We won 1st place!

We won first place in our neighborhood decorating contest. We are excited, but felt like we should have gotten a little more creative and/or exciting with our lights. One of the other houses that is usually a big contender did not decorate this year and it's always more fun when everyone plays along. Maybe next year the competition will be more fierce - that would be awesome!

I'm glad that we won first place for Genevieve's first Christmas!

Christmas - part 4 (and we're done)

When the Francos returned from Chicago we went back to Ann and Jim's house for our final Christmas celebration with the whole family. We had another amazing meal and lots of good conversation. We got to hear all about the fun trip to the north and all of the snow. They also got to ride a train all the way back home to Texas, which sounds pretty neat. For Tristan the highlight was playing with "my Ashley and my Andrew," but the pirate ship they got him made a big impression too. Genevieve enjoyed playing with the boxes and wrapping paper more than her actual gifts. I love that age!

After the holiday festivities we headed outside. Ashley and Andrew both have ripsticks now and James was itching to try his hand at riding them. He did pretty good although I was nervous the whole time that we were going to end up in the emergency room. Anyone that knows us well knows that James has a knack for injuring himself. He already fulfilled his annual trip for stitches in September, but you never know what's going to happen. All was fine in the end and Tristan really got a kick out of trying his hand on a skateboard. Genevieve was able to find some more leaves to eat, her theme of the season.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas - part 3

The LaBrecque family Christmas started in the afternoon with some outside time, tossing around the ole pigskin. It wasn't a real football game for obvious reasons, given the ages of kiddos that we're dealing with. And, the ball went over the fence a couple of times, but it was tons of fun. We are hoping to be able to get together in the Spring for some real football time down at the park or another suitable open space.

After football, it was time for presents. It seemed to be the year of dress-up for the little ones. We had multiple princess dresses, spiderman costumes, a fireman dress-up set, a train conductor outfit... We should get the kids together again for a costume party. There are no rules saying we have to wait until Halloween, right? Jordan seems to be getting pretty good at walking in plastic high heeled shoes. Garrett helped Kael turn into Spiderman while Grandma helped transform Jordan into a princess.

I can't believe how quickly Devan has grown into a young lady! I guess sometimes these things seem to happen overnight. Genevieve didn't mind being held by all the willing arms and was passed around quite a bit. Dinner was good and the little kids did a great job eating at the little table. I was a little leary that there were no adults within arms reach of them, but they did fine.

I forgot to mention, on the way to our house Adam and Tyree had a blowout that had to be fixed on the side of the highway. As everyone was leaving we took a few minutes to survey the damage!

She's standing up!

Well, she's not really standing up on a regular basis, but she did stand up once! On December 26th Genevieve was in the pack-n-play while I was going through my morning routine and I glanced over and saw her. We still had the infant sleeping level thing in the pack-n-play and she pulled herself up to the standing position. I couldn't believe it. The infant sling thing quickly got taken out and put away, since when standing, the side only came up to about her waist and she could have easily tumbled over onto the floor. She's not really crawling yet and here she's pulling up to stand. Watch out world, we may have a child that goes straight to running!

Christmas - part 2

After we opened presents at our house, had a big breakfast, and had naps, we got ready to go to Gran and Grampie's house. The Francos were in Chicago visiting family this year, so we had a smaller group than normal. Uncle Karl was here from California, Ann prepared wonderful food to be eaten throughout the day, and of course, there were stockings to dig through and presents to open. Jim set up a treasure hunt of sorts for Tristan's big gift. There was string run from inside the house, out to the yard, and ultimately into the attic of the shop. As Tristan followed the string he got closer and closer to his present. Climbing the ladder into the attic was no problem at all for our little climber and once up there he saw...his kitchen! Jim had originally made this kitchen for Jennifer, and then Ashley got it, and now it's Tristan's turn. He loves it and can play with it for hours at a time. The weather was nice and he wanted to continue playing so we set him up on the patio. We laid out a blanket with toys for Genevieve, but of course she just wanted to scooch to the edge and get to the leaves.

Genevieve also got a refinished rocking horse that was James' when he was a baby. It was a year filled with toys from an older generation because we also left their house with a large box of wooden puzzles and a large box of Star Wars toys.

Once we were back at home we snapped one more picture of the family to commemorate Christmas 2008 and then it was time for pajamas and bed!

Aside: There is a kitchen in my family, that my grandfather made for us as kids, that is now being enjoyed by my sister's kids. This was a big year for kitchens...it even turns out that almost every child in Tristan's class got a kitchen for Christmas.

Christmas - part 1

The holiday festivities started with church on Christmas Eve. Genevieve was in a fun mood that night that meant I spent most of the service sitting outside the sanctuary, but that wasn't bad at all. There were extra chairs set up and there were speakers so I could hear everything that was going on. Even when Genevieve was calm, I was more comfortable outside since I wasn't anxious over when she was going to get fussy or have some random moment of loudness. James joined me for some of the service while Tristan sat with Gran. He was pretty good and even stood in line nicely with us when it was time for Communion. Several people commented on how handsome he looked and we could not agree more! I think someone even asked Tristan what he asked Santa for, and still I don't think he knew he was supposed to ask for things, but his reply was a "big, big truck." Great, the one thing he isn't getting... He does already have a big truck, so maybe he was trying to tell them about the toys he already has. Who knows.

After the service we went to Jim and Ann's for a late dinner. It was good, but was cut a bit short. Genevieve was sitting on James' lap and decided to pull on the placemat, however, there was a glass of red wine sitting on the placemat! Yep, the glass flew to the floor and was shattered and wine was everywhere - on both James and Genevieve, on the floor, the walls, the table, the chairs... We hadn't gotten to the point of the evening where dessert is consumed, so we headed home with dessert in hand. Jim, Ann and Uncle Karl cleaned up all the glass so it would be safe for little ones to crawl around on the floor the next day. Thanks guys!

Once at home, the kids were put to bed, wine was poured for the adults, and Santa (and a couple of helpful elves) arrived and went to work assembling and setting up all of the fun toys (to the tune of 2:30 am)!

The next morning we waited for Tristan to wake up and wouldn't you know it, he decided to sleep in until about 9:30. That gave us some time to get the video camera ready for the walk down the stairs and we were able to capture those first expressions of surprise and excitement. This year was so fun celebrating with Tristan because he understood a bit more of what was going on.

James reworked a desk he had made for himself in college, into a train table and painted it with paint we had from a previous project. We had a hand-me-down train set given to us, so that present was totally "green," as in recycle, reuse. Tristan also got a workbench, a firetruck backpack and various books and puzzles. Genevieve got a couple large plastic objects and smaller things that looked like they'd be fun to chew on. As fun as we thought the baby toys looked, she decided that her brother's hammer would be the highlight of her morning!