Christmas 2008

Taylor and I had our first Christmas at home with our 4 four-legged kids, and it was wonderful! We both come from families that really know how to celebrate Christmas, so it has been so much fun combining our family traditions and adding new ones! It was a perfect Christmas :)

My mom and dad suprised Taylor with a canoe! This way I can go with him and make sure he's safe-- no more kayaking all by himself until sundown! If a gator wants him, they'll have to go through me first!! haha ;)

Since my dad's birthday is December 24th, we have always had birthday cake on Christmas Eve! Suzanne started making cake for me on Christmas Eve the first Christmas that I spent on Bainbridge (the first Christmas away from my family), and we decided that it's a pretty good tradition to keep!

Taylor found a recipe from one of Bobby Flay's Throwdowns on FoodChannel.com for me, so I could made a red velvet cake this year--it seemed kind of Christmas-y :)

Grammy's fudge! We learned to make it this summer when we went to Oregon... I accidentally used the wrong kind of chips, but my hubby has still been eating it-- so it wasn't a total loss :)

Our first Christmas without family-- and no one to take pictures of us together ;)

Mexican Fiesta-- one of Taylor's family traditions...we only made half of the recipe and STILL have sooo much leftover!

One of the MANY clean-ups we had to deal with :)
Time to watch a movie (Love Actually)...so Pumpkin always starts hiding in case we try to catch her ;)

But then she jumped up on the couch all by herself to snuggle with her daddy :)

Way too much activity for Tubbie with all the baking and cooking... Gamer had left the room to go have some quiet time by this point. She doesn't like it when we don't sit still :)

Sweet Maggie, resting on her daddy's feet :)

Christmas morning!
Our ornaments from Suzanne and Les :)

Taylor and I did each other's stocking this year-- so the gifts all had to be small enough to fit in the stocking (Taylor kind of cheated and only followed the size idea of stocking gifts and not the price...he spent way too much money on me, as usual --his heart is a little bit too big for his own good sometimes!!)

Christmas stockings for the dogs! They all have very specific toy preferences...

Lots of stuffed animals for Maggie

Lots of edible toys and treats for Tubbs- he was allowed off his diet for the day, of course!

Chewy toys for Gamer (more for her to "guard" than chew....but it makes her happy :))

Squeaky toys and a hand puppet for Pumpkin (I need to make her a stocking too, I know!)

Mine! Mine and MINE!! (Maggie sometimes needs a reminder when it comes to sharing stuffed animals)
Getting so brave...

She loves the hand puppet!

DON'T TOUCH MY TOYS! And no one ever listens to her-- they know she's all talk.

Tubbs--just making sure he's not missing out on any treats.

4 happy, spoiled dogs

Thanks Anne and Bobby for our Mario Kart!! :)

Taylor's new fishing vest

My new slippers

Our dog snowglobe from our Bainbridge Island Santa :)

Suzanne's hash brown quiche for Christmas morning breakfast --with Mimosas in honor of Poppy, of course!!

So many toys to choose from!
Taylor making his first prime rib (Suzanne's recipe :))
It was perfect!!!

Mmmmm :)

Having a father/son moment...

Time to clean up!!

Taylor took this without me knowing... and I am clearly loving the Wii (just a bit serious though...)

And I am stuck in the grass while playing Mario Kart (and still being super serious)--I would have looked like an awesome player if he hadn't have included the TV in this shot! haha ;) I'm learning!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!! :)

Dogs and Snooks

One of Taylor's snooks... The fish survived and swam away after the pic was taken :) He is so cute!!

Snuggling with their Daddy after a traumatic Christmas card photo shoot with Mom.

Taylor with 2 of his girls-too many girls fighting over one boy in this house! It's a good thing I have my Tubbie :)

The Best Dog Daddy!

A couple of nights ago while we were watchintg TV, I glanced around at our four resting dogs and said that I was going to give them all a special chewy treat because they were just being SO good!! As soon as they heard the crinkling of the dental chew bag opening (ok, maybe they weren't so much "treats" as healthy chewies, but still... :)), all four sets of eyes were on me and all four tails were wagging with excitement. To all of our dismay, I proceeded to pull out the last 2 chewies in the bag...

Taylor jumped up and said not to worry, that he would just break them in half (since I was having no luck at all). After realizing that this was physically impossible to do, he then marched out to the garage, with four dogs on his heels, and pulled out his saw! How sweet is he?!? It took a little while, but our heroic dog daddy came back into the house with 4 evenly constructed chewies!!

Not the most exciting story, but sometimes my hubby deserves a little credit for all that he does! And while we're on that note, he cooked the most delicious chicken parmesean last night (even with the wheat pasta, healthy Panko bread crumbs, etc..) and cleaned the kitchen entirely. He's pretty special :)

He doesn't know it yet, but his wife is going to insist that he watch It's A Wonderful Life with her this weekend because it's her favorite movie, and he has somehow avoided watching it for the 8 years they've been together... hehe. It's either that or TWILIGHT (which I am dying to see!!!) I have a feeling we'll be heading out to the movies this weekend.... Vampires will definitely appeal more to Taylor than anything in black and white (just don't tell him it's a love story!!) ;)

Here he is sawing... Tubbie was giving him some encouragement (Notice his kayak in the background-- he has worked SO hard on that kayak to make it fully functional for fishing, and he now fishes in it all the time. He caught almost 15 fish a couple of days ago! He puts all the fish back, of course, but still, that's pretty impressive!)

And here he is giving them their treats :)


(Also-- Check out the new pictures of my precious little niece, Catie Cox, on Megan's blog!
http://megan-wwwpeanutbutterandredwine.blogspot.com/ )

Cell Phone Pictures

I just got around to uploading my cell phone pics onto the computer, so here are some random pictures from the past couple of months :)



Taylor fishing on the beach while I napped and read a book- a common weekend afternoon for us :)

I love living at the beach!

When I go to Nashville by myself, I get to stay in my old bedroom (with my FAVORITE fluffy white comforter!), and now Charley shares the bed with me every time I visit --although she is still learning to share-- when she sprawls out on the bed, there's hardly enough room for me!

Getting to know my Grandma's cat, Blue... she rescued her after she was found by a dumpster, sick and alone at 6 weeks old. She is so precious.
I am a total dog person and don't know a thing about cats... so what does it mean when they bite like this?? She kept doing that to my fingers...it didn't hurt, but I wasn't sure how to respond :)

My beautiful Grandma Mary... I had to take a picture of her when I was sleeping over at her house last month...she is always so glamorous :)

After a long day wedding planning with Anne and Suzanne! Anne dove into the Snickerdoodle Blue Bell ice cream with one of the 2 plastic spoons we have in the Nashville house and the whole handle broke off- haha. I love being a Childress girl... Blue Bell ice cream, margaritas, and champagne, and we're good to go--maybe some cheese enchiladas too :)
Those giant birds again-- they were doing some weird mating dance here, I think. I really don't know what to think of them-- and to be honest, I think they are a bit aggressive. They don't seem afraid of me at all...

Just a typical night getting ready for bed :)

Mom and Dad in the waiting room at the hospital on Dec 1

Megan holding Catie for the first time!

Catie with her eyes open-- I love this baby girl!

Family picture :)
Abby is still learning her boundaries... and thought she'd try breaking the rules while Mommy and Daddy were feeding Catie in the nursery.

Sleepy Catie

So precious!!!

Lily, Sadie, and Abby joining their Mom in the nursery...they all fell asleep in their while she fed Catie. (She isn't nursing here in this pic, by the way)
Striking a pose
The peaceful, quiet 2nd night home with Catie. We all took turns snuggling Catie while watching TV and reading. The dogs love their new sister, ESPECIALLY Lily. They get a little concerned when she cries, but they are super gentle around her and try to lick her toes :)
Brian and his 2 girls :)

OH... and my sister had read Lockie's blog about Twilight a little while ago, and she is now almost finished with the 3rd book, so I started reading the first one while I was there since there was some down time in the hospital... and I am HOOKED! I LOVE this book-- and I'm not even a fan of vampire stories usually! Thank you Lockie!! :)

It is a sunny 75 degree day here in Port Orange, FL...all the windows are open, I'm in a t-shirt, skirt and flip-flops, I just talked to Megan, and she and Catie are doing great, Taylor is fishing in his kayak, I'm decorating for Christmas, listening to Christmas music and making cookies, and the dogs are snoozing around the house... Life is good :) It doesn't get any better than this!