Merry Christmas!

We had an amazing Christmas 2008!!! I can't believe I haven't posted in almost 2 weeks. I've been busy baking, cooking, wrapping, decorating, visiting, packing, cleaning, etc. On Christmas eve we headed over to my parents for dinner and Lily opened her presents there. The last picture on this post is her new present from Uncle Greg and Katie. It involves a microphone and dancing so she is just crazy about it! We went to Christmas Eve mass at 6PM and it was circus. Lately, Lily has not been the angel she once was when we went to church. All she wants to do is walk around. She also likes to play "wet noodle." She flings her body backwards and literally becomes limp. It makes it impossible to hold her!!! Anyways, we came back to our house for dessert and more present opening. Tyler and I got Andrew The Office game and that's what he got us! We had a fierce game of winning Schrute Bucks!

Then we ventured to Chicago on Christmas morning. We had brunch and then opened presents!! You can see another picture below of Lily enjoying one of her presents. We played lots of great games with the Mayer's including the never ending game of Risk!

Hanging out with Mike. Lily especially loved being at Grandma and Grandpa's because Grandpa was sneaking her whipped cream whenever he could.

On Christmas day with Dad!

Lily's very own shopping cart!

We got back in town on Sunday night. It's was great to be able to be with both sides of the family!!!!

What I've Been Up To

Taking the sink out of my kitchen and sitting in it. Also, I have my PJ's on and I begged my mom to also put on my shoes.

Reading books with Daddy!

Playing in the water table at the Children's Museum.

Riding the giraffe at the Children's Museum.

Going down the HUGE slide with Uncle Bubba. Lily can now say, "Bubba," which has always been my nickname for Andrew, so I think we're going to start calling him Uncle Bubba.

Dumping all 1000 of my mom's toothpicks!

Today is Tyler's last day of school. He has 2 weeks off!!!! We are still finishing up our Christmas shopping. Only 3 presents left to go. We're looking forward to spending time with both sides of the family. We have a "special treat" up our sleeve for Christmas Eve and we're hoping to introduce the game of speed scrabble to the Mayer's. Can't wait!

Can you guess my new favorite candy?

Yes, Lily tried her first candy cane and adored it! Her hands were so sticky afterward that when she took off one of her socks, it stuck to her hand. ha! We got our tree up. So far Lily has not really been interested in it. I have even put some presents under it and she has just ignored it. I was expecting her to be trying to crawl up it. Keep your fingers crossed!

Play-Doh

Lily played with play-doh for the first time. At first she was just excited she could push her finger in it. Then she figured out she could pull it apart. She was occupied for at leat 30 minutes!!!!

Our Christmas Lights!

For those of you who know Tyler well, you know he is a Christmas fanatic or maybe just a Clark Griswold's wanna-be. Tyler decks out our house each year with lights. When we moved into this house on December 11, 2006 he was already putting up lights on December 13th. No, the boxes weren't unpacked, but we had lights put up on our house.

The number of lights seems to grow every Christmas. Now he does have an accomplice...Fr. Meyer, of course. These two guys spent lots of hours last week engineering our lights. Yes, sketches were involved. They finagled it so that all the lights are perfectly straight. You can't miss Santa and his reindeer. The picture definitely doesn't do it justice. Fr. Meyer made the set last year for Lily's first Christmas. He sketched them, cut them and painted them. They really are gorgeous and a true piece of art. Be sure to drive by if you are in town. You'll be able to see our house from three streets away!

You can kinda see Lily's hand in this picture. She waves to Santa and his reindeer each time we leave the house!

Happy Thanksgiving (late)!

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We sure did!! Tyler's football team ended up not going to State, so we headed up to Chicago on Wednesday. I have no pictures, because I forgot my camera. Do you believe that? Anways, Lily enjoyed eating her first Thanksgiving dinner. She wasn't so into the the turkey, but she loved the mashed potatoes. Her favorite part was sticking the mashed potatoes up her nose.

Lily also got to see Santa for the first time. Grandma Mayer and I took her to the mall. The second she sat on Santa's lap she screamed!! She did like to see all the people and lights.

We came back on Saturday to celebrate Uncle AJ's 21st birthday! Tyler and I made it out to Broad Ripple, which hadn't happened in a LONG time. The first thing I thought when I entered the bar was, "Gosh, this music is WAY too loud." Guess I'm getting a little older. But we had a great time and so did Andrew.

Yesterday, we began to put up Christmas decorations and Tyler and Fr. Meyer have begun the outside lights. Lily loved seeing all the decorations!!!!

Here is a picture of Lily help unpack some of the decorations. I pulled out my snowmen that sing and dance. When I turned it on, Lily's jaw literally dropped. It was hilarious!!!

I'll have to get some pictures of the outside. Tyler and Fr. Meyer are definitely decking it out. Santa and his reindeer are out. They were made by Fr. last year and almost life-size. All I know is that on their list they needed 10 more strands of lights. Yikes!!


Lily playing with her new letters from Grandma! Thanks!