Merry Christmas

We hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season.

Since the grandbaby is back, my dad has finally posted again. This time he brushed off the accordian after 25 years to play Hadley the Chicken Dance. You can see the video here.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

I took this picture on Sunday during sunset when it was just finishing snowing. I loved the trees all covered in white and the pink sky in the back ground.

Happy Christmas Eve.

The Chicken Dance Revisited

Upon request, Grandpa pulled out the accordian yesterday and played the chicken dance for Hadley to her great delight. She shook her booty and gave the "more" sign when he stopped. Some people may consider the chicken dance a cruel form of child abuse. But she LOVES it. Really, it's more abusive to us. Luckily my tolerance for repetition is high.

Since I don't have a video, here is Myron Floren from Lawrence Welk playing the Chicken Dance.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Hadley and I got to Connecticut yesterday just in time before the big snow hit. The prediction is for 8-14", but it was at least 5" when my Dad and I headed out for round one of shoveling their 160' driveway. He used the monstrous snow blower and I did clean up with the shovel. I even got to run the blower for a bit. I felt proud that my Dad would trust me with it. Kind of like the first time he gave me keys to his brand new Grand Am when I was 16 and let me drive to the grocery store to get milk. Of course I took advantage of the situation and went to a store three towns over so I could drive further.

It was great fun to be outside. Just when I would finish the walk, I would turn around and another inch had fallen. It felt like shoveling in circles. We finally had to just come in, otherwise I would still be out there trying to make it perfect.

We are hoping that the snow will stick so DG can have a White New England Christmas.

Birthday Dinner

It is an annual tradition that every year we celebrate DGs birthday with dinner at The Avenue Grill. Even last year, not wanting to miss out with having a baby and all, we managed to do it early two days before giving birth.


Even with temperatures under negative ten, we all bundled up. I was able to bring out my scat/harf again.


Hadley was more stylish than any of us in her animal print cuffed jacket and holiday red hat. I am sure that someday, when she has dyed a purple strip in her hair, and has freshly painted black fingernails, and is in her all black velvet goth outfit, she will mock me for making her wear animal print. But gosh darn if she weren't so cute in it.

Christmas Party 2008

After taking a year off in 2007 due to a new little bundle, we restarted our annual tradition of having a Christmas party last week-end. In the chaos, we did not take one picture of the food all night, much to my dismay. So here is a recreation of the table. Please imagine if you will, these empty plates filled with the following menu:

Martha Stewart's Hot Spinach Dip and Macaroni and Cheese
Jemangelaville's Red Velvet Cupcakes with White Chocolate Peppermint Cream Cheese frosting and Shrimp Cakes with a Spicy Lemon and Paprika Aioli
Rachel Ray's 5 Minute Fudge Wreath decorated with red and green M and M's
Phyllo Dough Bites
Brie Pastry Bites
Shrimp Tray and Cocktail Sauce
Smoked Salmon Platter with dill sauce, capers, and red onion
Peppered Salami
7 Layer Dip
Guacamole
Humus and Pita Chips
Cheese, Crackers, and Fig Spread
Holiday Punch (Mandarin Orange Vodka, White Cranberry Peach Juice, and Club Soda topped with lime and orange slices), Wine and Beer
There were also various other dips and Cynthia brought a 10lb veggie tray and sliced tomato and mozzarella platter.

These two tables were filled with food to the extent they were overflowing. The punch was so popular that it was gone by 10pm and fun was had with games and door prizes. Every year DG likes to add a special touch to the party. In 2005, he proposed to me with carolers (go to 3:33 in the video), in 2006 he hired Creepy Santa off of Craigslist, and this year, he created Have Your Picture Taken with the Christmas Yeti and Andy Williams.


The party finale ended with me attacking dishes around midnight. They were never ending. We went through 40+ wine glasses alone plus all of our barware. This view of the dishwasher made my owwie head ache a little more. Crazy.

Happy Birthday to DG

He's wonderful, he's awesome, he's a great support, a great dad and the love of my life. Happy birthday to DG today.

On Dasher on Dancer on Prancer on Gibson

Tica would have been in this shot if she were not a total wuss that hated snow. Compared to her first experience with snow, Hadley fared much better this time and enjoyed feeling the cold white stuff. Wake up Hadley, it's SNOWING! YAY!

Trimming the Tree

We opted to save money this year and went with the Douglas Fir over the Frasier Fir. But man, is this a good looking tree, measuring in at ten feet tall. We had to cut it down quite a bit to get the star on top. It only took DG three running Elf leaps to get it up there.

Last night, we trimmed the tree in our annual tradition of listening to some of DGs 122 Christmas albums and drinking Bailey's on Ice. This year Hadley tried to help, by pulling off all of the ornaments in arms reach. Which leads me to ask, with all these bulbs and ornaments, haven't I just filled the house with a boat load of choking hazards?

Can you see a special initial in the middle of the tree?

Santa's Little Helper

Hadley's Great Aunt Susan sent this delicious little number recently for Xmas. Seen above are the milliseconds that she allowed the hat to remain on her head. Sometimes when I see kids clothes, I wish that they made them in big people sizes. This is one of those times. I would so wear this to our holiday party this week-end. Then I could be the Ms. Claus to DGs Mr. Christmas.


Since Hadley acted like I was plucking out her toenails one at a time when I would put the hat on her, I decided to let Gibson wear it in all it's beauty so as not to go to waste.

Baby Girl Turns ONE!

Hadley turned ONE on Thanksgiving Day! To commemorate this monumentous occasion, we all (DGs sister Jinnie, Bloom, and Mark) travelled 9+ hours to DGs home town of Yankton, SD. She did really well in the car, especially with me in the back seat sitting next to her acting like a one person variety show the entire trip to entertain her.


Upon arriving, the night before TG, we celebrated with DGs whole family eating cupcakes and opening presents. I made Martha Stewart's Yellow Butter Cake and Chocolate Frosting recipe. Nothing like adding butter and sugar to your baby's diet. As you can see from the Joker's smile, the cupcakes were a hit.


We stayed with the most gracious hosts, Carol and John who took us in as if we were their own family. We loved staying with them and had so much fun, we threatened to move into their basement apartment. Every night until 11pm, we all played Uno ATTACK A.K.A., my new favorite game. We also had our TG Feast at their house. Check out this spread.


Grandma Mary and Carol did the majority of the cooking. For the 1st time in several years, I practically sat back and twiddled my thumbs. Ok, well, I simply whipped up some Sweet Potatoes with a pecan steusel topping and some fresh cranberry sauce.


Hadley and Bloom got some good Grandparent time.


When we were in Yankton, SD, there was a Santa set up at the end of the mall. Compared to the 3 hours lines of fuss and glitz at our she-she mall here in Colorado, this was more my speed.



About a week before her birthday, Hadley had started standing and taking steps on her own. Each day she goes a little bit further. She is also dying to talk and communicate. She has started to say and do things in an appropriate manner without being prompted. She will say "All Done" and give me the sign when she wants a meal to be over. She requests bananas, and when she wants something, she points to it and says "Dat". I've tried this method with DG for years with fancy jewelry and ponies, but I'm just not as cute as Hadley.

She's perfect and since she listens so intently to what we say and has started to mimic us, I am officially trying to tone down my language around her. You may say FTSB, but SOB it's MoFo hard. Especially since I am so fiery these days over just about anything. Glad I got that out of my system.

And the winner is....

Thanks so much to everyone that participated in yesterday's gift give away. The response has been overwhelmingly wonderful. This is the most blog comments that I have ever had and I wish I could send every one of you rice packs and pins.

I typed up all the names, threw them in a hat and Hadley picked out the winner this morning. Congratulations to Goat Goddess you are the lucky winner of a lavender rice pack and pin. Please email me your mailing address.

And for proof, here's a little video of Hadley picking the winning name at 6:30 this morning.



Here were the top 3 Christmas Song Favorites:
1. Silent Night
2. O Holy Night
3. Jingle Bells


Here's a really cute blog I found during the giveaways yesterday and every Friday through this month, she will post about something fun you can make for holiday gifts. Check her out by clicking the picture above.

Give Away Day - Lavender Rice Pack and Pin

We are so excited here at Allbeehive today, because we LOVE giving things away. Especially with the financial crunch, FREE gifts are like finding $10 in last years winter coat.

Today, one lucky person can win not one, but TWO homemade gifts. Give them to someone and save yourself a trip to the store, OR keep them for yourself. To enter, read the rules below and enter a comment today between 7:00am - 8:00pm midnight (MST) and let me know your favorite Christmas Song. Be sure to sign your comment as anonymous entries can't win. At the end of the day Tomorrow morning, I will throw all entries into a hat and let Hadley randomly pick the winner.

Then after you have commented here, go to Sew, Mama, Sew! and find the list of all the other participants in the FREE Holiday Give Away. Go win yourself a bunch of stuff!

FREE GIFT #1 - Lavender Rice Pack

Fifteen years ago, I threw some rice in a muslin bag, made a flannel pillow case for it, and voila I had myself a hot rice pack. To this day, I still use this rice pack every fall when it starts to get cold. Today's GRAND PRIZE is a lavender rice pack. It is 21" X 5" which is perfect to sling around your neck. The soothing moist heat is good for sore aching muscles, back pain, cramps, and clogged milk ducts. You can also use it to heat your toes, bed or a crib. It stays warm for at least an hour, and I personally go to bed with it every night. It's great since we are saving $$ trying to keep the house a little cooler this winter. It also comes with a fleece case that you can remove and wash. It's not like I'm saying you're dirty or anything, but believe me it's going to get dirty with overuse.

FREE GIFT #2 - Healing ArtScapes Pin

DG works with an awesome group of people at the Denver Newspaper Agency and in his department, one of the other designers, Kim designs these incredible pieces of jewelry at really good prices. Her items always fly off the shelves at the craft fairs. She has a line of the cutest necklaces made from decorative paper and scrabble tiles. Please check out and bookmark her Etsy shop here which will be up and running this week-end. The 2nd prize in today's give away is this lovely little pin.

RULES:
Prize will be shipped to U.S. Residents only. (Sorry South Korea!)
One entry per person.
Entries must come through comments on the blog today (12/3/08) between 7:00am - 8:00pm midnight (MST).
Please include a valid email address in your comment.
My immediate family ie. the man who sleeps in my bed at night, his parents and sister, Hadley's Nana, and her husband AKA my father are not eligible. Though they are all welcome to comment with their favorite XMas songs.

Now don't be stingy, email this post to all of your friends too and let everyone play along. I will reveal the winner on Thursday by noon and send them an email.

NOTE: Due to the number of bloggers who are participating, I have extended the contest to midnight tonight.

Craft Fair a Go Go

Today was the big craft fair at the Denver Newspaper Agency. Here are some pics of our table. I was quite pleased with the presentation considering our obvious lack of craft fair experience.


These are the bibs and burp cloths that I worked tirelessly on. Ok, I'm going to go take a nap now. zzzzz.


My mom made the most gorgeous napkins and placemats too.


It's official, the Yuletide can begin with non-stop Bailey's on Ice, Celine Dion singing O Holy Night, and dogs wearing Santa Hats.

Don't forget to stop in tomorrow for our Gift Give Away.