Christmas Day

We purposely didn't put any presents under the tree until after James went to bed on Christmas Eve so he would be surprised on Christmas morning. And, we got the reaction we were hoping for! James kept pointing at the lighted tree, and staring at all the presents. He did not want to open any of his presents (strangely), but he was really excited about them once mama and dada opened them. We took lots of video of the gift opening, but no pictures. I'll have to sort through the video and will hopefully post some soon.

Dave and I decided to have an Italian themed Christmas in terms of food this year. We found some wonderful recipes from Giada on the Food Network that filled our bellies from breakfast to dinner. We started the day off with a delicious French toast made from an Italian Christmas bread called Pannetone. Our lunch was a very simple pasta with cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese. For dinner we had a pot roast with minestrone soup and cheesy polenta. And for dessert, we had tiramisu made by the Central Market bakery. Everything was delicious, and we will definitely be using all the recipes again!

We spent the day eating, playing with James' new toys, and enjoying the company of Dave's family. We could not have asked for a better Christmas!

Family photo after all the presents were opened

James is vacuuming the house with his new vacuum! Thanks little buddy!

Daddy trying to teach James how to bowl

Uncle Mike and James jamming out on their guitars

Aunt Amanda, Uncle Mike and Nana

Christmas Eve night

We went to the family Christmas service at our church on Christmas Eve. Nana, Uncle Mike and Aunt Amanda made it up from Austin just in time to join us. We decided to bring James to the service instead of taking him to the nursery, and he was so well behaved! He was fascinated by all the lights, decorations and music in the worship hall. It was such a joy to have James with us for Christ's birthday celebration!

This picture is a little deceiving because James looks grumpy. He was actually quite happy while we were at church, but was not pleased at our insistence that he pose for a picture. I think he was getting hungry too as it was dinner time.

Christmas Eve day

On Christmas Eve, we had lunch with Aunt Karyn, Uncle David, Tristan and Isabella before they headed out of town to spend Christmas with other family. The kids exchanged gifts, and each were very pleased.

A couple photo ops with our little man before lunch...


Cousins! This is the best picture we could get. It's amazing how hard it is to get 3 kids to cooperate for pictures!

And, somehow, we missed out on a group photo with all the adults. I promise, we were all there!

Christmas season with The Stoners

We put our Christmas tree up and decorated the mantle on the first weekend of December. James was fascinated by the lights on the tree, and he pointed at it constantly pointing out each "ball" (ornament) on the tree. He loved the ornaments and did a great job being gentle with them. We had so much fun preparing James for Christmas this year. We baked Christmas cookies all month long, sang Christmas carols often, and did an Advent calendar with James everyday. He didn't quite understand what was happening, but he knew it was something exciting.

James and Cole

James is at an age now where he is interested in playing with other kids. Over the past few weeks, we've had the pleasure of spending some time with our good friends Matt and Lauren Warner. Their son is Cole (he's been known to make an appearance on our blog from time to time), and they just had a beautiful baby girl named Kathryn (Kate) Grace!

James and Cole are best buddies these days! They build with blocks together, sit at the piano together, give each other hugs and kisses at random, wrestle and laugh hysterically at each other. Their interactions are so fun to watch. Here are some recent pictures from a Christmas pajama potluck party at the Warner's home...

Thanksgiving 2010

It was just the three of us (well, 4 if you count Audrey) for Thanksgiving this year. We had a wonderful day together to reflect on our blessings and all that we are thankful for.

We started the day in the kitchen. I made crepes, and we filled them with bananas and Nutella. Yum!


We ate our breakfast in the dining room and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Don't let the fork in James' hand fool you; he didn't eat a single bite of his delicious breakfast! Our boy is a picky eater!


James really liked watching the Rockettes in the parade. After they were done dancing, he started clapping and signing for more! Fortunately for him, we have DVR, so we played it a couple more times.

In the afternoon, we went outside to throw the football around a little bit. James was not too happy with us because we put a jacket on him. Heaven forbid! Our sweet boy has thrown some of the biggest fits over having a jacket on. It's going to be a long winter!


After watching some football, our delicious Thanksgiving dinner was ready for us to feast! James had a bite of cranberries, but not much else. He did enjoy feeding mama and dada though! Thanks for the help little man!

Making sugar cookies

A couple weekends ago, James got to help make cookies for the first time (The credit goes to Daddy for coming up with the idea). James loved rolling out the dough, cutting with the cookie cutters and decorating with sprinkles. He was not at all interested in eating any of his masterpieces though. After the first batch was baked, we gave James a cookie, and he just crumbled it into the dough he was playing with at the moment (we didn't make any cookies with that dough). We had so much fun with James' first cookie making experience!