December 2010 Recap

December 2010
Hailey and I had a few adventures I thought I would include.

Hailey turned one year old on December 2! She enjoyed opening presents, but was easily distracted by the toy inside the gift, so we helped her along by hiding the toy after she opened the gift. I made her a caterpillar birthday cake.

Hailey opening presents.

Hailey and her cake. Yum!

Caterpillar Cake

Bake a chocolate cake in a Bundt pan. Cool cake, then cut in half. Use the half for the main body, and cut the second half into half again. Use one for the head and one for the tail. Frost and decorate.

 

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She can take her necklaces on and off all by herself.

 

Christmas Prep

Hailey and I took a trip to Maceys (grocery store) to take a picture with Santa. Hailey was relaxed and excited to see other kids while in line, but as soon as I turned to hand her to Santa she got the most frightened look on her face and screamed. I have never seen such an expression before, or since. Santa was very understanding, so we took a picture with Hailey on my lap and me on Santa’s lap.

As Bruce finished the semester of school, I prepared the house for our extended absence by deep cleaning. When he finished finals, we prepared the house, pack most of our clothes and any personal belongings we would need over the next 4 months and drove to Colorado. We spent a few weeks in Colorado. We visited my family for Christmas and saw Ben & Michelle's family for a few days. The trip was relaxing, productive, and enjoyable.

Christmas in Colorado
Bruce and I did some work in the downstairs bathroom: ceiling patch, texture the walls, and painted. I recovered the kitchen chairs with cute fabric and plastic for easy clean up. I was teased about the plastic until someone tried to wipe their hands of the chair, and found plastic preventing and effective wipe. Turns out you need plastic to protect fabric even when the children are all teenagers. :) We repainted the kitchen to match the chairs and made plans to decorate it with a saying written in vinyl. Laurel (my sister-in-law who we live with while we are in TX) helped me write and cut out the saying.
We enjoyed a trip to the newly renovated Chilson Recreation Center. When I was growing up my parents would wake all the kids up and take them to the pool at 6 AM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so it was fun to see the brand new layout and additions. Hailey enjoyed being in the water and especially having cousins around!
Christmas morning was as crazy and overwhelming, as usual, and it was great to celebrate with so much family! I'm most excited to use the card table fort that Grandma Waite made, and to use my Cricut to do some serious scrapbooking.
A day or two after Christmas we went to Denver to see Ben and Michelle. Scott and Lisa were also visiting, so we were able to send Scott & Lisa with some of our presents, enjoy more time with more family, and go roller skating, .
Back to Loveland to visit my family. It's been too long now, so I don't remember what we did for the days we stayed, but I'm sure we enjoyed it. :)
Then back to Ben & Michelle's for church the morning we drove to TX. The drive went very well. Hailey slept for long stretches of time, and was cheerful when she was awake. We stopped somewhere in TX for the night, and drove the next day to get to Katy, TX, a suburb of Houston.