It's a Rowdy Life: January 2014

This Christmas we stayed at home in The Woodlands to celebrate with my side of the family. As much as I looked forward to Rose's first Christmas, it was very bittersweet. The closer I got to Christmas, the closer we got to her cleft lip repair surgery which was scheduled for the day after Christmas. I am going to write a separate post about that entire experience as I am still going through it (stitches and nose stents come out tomorrow) and haven't really had a chance to process all of it.

We started the Advent season by preparing our home for the excitement of Christmas: putting up the lights on the house (forgot to get a picture and due to a nasty wind storm have already been removed courtesy of Mother Nature), setting up our Christmas tree, advent wreath, and multitude of Christmas nic-nacs. I am one of those freak show people who LOVE decorating for Christmas. Like, I have to control myself or I would COMPLETELY redecorate our entire house during the season. It drives John nuts, but at the same time makes him smile. While I was putting ornaments on the tree, he smiled at me and asked, "How happy are you right now?" To which I responded, "SO HAPPY!!!". I think you get the idea.

This was before everything was done, but you get the idea. Not pictured: the shelves of Xmas nic-nacs :)

Here is the mantle....next year I'll add lights to the garland.

Rose's favorite part of dinner, she may or may not grow up to be a pyromaniac

My favorite part of dinner = Baby Chub for dessert

Another thing I'm kind of obsessed with is family traditions. My mom made all of our stockings and she wanted to start the tradition of making the grand chillrens too. So I picked one out and apparently picked one with way too much detail or Grammy is a little rusty on her skills because we didn't get it completely finished by Christmas, but it looks AWESOME! I love it so much and know Rose will cherish her stocking made by Grammy-Grams for years to come!

I can't get the picture to stay upright, so do me a favor and tilt your head to the right when viewing...thanks

Also, right after I took this picture, my Mom instincts kicked in and I realized she could choke on any one of those bazillion sequences. Rookie Mistake.

Christmas Eve we had a yummy meal prepared by Pops with everyone except Auntie KK (Kristen). She was out in the Sonoma Valley with her main squeeze Matt. We missed her! After dinner we went to mass and came back to my parents to open gifts. Christmas Day was full of relaxing and watching football. I hope everyone's holidays were grand!