Holiday Season

Well our Holiday season started off with Thanksgiving at the Braun house. No-one took any pictures but most of the Braun’s were there and we had a good last Thanksgiving in the house I spent most of my life in. My parents are building a new house and next year Thanksgiving will be in the new house. The next day we got ready and after Tess’s morning nap headed to Lampasas where Clayton’s great aunt and uncle live. There were only a couple of us going this year so we all got to stay at the house. Tess met her first big dog, Maggie is a lab mix and Tess was her first little human to meet also. Tess loved all the open space and enjoyed her time outside, she would get upset if someone was outside and she was not invited to join them. She was able to climb on the mower and tractor and had tons of fun. We had a fun weekend out in the country.

 

Our first cold snap rolled through before Christmas and Clayton and I decided to give Tess one of her presents early. We bought her Legos in a Wagon. She likes the Legos and Daddy and she played on the floor for a little while. She loves it when he gets on the floor with her, she jumps all over him and sometimes you have to brace yourself because you have no clue what exactly she is going to do. We also bought a new tree this year; since she gets into everything we bought a little tree so we would have some Christmas spirit in the house. No ornaments but it did what it could for its size.

 

Clayton put her in the empty wagon after she had dumped out all the Legos, big mistake. She didn’t want to get out. He pulled and pushed her around for a little bit and then we played the clean-up game and she put her Legos in the wagon so she couldn’t get in it anymore

 

Anadarko always has a Children’s Holiday party and Santa and Mrs. Claus come and take pictures. You bring an unwrapped toy to benefit a different charity each year. Last year we went but Tess was only 6 months old so she didn’t really know what was going on, this year she knew what was going on. Tess and I went upstairs to drop off the gift while Clayton waited in the Santa line. Right when we got out of the elevator she saw Frosty which scared the crap out of her, well Frosty could tell he was not wanted so he moved on and we could drop off our gift and pick up a gift bag which included a bear and from the pictures you can tell she didn’t want to put the bear down. Well we got to Santa and we had some Stranger Danger so I had to get in the picture with her.  It turned out ok, just hopefully one day she will get on Santa’s lap for the picture taking.

Clayton had Christmas off this year so our plan was to spend it in Dallas, which meant we had to do Christmas with the Braun’s early. My parents bought Tess a table and chairs which she loves; she eats all her meals at home at her table. Matt had brought back a bunch of stuff back from Thailand and Diana bought her all kinds of clothes. She didn’t understand the whole present thing but she did understand the tissue paper thing. She loved picking the tissue paper up out of the bags and then moving on to something else. My mom also got Tess a name puzzle; my daughter has acquired her mother’s love for puzzles. It’s a little ridiculous.

 

I had to work on the 23^rd but after work we headed to Dallas to spend Christmas with the Harris family. We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of family. Every day we were there we did something or saw someone; we needed a vacation when we got back. On Christmas eve we were supposed to see Grandpa Conn and Vicki but that didn’t work out so we stayed at home and Granny and Paw Paw came over to see Tess and eat Chinese food. It was the calm before the storm. Tess got up early the next morning and was ready to open presents. Granny and Paw Paw came back over to open presents with us. Tess again really doesn’t get this whole present thing, we all tried to get her to open things but she just wasn’t into it. I tried to open her stocking with her but she would get one thing and stick with it and then Mona tried to get her to open her Bouncy Horse and she kinda just looked at it. So we let her do her own thing and I opened most of her presents.

 

Tess got on her Bouncy Horse and bounced for a little bit but it went downhill very fast when she tried to get off. She fell forward and has yet to get back on her horse. She brings it out like she is going to get on it but she will then just leave it alone. So who knows? 

We had breakfast and Tess went down for her nap. After lunch we went to the park to run out some energy, it was cold and cloudy but other than that a nice day. She went on the swings and down the slides and I think we ended up on the big kid side of the playground but she loved it. The next day we hung out with the cousins and she ate some pie with her Paw Paw Kevin. We had a fun time but needed to get home and back into our daily routine.

Tess got a Plane from her Great Grandparents but was deathly afraid of it on Christmas and would not get anywhere near it. Well when we got home and she saw Mom looking ridiculous riding it around she decided that it can’t be that bad. She rode it around for a little bit but I don’t think she is convinced that it is not scary.

This year has been pretty cold in Houston so we have done a lot of hanging out in the house. It has been pretty much torture for Tess. She wants to go outside and then when she gets out there she realizes it’s pretty cold and that she wants to be inside where it’s warm. It’s a lot of Mommy please entertain me since we can’t go outside. We try to go outside every day that the temperature is reasonable outside.

 

We had to get out of the house on one of the cold weekends so we went to the boat show. One of the exhibits was a boat that kids were building and you could put your name in to win the boat. I thought Tess would be too small to try it but they said that Clayton could help her and she could do it. So they had to drill a hole and then screw in a screw. I think the noise that the drill made while screwing in the screw scared her a little bit but other than that she did a good job.

 

Like I said early Houston has been cold this winter and we have had a couple of Ice days. Well Tess and I were home one Tuesday, Daddy had to go to work and keep the city safe. We actually got some sleet/Ice stick around for most of the day. Then the other day on the way to work it started snowing. Every once in a while this happens and Houston doesn’t know what to do but it feels like we haven’t been this cold in a long time.

 

Well that was our Holiday season in a nutshell. Tess keeps growing and learning new things and sometimes she is too smart for her own good. She shows a lot of personality and both Clayton and I can see us in her, its pretty scary. I will leave you with the best family picture we will have for a while.