December 2008

Hey look it's Uncle Chris - direct from Seattle! We are so glad that Aunt Kortney and Uncle Chris made the long drive from Washington to spend Christmas with us this year. Poor Uncle Chris got suckered into going swimming right off the bat.

Meredith was a tad excited when Fisher came over to swim too.
Christmas Eve morning we made tree pancackes complete with red hots. You'll notice Meredith is in a leotard, it's her uniform. She puts one on first thing in the morning and wears one every second we are at home. I won't let her wear them around town.

My two girls + Bitty Baby

Heading out to 4pm childrens mass. We got there 45 min. early and got the last seats.

After mass we headed to Aunt Carols house. Jesses Aunt has 5 girls, one grandaughter so far...Miss Mae and Delaney are a couple months apart.

Meredith can always get one of the girls to play with her. Hannah was the willing victim of "toss things down the stairs".

A rare moment. You'll notice that Gene won't ever look at the camera!

When we got home, Meredith was sure to leave cookies and milk for "Santie".

Delaney was super excited about her stocking the next morning!

Bitty got a new outfit too.

Delaney was happy just eating wrapping paper.

Meredith got a changing table and a new robe from Grandma KK. She is in heaven, she kept telling us all day that "Bitty pooped, gotta go change her!".

The girls.

The rest of the Hamiltons came across the street for brunch. We are so Everybody Loves Ramond, minus the bickering.

I made this savory bread pudding. SO GOOD.

Meredith sporting yet another leotard. The purple is a new addition.

Wrapping up Christmas evening with Aunt Kortney in new matching PJs!

We had a very Merry Christmas this year! We sure did miss Grandpa Jim, KK and Uncle Scotty. But we'll see them soon (next week!). We also missed Papa Mike and Nana but we'll see them tomorrow for round 2. We sure are lucky to have such sweet girls. Each Christmas gets better and better...

Some Christmas video for the diehard Hamilton fans...

It's downright balmy here in Boise! Somehow S. Idaho is missing all the good snow which is good and bad. Good for driving, bad for skiing. What is really sad is that all our Holiday plans are being ruined by the snow in Seattle/Portland/Spokane. We might be having a quiet Christmas this year. At least we have one set of Grandparents we know we'll see since they live 50 feet away (and they have hot toddies over there too).

What is awesome about living in a geothermally heated area of Boise is all the hot water! I think I've mentioned that our whole house is heated geothermally and the run-off goes outside and runs through our sidewalks. No shoveling for us! Our neighbors have a geothermal pool which we took advantage of today. Meredith gets to go swimming in our neighbors pool year-round.

See our lack of snow.
We bundled up last night and went to the Winter Garden Aglow. Note the princess hat. I'm not a fan at all, talk about a racket. All she needed was a plain old hat and of course insisted upon the princess hat. Uggggg.
Danas mom Lori was in town for the weekend. She got lots of quality kid time!
Delaney stayed home with Dad. Don't let this cute face fool you. This litle stinker decided (just like her sister!) that she won't drink out of a bottle.
Blurry garden pic

Lori, Meredith and Dana

Merediths favorite part was the cookies and the dude who stokes the fire. She liked the sparks.

Random house shot. See Mom - I did decorate!

The girls and Grammy Dana.

I didn't have time last week to post this. Jesse (me!) hosted the year-end poker tournament with his buddies. Sadly he didn't win big. Meredith wanted in on the action. I noticed the glass of red wine in this shot, pre-spill. The only casualty of the night was our poor carpet!

I'm bummed that my parents are stuck in Spokane. Maybe a movie would cheer me up? If only I could get Jesse to go to movies where he has to read (I do get foreign films on Netflix and then make him watch them, he sercretly loves it)!

I'm re-reading The Reader right now after I saw the movie trailer. A fantastic book, I doubt the movie will be as good, but I'll sign up for anything with R. Fiennes in it.

I'm on a video kick! Here is Delaney eating rice cereal for the 1st time. I like Merediths commentary in the background the best. She is such a great big sister (so far!).

Delaney has found her voice and likes to "talk" to us all day. What I like about this video is Jesse in the background trying to figure out the dishwasher, and me ignoring him.

Laney baby is getting so big, she had her first rice cereal last night. I think she liked it! She also slept from 10pm - 6am and I had to wake her up to eat. I think I like rice cereal too.

Video clip of Santas arrival...

December 9th already - how did that happen? It's already been a busy month, all fun stuff though. We hosted our 1st annual gingerbread house party which was really fun. We started off small with just a few kids to see how it would go, next year we'll have more kids for sure! My mom used to host a party just like this for me and my brother when we were kids, it's so much fun to do the same thing for MY kids. Although, my frosting is not nearly as great as my moms. Meredith was really excited for her party, I had to make her eat before her friends showed up and the candy started flying.

Ryder, Fisher and Meredith.
Melissa and Ava
Someone needs a haircut, and it's not Meredith.


Jeanette/Fisher, Me/Meredith, Sarah/Morgan


Congrats to Fisher who is going to be a big brother in July!


Merediths masterpiece. She told me the licorice on top is a waterfall.

We caught a smile from Morgan!

Ava sneaking some candy

The big suprise for the kids was a special guest appearance from Santa (Papa Gene). He bought the awesome Santa suit to wear for years to come. Morgan and Fisher hightailed it to the basement the moment they saw a flash of red, not fans of Santa those two!

Fisher didn't even want his present. About an hour later, still in the basement Fisher kept asking if Santa was gone.

Ryder loved the big man.

So did Meredith!

And Delaney who tried really hard to pull Santas beard off.

Ava also liked Santa but wouldn't get any closer than this.

Delaney had a big day. At her 4 month appt. she weighed in at 12lbs5oz and 24.5 inches. A little lighter and a little shorter than Meredith at the same age.

I'm not sure who invited these two hooligans.

Delaney is still the happiest baby on our block

This past weekend we were in McCall and made our 3rd trip into the woods to cut down a tree. A lot less snow this year made it easy to walk around with Meredith.

Papa Gene and Grandma Dana came too

I swear that green snowsuit is the warmest thing ever made. Kids just pass out in it.

Deforestation at it's finest.

Meredith loves giving Delaney rides in the baby stroller. I have a feeling these two are going to be thick as theives as they get older. I can feel my hair starting to turn gray.