Christmas Joy

Christmas Eve for us was fairly busy. In the morning we made Christmas Cookies (Santa can only have freshly made cookies!). Then it was off to the Gym for our favorite weekly workout class (and to work off all that cookie dough). Next up was church, where I got my first initiation into ushering... even getting to play secret service with an earpiece. Luckily, the 2p service was fairly light and I didn't have to do too much.. but I'll be much more prepared for the next time I volunteer. Then the family came up and joined me for the 3:30p service, which was packed out. Afterwards, it was off to try out the outside seating at the new Patrizzios (yes, the heaters really do work out there). Finally, we came home for the traditional family picture by the tree. This year was a bit of an adventure trying to get both the girls and Bailey all looking at the camera... but we found one decent picture.
The night included the usual Butler activities, including the girls giving each other a gift, setting out cookies and milk (the request this year was for Strawberry milk) for Santa, and putting reindeer food on the lawn for when the Big Guy stops by. Speaking of Santa, we spent the entire day tracking him using the noradsanta.org positioning plugged into Google Earth. It was very cool and let Abigail learn a bit of Geography.

Christmas morning started WAY too early. We heard some 'fussing' in Emma's room via our monitor that we still have turned on, and I found Abigail in Emma's room reading a book to her... at 4:20a. Emma had her princess crown and wand out, and they were having a good ol' time. Nothing like starting out the day with 2 tired kids. They ended up sleeping until 7:11a... but it took jen and I a while to go back to sleep, so it wasn't long enough. We let them come down and open presents (which doesn't take long with the 2 of them). So far, Emma's favorite gift has been her bike (she had been riding it all over the house waiting for the weather to be nice enough to ride outside) along with the pink poodle that she got from her sister. Abigail has spent a lot of time playing Cooking Mama and Nintendogs on her new Nintendo DS Lite. They've played with a lot of other presents but these are the big hits so far.
Bailey got into the Christmas spirit as well, getting a box of toys. She was soo excited that she would grab a toy and run off like she had something she wasn't supposed to have. After starting up the Turkey Breast in the crock pot for our Christmas dinner, we headed out the door to Mesquite to have lunch with Jen's family.

After a wonderful lunch, we let the kids dive into the presents. With 4 grandkids between 3 and 6, it took no time at all to open all the gifts and cover the floor in wrapping paper. We socialized a bit and then headed back home. Later that afternoon, my dad and step-mom came over for more gifts and dinner (hence the turkey breast). This was our first attempt at a turkey of any kind and it really turned out well. It was a 7 lb breast, cooked 1 hour on high and 7 hours on low. As the recipe said, the meat fell right off of the bone, making my job as the carver quite simple. As we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to show up, Emma tested out her new bike.
We opened more presents and had a very delicious dinner. All in all, a busy but exciting day.

Brownies Give Back

Something I've been meaning to post was a trip that Abigail's Brownie Troop made to a local assisted living center. Once again, they really do some neat things, and I give all the credit to their leaders. They all went there, played some games with some of the residents, decorated cookies and sang some Christmas carols. Abigail had a wonderful time playing Bingo with her partner (above)!

Happy Birthday Jesus

Jen put together the idea of having a Happy Birthday Jesus party in our neighborhood. She handed out invitations to all the houses on our street, worked with 2 of our neighbors to put together the activities and supplies, and God provided a nice sunny day. We had a little over 20 kids attend. Below, you will see one of the activities where Jen narrated the Christmas story with the different kids playing the parts.

The kids also put together a candy cane as a craft with the story of what the candy cane means attached to it and finally the kids went over and played a couple of games including the reindeer hokey pokey. After all the kids rotated through all the activities, they came together to sing happy birthday to Jesus (who had no problem blowing out the candle) and the kids got to have refreshments.

All in all it was a lot of fun and we got to meet a couple of new neighbors that we hadn't met before. I'm sure it will become an annual activity.

Clip Clip

Well, we finally got Bailey in for a real haircut. As you can see, it's pretty much shaved like a schnauzer. We asked around and decided to try a local groomer place instead of PetSmart. Twice we have taken her to PetSmart, and they said she wouldn't sit still enough to get a haircut.

We called up the new place on Friday morning, and they asked if we could bring her in within the next 10 minutes. Off Jen went. They said it would probably take 3-4 hours, which we expected, but they called us in 2 hours. She had the usual stuff, shampoo, cut, clean, nails clipped, etc. And it didn't cost a fortune; it was actually cheaper than Petsmart. The amazing thing is we are so surprised how soft she feels even though she has some pretty short hair. The staff said she was fine during the whole process. Even more surprising is the bandana lasted for 2 days on Bailey before she chewed it off.

The first night Jen decided Bailey was probably cold, and she threw a small towel on her as a blanket. We have also gone down the crazy dog owner's path and get her a sweater to wear from time to time. I think it's rather silly, but I'm in the minority on this one.

Also, you can see one of Bailey's favorite things to do... sunbathe. She sure does act like a cat. She gets out there, all spread out, sticking her legs up in the air, soaking in the sun. She actually sleeps sometimes with all 4 legs up in the air just to catch some rays. And she follows the sunshine across the back yard, moving when the shade gets to her.

School Christmas Parties

Jen was busy on Thursday. She stopped by Abigail's school for the beginning of her Christmas party. All 7 first grade classes were in the gym for a number of activities that they rotated around to and then got to have some cookies in the cafeteria.

Emma's party included her class getting to have pizza and a visit from Santa. Emma had a lot of fun and didn't show any fear when Santa showed up, getting to sit in his lap for a good couple of minutes talking about additional gifts that she wanted.

Visit from Nana

My grandmother stopped by for a couple of days on her way from Arizona to Orlando to visit my Aunt and cousins. We had a nice time together, getting to have lunch with Abigail at school, and some dinner out on the town. We ended the visit with the girls opening up their Christmas presents from her.

Catching Up

I've been a bit behind in updating on the comings and goings of our family. So, below are few things that I've missed.

First, we attended the annual Flower Mound Christmas parade. As you can see, our girls are quite silly when it comes to anything that makes noise. They also got lots of candy thrown out from the variety of floats and other groups in the parade. It was a nice parade, but it sure seemed like a good 60+ minutes of advertisements for businesses in town...

Next up was Emma's Christmas Party at church. Her class went caroling around the church to the other nursery classes.

Then, the girls decided to put on a princess play at home. We happen to have 2 matching Belle dresses, so they looked very cute together.

Emma's Christmas concert at CCDC was up next. It was her first performance of any type and she did well. We didn't have the music beforehand like we did with Abigail so we had no idea what songs to expect or if Emma even knew the words. She knew some, but sang about as much as all of the other 3 year olds.

Finally, Abigail got to perform in her first halftime show! Ok, it was the Marcus Varsity basketball game, but it is what it is. Below you can see the smile and joy on her face during her routine.

That's all for now. I'll have a couple of more pieces to put out here hopefully before all the Christmas pictures show up.

Final Thanksgiving Tradition

I'm finally getting around to finishing up all of my Thanksgiving traditions... which required me to first replace a couple of burned out bulbs. During the week off, I put up the lights on the house. Weather plays a big factor into the selection of the day (this year it was done on Monday) because you have to consider things like wind and precipitation. Yes, I went all the way to the top to put on the lights. I come from a long line of Butler's that put lights up on the roof... my parents won first place one year for the city of Owasso Lights contest.

Guys, the secret is just get up on the roof, take your time, and do it. After you have done it once its a piece of cake the next year. The first year I did this house I did everything using an extension ladder. Then, I finally figured out its not only quicker but somewhat easier to just do it all from the roof itself. This year's arrangement includes some additional lights in the bushes that I picked up on Dec 26th last year. Next year I think I'm going to tackle the tree in front (on the very right side of this dark picture) and try to do it up like the trees at Parker Square.

Here we go again

Most of you know the fun I've been having with my home computer. Well, I went and re-installed most of my applications on a new hard drive inside the same machine. All was well and then Saturday morning it died again. Same issue as before, the network partition table got corrupted. UGGHH! Luckily, I had backed up my pictures and quicken data a couple of days before and hadn't lost anything (other than my own time in re-installing everything).

Sunday, I was off to Best Buy to buy a new computer. I finally gave it. It was my first commercial PC since 1996 (outside of a couple of laptops). I've built a few PCs in that time to my own desired specs. Anyway, I wasn't much of a fan of Windows Vista that came with Jen's laptop that I got in January and I'm even more not a fan of it now. I love the Mac commercials out there (I'm a Mac and I'm a PC). I'm seriously considering putting a second hard drive in the machine, install Windows XP on it and move on with life. 5 years of development at microsoft and this is what we get?