25 Dec 2010

The Merriest of Christmases... 

to you and yours. 

Hopefully your day is full of all the good stuff... family, friends, food, the spirit of the holidays and lots of good cheer. 

Ho- ho- ho.

All our love and best wishes, 

Meegs, Trav, Gwen, and Daisy

looks like I'm back...

Six posts in eight days.... looks like I'm getting back into the swing of things! Work has slowed down a little thanks to the holidays, so I can muster up the minutes to pop in here.

I have a few things to share that I'm excited about... (things that will hopefully hold you over, since ironically, I probably won't be able to pop in again until Sunday or Monday...)

First off (probably least exciting), we baked more doggie biscuits last night:

These are "savory" biscuits with parsley and chicken broth. I'll actually tack both recipes to the end of this post, in case you are interested. They are both pretty easy, the PB one more so. I already gave out two little "doggie bags" to a friend on the train, and Trav gave out a whole bunch to his workmates who own dogs.

Secondly, and more fun, I got a new wrap!! I got some Christmas money this year from two people... I decided that the one gift would be fun money, that I could do whatever I wanted with, and the other would be used for something more "responsible" (part went into Gwen's savings account... part is waiting until after the holidays). So with my fun money I got a new wrap, a Ellevill Zara Deli LE.

I like my other wrap, but don't love it. It is way way too long for me and it makes tying good, tight carries hard. So I decided to buy this one as my new long wrap (though it is a meter and a half shorter then the one I currently have!), and I'm going to cut down my current wrap (the BB Slen) to two wraps, a medium and a shorty. I'll try both, see which I like using more, and sell the other. Wraps have amazing resale value, so that will be easy.

I was so excited to get my Zara today. So excited that I had to grab the closest thing to a baby that I could find at work and tie it on!!

LOL.

Here's a close up of the wrap itself ("braided"):

(So pretty, right?!)

And here's a two with my actual baby:

Love it, love it, love it.

Its not the best picture, but what a comfortable carry!! And wrapping in general was so much easier with this wrap vs. my 5.6m BBSlen! I'm in love all ready. Even with a wiggly, just wanting to eat dinner already babe, I was able to get her up there super fast. And once I got her there, she relaxed and lay her head on my shoulder, so I know she was comfy too. I'd like her to be a little higher next time, but I thought it turned out pretty well!

Yay!

In other exciting news... Jan had her surgery today and it went so well. It only took an hour, they were able to do it laparoscopically, and the prognosis for recovery is good. I'm going to check in with her once she's had some rest time, but that is great news for now.

And to end on a cute note... the Christmas ornament Gwen made us at daycare:

(First one is dark, second is blurry... but you get the idea...)

Okay all, recipes after the post break... and until I return, Merry Christmas! Enjoy your holiday celebrations.

creative pursuits

I was just going to post this:

Santa's off the hook:

... since we have two front teeth!!

Which is cute enough on its own... but then we got creative last night and I have to share.

Baking/making homemade dog biscuits for the neighbor's dogs (we have great neighbors).

Daisy taste-tested them for us and approved.

And since Trav got his cast off today, he let me do this:

(Puffy paint eyes...)

(And for the winter solstice:)

Good times!

cookies and trees and babies, oh my

It was a really great weekend. Busy and full, but all the wonderful kind. I posted on Saturday night with pictures from that day... but I'll expound a little.

Saturday I had a hair appointment. Seeing as Babs was in town again, we couldn't pass up on a third visit in as many months (yay!!!), so she came by my parent's place. We all visited for a while, then she headed back home, and my mom hopped in her car to lead Gwen & I over to my Gram's new place, a mere 10 minute drive from my parent's (and on the route I take home, to boot). Its so wonderful having her so much closer... and I absolutely LOVE that Gwenie is going to get to see her all the time now, and consequently, is going to know her.

It was a wonderful day.

Yesterday, we headed to Ro & Pat's place again to bake more cookies and exchange gifts (Ro - a new cookie sheet, snowflake shaped cookie cutters, and decorative glitters; Pat - a basket with all the works for a home bar, which he is hoping to create; GG - two fleece PJs [snowmen and penguins] and a super cute striped top; Trav - two variety packs of beer; Gwen - a fleece top with penguins, leggings, and a cute shirt; Me - two movie passes, a gift card to use for dinner, and the offer of babysitting! plus a terry cloth robe).

It was a lot of fun. The boys went off for a while to pick out Trav's gift and pick up lunch, and Ro & I got started on these:

And these:

GG napped most of the time, and Gwen played in the high chair for a while, and I threw her on my back in the Mai Tai for a while too. I wish I had a picture of that! :-)

GG is getting some big sister practice with Gwen... and its cute seeing them interact. At one point Gwen's sock came off and GG grabbed it and attempted to stick it back on Gwen's foot.

Ro has a little video of it, and we are both laughing hysterically because the whole time GG is attempting to get Gwen to sit still, then grabbing her foot and Gwen is just staring at her with this "what are you doing to me?!" look on her face. Pretty cute.

We headed home and ate a relaxed dinner, Gwen had a bath, then she was off to bed. I snapped a few pictures of our tree then, since I realized that I never shared it with you.

And our beautiful, sparkly star:

Love it!!

I hate to even jinx it, but Gwen slept well last night. ::knocks on wood::  She woke to eat voraciously at 10something, then slept soundly until 4am. She ate and went back down for another hour, when she came to bed with us and slept until 6:30. It was good and I'm hoping we're moving in the right direction now. I think that second tooth coming in really helped.

Wait, did I talk about that yet?! I guess not... late last week, tooth #2 decided to pop out!! So we have a little bunny rabbit on our hands with her two front teeth (Santa's off the hook!). Its pretty freakin cute.

Anyway, now its back to work for me... thought Trav has off for the week (had a few days left). He gets his cast off tomorrow and we are both so damn excited!

Something else exciting, the 10 day forecast. Specifically that there are two days of snow predicted, and they fall on the Christmas weekend:

On that note, hope everyone is having a great week-before-Christmas!