. It's been a busy year for many of us. My grandmother now has 10 Great Grandchildren! I think she's just as happy with each new baby. It just doesn't become "old hat".

Also, this weekend, Thanksgiving Dinner was at our house. I know this was kind of hard on Grandma not to be the "hostess". When all was said and done, I don't see how she did it all. It's a chore having all those people in your house and then cleaning up afterwards. I think all went well, however. Last year, besides being packed into her house like sardines, we ate in the dark. Of course, that wasn't her fault, but oh the memories!

I used to get so crazy hyper nuts when we got together with the "cousins". I can kind of see that in Josie and Nathaniel when they come running because "baby Lilian's here!" I hope they can have good memories like I have.

Here's the family.