Christmas 2011

It's about time I did a blog and Christmas weekend is the perfect way to kick this off again! We hosted our first Christmas and it was a great weekend filled with family, relaxing at home, and great food.

Elliana brought delight to the entire family this weekend. She loves to say "yeah" to questions asked of her and she gives an extra enthusiastic "yeah" when we said "Go niners" for the game on Saturday. She doesn't quite understand opening presents but would help tear the paper and would give an "woah" response some of the time. Of course, she loved playing with the ribbons, boxes, bags and any glass items given to an adult (like the four onion soup bowls Brandon got for one of our meals, see below).

Dressed for Christmas Eve Service

Christmas morning

Showing off a cute present from Aunt Connie




Elli trying out her big present under the tree - and she scores!

Food!
We are very proud of our Christmas weekend menu as well. We went to Farmers Market on Saturday morning and cooked our vegetable dishes around that. Lunch on Christmas Eve Day was Butternut Squash Risotto with Pecan crusted Pork Tenderloin. And after Christmas Eve Service, we had baked Onion Soup with so much Gruyere! I understand the appeal of onion soup when you throw that much cheese in the bowl with it!

Christmas Day was Prime Rib Roast, trio of roasted potatoes (sweet potatoes, red potatoes and yukon gold potatoes) and roasted root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, turnips and celery root). I do not plan to roast turnip in the future. The bitterness in that vegetable was not my favorite. I was pleasantly surprised at the celery root vegetable. It had a nice sweetness. Also, we realized once we sat down to eat that we should have roasted green beans or did something green for the plate. However a great meal overall. And we enjoyed it with a 1997 Kunde Cabernet Sauvignon, which showed beautifully. It was a wonderful first Christmas for us here in our own home!

Before

After

A picture can say a thousand words

Just posting one picture to capture the moment I caught on camera is another way I'm trying to post a few more blogs for all of you.

Look at that big smile! I wanted to capture what will probably be the last days of that toothless smile! We have been seeing the bottom two teeth just underneath the surface for awhile now, but the last few days have been filled with Elliana chewing on her fingers or toys constantly, some drool, congestion in the nose, and this morning - waking up earlier than usual but now asleep at an odd time!

I am betting the first tooth will break through in her tenth month but Brandon thinks it may hold out for her eleventh month. We'll let you know...

2011 so far

Please forgive my occasional posts. Will I ever completely learn the balance of being a working wife, mom, friend, daughter? It has been a busy 2011 for me with work. I'm spending a lot of time on the computer for work so I lack the motivation to get on the computer to blog. I promise there are Haunkkah and Christmas blogs in draft form so they will magically appear in the past posts at some point. There will also be a post on our first airplane vacation with Elliana to Southern California. Brandon said he would help me pick the photo's to post and then I can write the captions (he's the one who loves taking the pictures so he can complete the process by choosing which ones to post). If we can get a system going, I hope you will see posts more often. Below are photo's from 2011 so far.

Our first walk with Elliana in our Hanukkah gift around the neighborhood park.

Another hike. This time through Armstrong Woods. We were hoping she would enjoy looking up at the giant redwoods, but she was content looking at her eye level and having a picnic lunch with us.

We have been very proud of her progress using an infant toilet. I encourage all mom's to try this from as early as possible!

Elliana was using her play kitchen while I got our dinner ready. She's still not moving around on her own, but she can keep herself occupied with playing while I cook, etc.

She continues to love to eat whatever we give her. I have slowly introduced more 'adult' foods that are ground for her so her palate is expanding! This picture is my pesto pasta on the left and on the right, her ground beef and pasta that I will then grind for Elliana to eat.

January was also the milestone of Elliana picking up small foods like Cheerios, peas (pictured), bananas, and much more!