More of the New Year

We rang in the new year in Port Alto with my dad and my sister's Emilie and Ann and their families. It was a fabulous party. We ate a ton of food - my dad cooked a brisket, ham, and a turkey. We played Ticket To Ride and Wii Fit until wee hours of the night.

Jacob enjoyed the pier- but spent most of his time playing Star Wars on the Wii with his cousins.

Merry demonstrating proper technique for walking down the center row of nails.

We played in the clover

Merry showed Grace how to find 4-leaf clovers

Gracie loved the shells, or should I say loved to eat the shells

Merry filled her bucket with shells, then sat on the pier and threw the shells in the water. Then she threw the bucket in the water. When she realized she couldn't reach it she started to cry "oh no that is my brudder's best bucket." I finally had to wade in and fish the bucket out.

We went sea kayaking. Merry and Jacob had a blast.

We caught fish- mostly stinky old cat fish in the wise words of cousin Paul.

Brian demonstrating his fine fishing skills.

On the way home we stopped in Goliad to see the mission. We also checked out the San Antonio River.

A four-leaf clover- okay so probably not a clover, but close to, near by or round about.

Any way you look at it, I feel pretty lucky.

Happy New Year

Wishing you the best of luck in the new year.

Christmas at the Snotty Stotties

We had a wonderful Christmas. Santa slept in until 5:00 am, so the gifts were a little late getting wrapped. Merry came down stairs and watched me put together and wrap the last of the gifts. I told her Santa was too busy to wrap all of the gifts so I had to help him out. Maybe Santa will be on time to our house next year.
My favorite Christmas memories this year are as follows:
1. Merry's version of Ruldolph the Red nose reindeer. It goes something like this- you know cop-it and keep-it and blitz-it but do you recall the most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph the nose-red reindeer.........

2. Jacob jumping up and down screaming "we got a Wii, we got a Wii"

3. Little inchworm Gracie spending most of Christmas trying to eat her big toe through a hole in the foot of hand- me down pjs.



Brian surprised me with a router table and a cake decorating book among other things. I am not sure how these two gifts correlate. Maybe I could router a cake base to put my freshly decorated cake on.


Here are some pictures in Christmas finery.

My dad picked out this dress for Gracie. She looked so cute.

Merry is still so thin she was able to wear last year's dress. Lucky me.

We have been looking for Jacob's red tie for the past month. I finally found it today stuffed in the toe of his too small church shoes. I guess he really hates to wear ties.

We acted out the nativity with the Babcocks on Christmas eve. Merry was a little shepherd, Jacob was a wise man and Gracie was baby Jesus. I was too busy video tapping to take pictures.

We are sure going to miss the Babcocks next year.

Christmas in Tejas

In honor of Christmas in Tejas, Merry and I made tamales today.

I received all kinds of great info from the staff and patients at work.  

Some of the sage advice

1. slap the masa with the back of your hand- if it comes off shiny then your masa has enough     lard in it.  

2. drop the masa in a cup of water if it floats then the masa has enough fat.

We cooked the pork and chile sauce yesterday.  Today Merry and I rolled tons of tamales- fat ones, skinny ones, short ones, tall ones.  We don't discriminate and we don't roll even.

All the tamales in the pot steaming- or not steaming because I just took off the lid to add more aqua.
taste test 1, 2 or 3
add a diet Mountain dew to really celebrate.  Then sit back and watch your thighs expand.

Meanwhile in other parts of our house hold Merry is celebrating another holiday by being drugged up.  Over Thanksgiving she had pneumonia, now for Christmas she has ear infections and asthma.  We haven't been able to get her poor little lungs to function over 94 %.  Hopefully with some steroids and antibiotics she will be her Merry little self again.

ready for christmas

We are ready for Christmas at our house. 

The trees are up.

We have eggnog in the fridge.

I have already gained my holiday weight.

And the paper whites are blooming.

Jacob made Brian and I a special holiday card.  

It said "I hope santa brings my mom lots of money.  I want santa to bring my dad two treadmills but my mom already has one."  Thanks Jacob - I want Santa to bring me lots of money too.

Merry has some fancy footed pj's that she calls her "walkin pajamas."  Every time she puts them on she does a one footed hop that she calls her "walkin pajama dance."

Gracie may or may not have ate a penny today-  I guess we will find out in a couple of days.

Holiday greetings to all.

Here is one of the failed Christmas card designs.

And more cute cousins

Party with Santa

One of Jacob's friend's invited us over for a Christmas party.  We had such a great time.  The kids got to decorate gingerbread houses, sing christmas carols and see Santa.  

Santa was warming up Merry's hands because it was so cold.

Jacob has changed his mind about what he wants for Christmas.  He really wants a puppy but Santa does not bring live animals to our house so instead he wants a toy dog.

Merry still wants a pink train

And Gracie wants to know how he got all that hair on his face.

Santa came with a marine escort in a cool old car.  They took all the kids for a ride in the back. 

The tooth fairy was also there and brought this animal.  Jacob thought it was pretty great.  He tried to check his own mouth too.

Jacob and his friends.

Cousin #36

Gracie and I made the trek to Colorado to see little baby cousin #36. He is so cute-I think everyone will have to agree.

And if one cute hat wasn't enough- here he is, ready for Christmas