ANOTHER Christmas!!!

This past weekend we got to have another Christmas celebration with most of Chris's family at his sister's in Houston. Megan just adores her two cousins, Lauren and Lily and talked about going to Houston for weeks before we actually made it.

She had a wonderful time, and was so exhausted from all the fun, that she was in bed, completely asleep tonight at 7PM. Wow.

We left on New Year's Day, and then on Friday we took Lauren and Megan to the Children's Museum of Houston, while poor Lily went to school! Here are a few cute pictures from that trip!

Then, Friday night Nana and Papa joined us, and Friday night's project was assembling the wagon that Megan got her cousins so we could use it on Saturday, and thenon Saturday we loaded everyone up for a trip to the Houston Zoo!

After naps for ALMOST everyone (Megan was the only one who REFUSED to nap) we had Christmas and opened presents!

This week's project will be assembling Megan's new dollhouse! More photos to come

Santa brought a bicycle

Here are a few photos of Christmas Day where Megan practiced riding her new big girl bicycle that Santa brought! One of my very favorite things that I miss about Amarillo are the beautiful sunsets, and here there is a snippet of my favorite sky too, along with our three-year old having a GREAT time!

A few Christmas pictures

Here are a fewew fun pictures from Christmas Eve. I of course, wasn't paying attention and left the camera at a really high ISO setting, so all the pictures were a little grainy : (

Thanks to her friend Annie for the cool headgear!

Here she is wearing a box skirt. She just wandered in wearing that!

In the last photo, Megan actually informed us that she was posing like her cousin Lauren (as she saw a picture that Nana and Papa had of Lauren on the stairs). She is so funny.

Megan is posing with Baby Mandy (we finally named a baby!)
We have lots of dolls named "baby", a pair named"brother and sister" and one named "Baby Lily" after her cousin. This is the first semi original name!! Progress......

Something silly -- the Thudguard

I found this in a kids magazine I was reading. I found it almost comically silly. Sorry if I offend one of you who owns this item!

Christmas at School, 2008

Megan Christmas School 2008
Originally uploaded by homanhouse

Another stab at a scrapbook page, this time using some templates and papers, and a few elements I created myself. I am getting a bit faster as I practice, so in a few years I might have this down! Chris is getting into photoshop too (not scrap layouts but he can design all sorts of fonts that now blaze with flames!) so we are having fun with this!


Credit
papers -- Mandy Mystiques, Homanhouse
brushes -- obsidian dawn
template -- made by Kate and by SugarplumPaperie, HomanHouse

Another update to our oven adventure....

So when we got home from Sears, the "door locked" light that was stuck on the old oven (part of the bad computer) suddenly turned off. Then the lock made a few noises, and even moved. And wouldn't you know it, the darn oven works. I mean I was sad that it broke. But then we were sad that it "un-broke" because, you know, we had just bought our really cool oven.

I must say that we have "Returned" the new oven (cancelled the order) and will be cooking some more in this one. I dare say we won't be braving the self clean feature any time soon.

Just what we always wanted....

First, I have to say that today is Chris's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!!).

Today, the oven repairman came, and basically broke into our oven -- you should have seen it. It looked like a jimmy that you break into a car with and it took 15 or 20 minutes. Then he determined that we needed a new lock and also the oven computer, because the relay was fried and thinks that the door is still locked, so the oven won't cook. $600 for all this.....

We choked because, first of all, it is about a 10 year old oven (it was the original from when our house was built) and it isn't a particularly nice model, so it only costs $700 or so to get a new one that is similar (but doesn't look like it has been broken into to!). So we told the repairman "Thanks, but no thanks", and then headed off to Sears.

Ok, well we are better shoppers than that, so first we checked consumer reports for the best wall ovens (we LOVE the consumer reports online subscription where you just login and look up stuff!), and then we decided (in an effort to avoid the mall on the last shopping Saturday before Christmas) to check out this new Sears Appliance Store that we have in Mansfield.

And since this now became part of our Christmas present and Chris's birthday, we upgraded from our old oven and got the model we really liked online (and consumer reports top pick!) so we are looking forward to playing with the new features, including the convection oven option!

It won't be delivered for a few weeks, but that is ok. At least we can make Santa some cookies in Amarillo!

No Christmas Cookies here

It is a good thing Santa will be visiting us in Amarillo, as we are short on Christmas cookies. You see, yesterday, I got industrious and decided to clean the oven. And by clean, I mean "self clean" so all you really do is press "Start" wait for the door to lock, wait five hours, and then wait for the door to unlock....and wait for the door to unlock....and I am STILL LOCKED OUT of my oven. This is insane. We have cycled power, and recleaned the oven, and still a no-go. The mechanism must be jammed because you can hear it desperately trying to open (this woke me from a dead slumber after last nights "re-clean") but it is no use.

I was annoyed and a bit irritated. So I got on the internet to do a search for how to fix it. And while I didn't find many good ideas, I wound up laughing and laughing and giggling so much that Chris came to check on me. Seems I am not the only person locked out of my oven -- there are hundreds of other people (at least on this one site) who all have similar stories. Some people claim they took the top of their stove/oven off to get the cookies out, and one poor woman still hasn't retrieved her cookies days later. Then there is the guy whose cookies won't bake right because his oven door won't SHUT (the lock stuck out while the door was open). These three are people who weren't even trying to clean their ovens, and the renegade thing just locked. Maybe it isn't all that funny to you, but after you have argued with an inanimate oven for a day, you WOULD find the humor in it!

All of this because I cleaned the oven. See if I try that again........(repairman coming tomorrow!)

The glitter escapade remembered

A start to my scrapbook procrastinating!

So here is a quick page from last Thanksgiving in Amarillo. I keep saying I will get Megan's scrapbook done soon, so one page down, many more to go!