December . . .

I don't really know why I've been putting this off. I think my excuse was that I needed to upload pictures, but I just realized that I've already done that. Anyway, Aubrey has been keeping us very busy! Since I'm so behind, I'll start with Thanksgiving/December.

We stayed home for Thanksgiving and I cooked the meal for us. Chad's brother Shane came over to eat with us. We watched the parade and ate and watched football. Aubrey had sweet potatoes and played with Uncle Shane. It was fun and I was glad to get to spend time with everyone. We watched the Texas/Texas A & M game last night. I like to support our local team and Chad has always been a big Texas fan, so it's always a fun time! A & M lost (as expected), but there's always next year.

December was a BUSY month for us. We started by getting out all the Christmas decorations and getting the house ready. We put icicle lights across the front of the house. Aubrey watched us from her walker and had such fun. She really loves to be outside and the weather was just the right temperature. However, that would soon change. It took me 3 days to get my tree up. I decided that I wanted a pre-lit tree, so I got one at Walmart. As I was putting it up, I figured out that it looked awful. So, back to Walmart we go (at 11 pm!) to return that tree and pick out a new one. Only they don't do returns after 10 pm. We bought another one and took the first one back the next day. If you're counting, that means that for a while I had 3 trees! And I dragged my husband to Walmart twice. He wasn't happy! I finally got it up and decorated and it was so pretty! Aubrey just stared at it. I could almost see her thinking Why is mommy putting a TREE in our living room?? But, this year at least, she didn't mess with it at all. I wish I could say the same for the pugs. It's never a good sign when you find dog hair under the tree when you take it down! Anyway, I didn't even put out half of my Christmas decorations this year. It just seems like there is not enough room. We have got to move!


On December 10th, it got really really cold. Chad's mom was visiting and she was playing with Aubrey while I tried to get some work done. Then we looked out the window and it was SNOWING!! At first little flakes, but as it continued (for over 4 hours!) the flakes got bigger and bigger! It ended up covering the ground and everything. It was so pretty. And so unusual for Texas in December. Usually we don't get weather like that until January. I found a fleece suit for Aubrey to wear and we took her out to take pictures of her first snow. She looked at us like we were crazy! (Seriously, you can tell in the pictures.) Well, it was fun for us anyway.

We took Aubrey to the Children's Museum to meet Elmo and Santa. Surprisingly, she didn't cry. She just sat on Santa's lap while I took a few pictures and then we left. I'm sure next year will be very different.

During all of December, Aubrey is really getting up on her hands and knees and rocking. We thought she would crawl at any time. Finally, towards the end of the month she started "army crawling" on her belly. She didn't get around too much until New Year's eve. Then she started trying to follow us around the living room. Once she got started, she really didn't stop. I'm just trying to keep up!

--Amy