Christmas Day

Christmas morning started with Grandpa Brownie's blueberry pancakes -
Followed by a bath to remove the pancakes from hands, face & hair -

Love those lashes -

Then it was time to open presents -

Maracas are fun to shake -

The extended family came for lunch. Collin made his rounds, stopping to chat with cousin Melissa -

Cruising around the couch -

And the wall -

GGB, Great Uncle Dick & Grammy Lesa -

GGB in her new scarf -

Swinging with Grammy Lesa -

These are much more fun than the posed photos we tried beforehand -

Sporting our Christmas colors -

Mother & daughter -

When we made it back home, there were new toys to entertain -

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, Collin visited with Uncle Libero -

And Aunt Elida -

And Grandma Libia -

He opened presents -

Was decked out in his first Christmas bib -

And practiced walking -

After taking a ride on his new alphabet train, he headed to bed at Grammy & Brownie's -

Then we joined the rest of Cas' family for a late Christmas Eve dinner. It was an incredible feast, and we had a great time catching up with cousins, aunts & uncles -

Christmas Eve Eve

On Dec 23rd, we decided Collin took his first steps. They are still falling steps, that consist of him standing for a few seconds, taking one off-balance step and then one step falling towards the open-armed parent. We are much more excited than Collin is, though he does smile very proudly when we cheer for him. He doesn't seem too interested in walking yet, since he can get to most places around the house crusing along furniture or the wall and is a speedy crawler.

Hopefully when his steps become a little more consistent, we'll catch it on video and figure out how to post it to the blog. Until then, the other Christmas Eve Eve excitement was opening his first Christmas presents:

Oilers of maroon and white go on to victory

On Saturday we left Collin with Grandma Lesa and Grandpa Brownie and joined the thousands of Oiler fans on Interstate 45 to see the Pearland High School Oilers play in the state championship game at Cowboy stadium. Even the normally boring drive was made more exciting as we passed numerous cars sporting shoe polish Oiler support and ran into folks we hadn't seen since high school at the mid-point gas station.

We picked up our friends Kelly and Chris, who graciously hosted us, and headed to Arlington. The stadium was pretty packed, and the Oiler fans held our own against the Dallas-area and top ranked competitor.

The Trinity team we played kept switching out their quarterbacks, and they had a lot of play-action routes, so I was thankful we had a good view of the jumbo-tron (as did almost EVERYONE in the stadium), where the camera was always on the ball! Here are some i-phone pictures:
Our tear-away sign asked Santa for a state ring -

On the opening possession, the Trinity team scored and I was fearful it would be an embarrassing blowout. But by half-time, we were up 14-10, and we scored again with this trick play which was so much fun, it made ESPN Sport Center's top 10 videos!

Here's Cas with his Buc-ee's "lucky" jerky. He had whittled it down to a tiny piece, and he and Keith made sure their pieces of jerky lasted for the entire game.

After a nerve-wracking final few minutes, the game ended with an Oiler happy hug and a winning score of 28-24!

By the end of the game, I had re-memorized our HS fight song and old cheers. We had a great, short get-away, a delicious breakfast with Kelly and Chris, and a fun reunion with Collin Sunday afternoon.

On the lap of jolly, young St. Nicholas

Collin is SO fortunate that he skips class once a week, spending his Wednesdays with Grandma Libia. But he wasn't going to miss his first photo opportunity with Santa, so outfitted in his pajamas as instructed, Collin headed to school with Dad & Grandma Libia.

At first, he wasn't so sure of this red suited man -
But with enough coaxing from Dad and Grandma Libia, our tentative son warmed up to the baby face Claus -
Grandma Libia was dressed for the occasion -

And look what is now on our tree - Collin's first homemade ornament. What joy I get out of a footprint snowman!

Christmas light glee

We decided on Dec 12th that we had better put up our Christmas tree and lights since it was less than 2 weeks from Christmas. When Collin saw the tree, he made a beeline for the string of lights -
Glee -

Yikes - not in the mouth (why did we expect anything differently!) -

Having fun tangled up -

Collin's Caboose

A few more shots from a simple weekend at home -
Posing at the window -
Swapping spit with the glass -

Staring down his reflection -

And he's off -

Bruno on backyard squirrel lookout from the comforts of the living room -

Eyes on the prize -

Crash -

So proud of the destruction -

Knocking every last one down -