Christmas

No Christmas would be complete without Sydney marking her face up with a dry erase marker the night before. Luckily, it came off easily and we ended up not taking any formal family pictures anyway since it was raining all day on Christmas Eve.

We had such a fun Christmas this year. We went to Dave's parents' house for Christmas Eve and ate dinner and opened presents with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Gary, his brother Tim and sister Melissa and her two kids, Anthony and Emily. Tim also brought his lady friend, Evelyn who he recently proposed to and they plan to get married next June. Congratulations, Tim and Evelyn!

Opening presents on Christmas Eve with Dave's family.

Audrey's enjoying her first Christmas but not as much as she's enjoying her fist.

Sydney did her best to try and calm Audrey but she wouldn't have it! Cousin Emily, Sydney and baby Audrey. For Christmas day we headed over to the Nielson's and opened even more presents, ate dinner and then put on our first annual Christmas concert. We sang Christmas carols together and performed some solo pieces. Laura sang "I'll be Home for Christmas," Alissa sang, "In the Bleak Midwinter," and we sang "Still, Still, Still" together. Dave accompanied on the guitar and Alissa on the keyboard. The only thing it was missing was cowbell.

The highlight of the evening was when I sang "Christmas Shoes" and made some Christmas shoes for my mom to wear. I "borrowed" some shoes for her a few weeks earlier and decorated them. If any of you aren't familiar with the song, or the movie, then you are really missing out on one of the most ridiculous Christmas songs ever (and the worst casting job in history; Rob Lowe, really?)! In my search for a song link I discovered that YouTube is a great source of crazy music videos set to that song, although none of them have shoes as nice as the ones I made but there's an abundance of bad child actors with even worse teeth (naaaaayyy)! If any of you actually like the song, I don't apologize for mocking it. I can't help it.

We look forward to next year's concert with more corny Christmas songs and even more reenactments...and a tambourine. Ooooh, I'm thinking little drummer boy, starring Laura!

Audrey Ruth Allen

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Audrey was born on December 11th 2008 at 11:26 pm. She weighed 9 lbs 11 oz and was 21 1/4 in. long. I was scheduled to be induced at 5:00 pm on that day and after a lot of waiting around and getting stuck 5 times to place the IV, they started the drugs around 8:00 pm. It was about a three hour labor and she was born within a few minutes of pushing. She is named after Dave's grandmother, Marilyn Ruth McElwee.

Sydney is so excited about having a new baby sister. She helps Audrey calm down when she cries and constantly confirms that 'babies can't talk, right mommy?'

Andrew was a little nervous about meeting his new baby sister but once we told him that he could show her the Speed Racer Mach 5, he was very excited.