8 years.

And it's only gotten better.

Christmas

I'm not going to write and post a bunch of Christmas pictures. There are a quite a few, but I was not feeling my best so there aren't as many as there could be and what's there isn't that great. They'll be up on snapfish soon - I'm going to make an effort to do that again.

Christmas morning was really good though, and Rowan had the best reactions. His face for almost every present that anyone opened looked like this:

The boy was excited.
We had fun. We played. We ate turkey. We played some more. It was good.
Eleri didn't do much, but she looked cute.

Longies by Cece of Knit Candy. Yes I bought some knitting. Hey, it was on sale, and I should support other knitters, right?
We're stretching Christmas out too. Tonight we made a gingerbread house. It's dairy free!

Tomorrow John and I will celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. Sharon and Scott will stop by for lunch. And Mamaw is supposed to get here on Thursday since she missed Christmas. I love this time of year!

2 months old

It's hard to believe. Life with her on the outside of my body goes by so much faster than those last few weeks of pregnancy went.
She's a dolly. She's a very sweet little baby, and hardly any more evening fussy time. The non-dairy diet has really helped her a ton. I won't kid you - I hate it. But she's worth every bit of denial.
Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I wanted her for a couple of years before I finally got to have her. But I'm really marvelling at these baby days. I love her toes, her grunts, her warm little lump status... She's everything a baby should be and more, and I thank God every day that he sent her to us.
But anyway. Here are her 2 months portraits. She's wearing the same outfit that she came home in. I'm just impressed that she still fits in it!

You are going to notice that I have a new toy

because the number of pictures is going to go up a bit.
Also, our old camera had focus issues, and baby smiles are fleeting and hard to catch.
But looky here!

The combo of new camera + Eleri being more generous with her smiles = WIN!
Isn't she cute? Lisa N. gave us the bow yesterday. Eleri wants more bows and some binkies for Christmas.

I forgot to tell you about our tiger

Rowan got a stuffed tiger from the Rainforest Cafe when we were in Vegas this summer. He named it Katamari (after a video game) and it's been his constant companion. Kinda reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes.
So when we went to the Holiday Express last Sunday night (sorry, no pictures of that. It was dark.) and they had face painting, Rowan jumped at the chance to get half his face painted like a tiger.
We would have gone for the whole thing, but at $5 a half...
He loved it. So much that John had to be careful doing his bath so the face paint wouldn't get washed off. He managed to keep it for a good bit of the next day too before it got smeared everywhere and we finally had to wash it off. There were tears involved and I had to promise to go to the library and get a book on how to paint faces.
He made a pretty good tiger though!

Learning the ropes again

Tommy and Fran got us a new camera for Christmas. We actually got it a day or so ago, but I've been studying the manual and then yesterday we spent all day at the mall for the annual visit to see Santa. No it doesn't take all day, but we have to spend time in the play area/germ pit playing with our friends too.
So anyway, last night I hauled it out for its inaugural run. It was night, and the room was poorly lit, and I had to use the flash, but I think we got something cute anyway.

And we did see Santa yesterday. The boys lied about behaving and put in their request for a Wii. I no longer have the threat to not take them to see Santa to get them to stop fighting, but I do have the supreme weapon in the pre-Christmas arsenal....

If they're really naughty. We go back to the big guy and they have to tell him what they did.
You wouldn't believe how well that works.

the lunch of the beast

Yep.

One cheeseburger happy meal with chocolate milk and fries.
One chicken nugget happy meal with chocolate milk and fries.

total:

$6.66

Also: it's love when you get happy meals for your little guy on his birthday and drive home with the smell of McD's fries all over the car, when you can't have any, because McD's has a dairy additive in their fries. Seriously. Fries. I'm stockpiling karma.

Taken out of context....

this could be alarming.

Today is Rowan's last day of school before his track break, so we needed to send in Christmas cookies for his teacher and the aide. So last night Rowan and I made cookies.
I was making the dough before dinner so it could chill and we could cut cookies after bath time.
Rowan didn't know what I was doing. He didn't really pay attention. He just knew I was in the kitchen.

Here's the thing. Our cookie recipe calls for 2 Tbsp of whiskey. Straight up whiskey.
He comes waltzing into the kitchen right after I opened it up and added it.

He takes a whiff. His eyes light up. And he says... "Hey that smells like Christmas!"

Yep. Whiskey smells like Christmas.