A Stowaway!

I forgot about this picture! It's from when we were getting ready to go to Utah for Thanksgiving. I had all the suitcases opened to air out before packing. Luke pulled this one out into the kitchen and climbed right in. It was pretty cute!

Luke's Language

This morning I asked Luke if he wanted a strawberry or blueberry cereal bar. His reply, "Strongberry please."
There you have it, strawberries are now called strongberries.

For You Non-Believers

Here's a picture looking out our front door. Notice the nice sheet of ice on our walkway...figure skating anyone? :)

Christmas Morning!

We had a lovely Christmas! As I previously posted, the weather on the eve of Christmas Eve was a gorgeous 71 degrees. However, on Christmas Eve, that all changed. A massive cold front rolled in and snow, yes...snow, began to fall. It snowed most of the day and into the evening and actually began to stick. We ended up getting about two inches! It was CRAZY that it went from such nice short/flip flop weather to cold coat/mittens weather! Folks who have never lived in snowy weather here, don't really know how to drive in it and there were literally hundreds of cars lining the sides of the roads because they just slide right off. LOTS and LOTS of accidents...which...it being Christmas Eve and all...probably made for a long work day/night for emergency vehicles. Sorry ya'll.
Anyway, Christmas Eve we spent the night at my brother, Jared's house along with his wife Camille and three girls. My other brother, Casey and his wife Dawnielle were able to join us which, we originally thought they weren't going to be able to, so it was a nice surprise when they called and said they were on their way.
That evening we ate pretty traditional Christmas dinner with ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, some salads, etc... It was GREAT! Then while the kids watched a movie the adults played a game called Quelf. I highly recommend it. It is not only a super fun game, but you will laugh practically the ENTIRE time...I'm not even kidding. If you don't have it, stop what you're doing and go buy it...now...seriously...it's a keeper! :)
Poor little Delaney was not a very happy camper. I fear she kept most everyone up except for the other kids with her crying. She was running a mild fever and just could not or would not sleep. (We suspected the start of an ear infection.) We all made it through the night to find in the morning that Santa came!
Christmas morning Kallianne (Jared's oldest daughter) swears that she saw Santa's reindeer. We all heard a LOUD scraping sound in the middle of the night which could have been one of two things...a car crashing because of the icy roads, OR Santa's sleigh landing on the roof, and since Kalli says she saw reindeer, we can conclude it was in fact Santa's sleigh! SWEET!
The kids were so excited to see the wondrous things that had been left for them by the Head Elf. It was all so magical and especially fun for our little family as Lucas now grasps the concept of Santa.
After the unwrapping of gifts, I fixed the Satterthwaite family traditional Christmas morning breakfast of Eggs Benedict for everyone. It was my first time flying solo on the operation, and things turned out quite nicely...if I do say so myself...and I do. :)
We ended up leaving by about 11am or so to get Delaney home in her own environment to see if that would help her at all. Lucky for me I remembered we had some ear numbing drops from when Luke had an ear infection when he was a baby. We gave those a try and they helped numb the pain enough that poor little Laneybug could take a nap. Also lucky for me and Lance, Luke decided to fall asleep at the same time so the WHOLE family took a nap. HURRAY!
Today, I was able to take Delaney to the doctor. I was getting especially concerned because her fever had gone from a low 99-100 to 102-103 in the middle of the night. When I was an infant, I used to have fever seizures so I was up with her most of the night keeping Tylenol in her every 4 hours and wiping her down with a cool cloth. I got her into the doctor when the CareNow opened. She was still running a 102.6 fever, but the doctor couldn't see anything wrong with her ears, throat, etc. So, she's on an antibiotic to kill whatever is causing her grief. I still think it's her ears because the numbing drops helped. So hopefully the doctor couldn't see anything because we caught it early enough. Anyway...that's what our Christmas looked like...in a nut shell...a very LARGE nut shell. :)

December in Texas

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the last couple of days. A cold front is rolling in so by Christmas it will be cold, but it has been about 70 degrees for the last three days. Luke was really enjoying the weather as you can tell by the photos. Note: no shoes, no jacket...just swinging away and shouting, "Yeehaw! Ride 'em cowboy!"
And tonight, the whole family went to the store in shorts and flip flops...a nice 71 degrees!