Christmas--first round of pictures

Christmas Day

crawling with tongue hanging out of mouth---something important must be going on!

James opening a time capsule from early elementary school (first or second grade, I think)

exploring N'Sync CD (see below for explanation)

Matt with autographed "Troy Aikman" picture (again, see below for explanation)

the best way to enjoy N'Sync---chewing on the cd cover

squirming in Great Grandmama's arms (John Harrison's common response to being held---he likes moving and dislikes being restrained!)

enjoying a last few fun hours with Aunt Caroline in town

Having fun with wrapping paper

Goodbye Aunt Caroline and Uncle James--we will miss you and hope to visit soon!

I feel like a horrible blogger for not posting anything for nearly one month. Here are some pictures my moma took on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I haven't uploaded pictures on my camera from Christmas Day with David's family, but hopefully will do that soon. Christmas was a lot of fun. We had Christmas dinner and opened gifts with my family on Christmas Eve. It was fun having everyone in town for John Harrison's first Christmas! The picture above shows John Harrison opening a gift from his Grandparents. He kept crawling back and forth over the top of the box and then tried to "eat" the wrapping paper. He didn't quite grasp what was going on, but he found great amusement in the wrapping paper and tissue paper.

Christmas Eve had some definite highlights. You may recall last year me describing about the gift that kept on giving (Little Boy Lost DVD). Well, this year, we decided to regift even more items. My sister received a used N'Sync cd that my friend gave me in high school. My brother-in-law Matt received a used Veggie Tales cd that was at least 13 years old.....vintage Veggie Tales practically! My brother received a $1 fishing DVD featuring the dynamic master fisherman "Dan Hernandez" that I picked up from Wal-mart several years ago; it didn't matter to me that I had already gifted that DVD to James in years past---or that he had regifted it to me ---it was time to return it to its rightful owner---in his free time James is a fisherman after all! My sister Margaret gifted us a copy of the infamous Little Boy Lost DVD that we had gifted to someone (not sure whom......we snagged so many copies of that thriller last year for $1 or less on half.com and gave them to so many ungreatful recipients). Right after Margaret gifted us Little Boy Lost, David started going off on how we were so over that tradition and how it just wasn't appropriate. Then, we handed a package to Caroline---what gift lay within---but Little Boy Lost DVD. The "giftus maximum" as David dubbed it was something I came across at my parents' house this past fall. Background--my brother was a huge Troy Aikman fan many years ago and James sent off for an autographed picture of his football hero. Of course, the autograph was one that had been copied and was in no way original--but, sometime after the picture came in the mail, my sister Margaret took a sharpie and copied over the fautograph (my term for fake autograph) --and voila---the picture look like it was genuinely signed by Troy himself. Well, after I came across the Aikman autographed picture, I knew that it would be a great addition to our Christmas celebration. David decided that my brother-in-law, Matt, should receive the "giftus maximus." We even framed the photo of Troy to make it look like an official gift. When Matt opened the gift, James looked over and shouted, "Hey, that's mine!" "I haven't seen that in years!" James did see the humor and retrieved the picture from Matt and actually regifted the picture to Caroline's Dad the next day. Ahh, the neverending joy of gifts that keep on giving. If you're wondering, yes, we did exchange serious good gifts in addition to the awful ones that no one would ever want. Sadly for us, but happy for them--James and Caroline moved to Santa Monica, CA a few weeks ago so that James could take a job out there. We will miss them tremendously---but are excited to have a fun place to visit.

Holiday meals are hard for me considering I can't eat too much in the way of normal food. My dad grilled some delicious filets for me with enough left over to have on Christmas Day, as well---thanks Dad!! On Christmas Eve I had okra, filet, rice, and butternut squash and the same on Christmas Day minus the butternut squash. Although I didn't have any desserts on Christmas, I have since come up with a recipe to make apple pie with a rice flour crust and use apples, honey, and rice flour for the filling---it is actually really good---probably the best thing I can eat! I actually cut out oatmeal from my diet back in the middle of December, but have added a few things back including green beans and a few other vegetables....no major additions, though. I tried adding wheat back into my diet back in late November and the results were disastrous---very fussy baby for over a week. That made me very scared of adding much else back.

Anyways.....enough on the food subject. Back to Christmas---we went over to my parents' house on Christmas morning and then spent a lot of the day with David's family. We enjoyed the time together, but missed David's Grammy whose flight was delayed due to snow (she did arrive the next day, though). We spent the evening with David's Grandpa and uncle. David's Grandmother (his Dad's mother) passed away on December 22nd----we will miss Grandmother, but are so excited that she is with the Lord and no longer suffering. I think back to this time last year and every time we went to visit David's grandparents, Grandmother would get so excited to see and feel how my belly had grown and feel John Harrison kick and move around. She so wanted to live to see her great grandson born!

In addition to the busyness with Christmas and surrounding David's Grandmother passing away, we have been swamped with work recently (in a good way!). David and I have both put in long, long days 6+ days per week for about the past 2 months (explains the lack of blogging). Hopefully, things will settle down in the next few months. John Harrison is growing up so quickly. He took his first step on January 5th, one day before his 10 month birthday. He takes a few steps every now and then but still is a little ways from reallly walking independently. He is cutting his eighth tooth right now! He pretty much only stops moving when he is sleeping....even then he tosses and turns some. He is getting more and more interactive with us and it is so fun to see him understand more and more. What a sweet, BUSY 10 month old boy God has blessed us with!!