Joyeux Noël des LeBlancs

We've had a very nice past three days!

On Christmas Eve we pretty much took it easy around the house for most of the morning and early afternoon and then Brian and I got serious and baked a batch of M&M Christmas cookies and some butterscotch brownies. Afterward, we headed over to Brian's parents' house for some yummy spaghetti and family time before midnight Mass. We were done with Mass at about 1:20 a.m. Christmas morning and then we went back to Chez Parental LeBlancs for a Christmas morning drink (we're Catholics--what can we say?) and then made it back to our house around 3 a.m.

Needless to say, none of us were really feeling a crack-of-dawn Christmas morning festivity, so Brian and I got up around 9 a.m. and let Gatsby open his Christmas present before we headed over to Brian's parents' house at 11:15 a.m. Gatsby got a *super stinky* cow hoof chew toy to munch on while we were away on Christmas and he was so very cute opening it. We wrapped it pretty loosely in pretty Christmas paper and it took him about 45 seconds to get the paper off. (We got a video of it and a few pictures of him "helping" us make our Christmas cookies that I will put a little bit later.) We then spent the rest of the day with Brian's parents, brother, and grandma. We had a bomb-diggity-dot-com prime rib for dinner and then concluded the evening with a rousing game of Life, where, if you're wondering, your intrepid blogger was victorious with no children and no life or fire insurance (Go me!).

Today we basically did nothing. Brian slept most of the day and I watched 9 DVR'd episodes of 17 Kids and Counting on TLC about the Duggar family. It was all great fun!

Tomorrow we're off on an adventure to visit my parents, Callie, and Clay in Ocean. It will be interesting to see how Gatsby does on the 2.5 hour car trip and stay in a different place!

Gatsby really, really likes Christmas cookies

Especially doggie Christmas cookies. In fact, I think if we leave any out for Santa, Gatsby will probably eat them before the jolly ol'guy comes down our nonexistant chimney.

I took this today when I saw him eyeing up the cookie container on the counter.

All afternoon he kept getting my attention and then running to the counter with the cookies and doing the best doggie sit ever so that I would be so overwhelmed with his awesomeness that I would reward him lavishly with doggie cookies. It's pretty hilarious.

I also uploaded a few pictures that we've taken of him in the past few weeks:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Gatsby

Sick child only wants cards for Christmas

So, as I was watching WRAL's Noon News today, they did a story on a 7-year-old boy in Lumberton who has an incurable form of cancer. He told his grandmother that he wanted Christmas cards through the mail, so if you have some extra Christmas cards laying around, consider sending him one.

A brief story and Damien's address is available online:

http://www.robesonian.com/articles/2008/12/19/robesonian/news/2boy%20dec20.txt

Christmas Memories

This post is dedicated to my family, who are probably the only people who will laugh at some of these.

I was thinking today about how great Christmas is and how much fun it is to spend time with family and all the different traditions and memories:

• When Callie was probably 5 or 6, she got this totally awesome yo-yo from Santa that would light up red and yellow when it was yo-ing. Well, neither Callie and I knew the proper wrist action for the yo-yo, so my dad was nominated for the inaugural yo. He was on his knees and didn't really judge distance really well, so as soon as he let go of the yo-yo, it glided down with a beautiful, gracefulness; hit the carpet, and busted into three pieces and the batteries went flying across the room. What makes this even better is that we have it captured on VHS.
• As a child, my best Christmas ever was in 1986--the one right before Callie was born. Santa found my house and stayed for a while dropping off a million presents. I can remember getting a Barbie Corvette, a Barbie Hawaiian Adventure landscape (complete with jetskis and waterskis), a Barbie poolside and cabana, a Cabbage Patch doll, a doctor's set, a Madame Alexander bride, and quite a few other things. It was pretty sweet.
• The other funny things about that Christmas was that it coined two very cute things that I did and captured them on video. The first thing was when I opened up the Madame Alexander bride, I exclaimed, "SHE'S GETTIN MAEEHHREEEEEEEEEEED!" [married] in, like, the best southern accent ever. And then when I got the doctor's kit, I pulled out the stethoscope, walked over to my mom (who was 7 months pregnant with baby Callie), put the stethoscope up to her tummy and said, "Your baby's doin juuuuuuuuust fine." [I'm pretty positive I was the cutest child ever.]
• Watching our Lhasa-Apso, Snuffie, go hogwild crazy over his Christmas morning rawhide and then plowing through all the wrapping and tissue paper.
• Going to the family service at Mt. Olive in the early evening, coming home and eating mom's mini-ham sandwiches and chili, opening a Christmas gift (specifically selected by momma), and then going back to church at 10:30 p.m. for the candlelight service. I can also remember my papaw always helping me out of my coat once we got into the dark sanctuary with the pretty Christmas music playing.
• The sheer chaos that is opening gifts at my nanny's house Christmas night, which usually included about 20 people and at one point spanned 4 Bolick generations.
• Going boating in Seven Lakes at my granddaddy's house in December (IT WAS FREEZING!)
• When I was in high school, leaving my nanny's and heading over to Shannon's to meet up with all my friends to hit up the movie theatre.
• Callie and I fighting for on-air time on my dad's video camera, pushing each other out of the way, singing Christmas carols to the camera, and then the one shot of Callie holding the mechanical Rudolph on her head, glaring at the camera, and saying, "LAURA, LAURA, LAURA!! LOOK AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
• My nanny's incredible home cooking.
• Our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree as a family. My mom always cooked awesome appetizers--I can especially remember the shrimp cocktails. I also loved getting all those awesome Hallmark ornaments!!
• Santa Land presents at Clyde Campbell
• One specific Christmas, when Callie was still in her crib, and we were decorating the tree, gathering as a family to say the blessing. Callie was standing in her crib and mom and I were each holding one of her hands. As soon as the blessing was over, we both said Amen, and let go of Callie, who promptly fell backwards in her crib.
• "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, Can you see me? Can you see me, daddy? Am I on the camera? Daddy? Daddy? Am I there? Daddy? Daddy? DADDY???????"
• Mom and dad having to wake US up on Christmas morning because we always slept late.
• Christmas morning casseroles and, eventually, mimosas.
• Me saying, "Angel make noise" to the music-box-like-angel that my mom put in my bedroom at Fort Bragg.
• Harry Connick, Jr., Amy Grant, and Mariah Carey on the Sharp 5-disc CD changer.

I'm sure there are so many more, but those are some of the ones that I just thought of, off the top of my head...

Vacation!

Brian will probably kill me when he reads this because he has to work today and tomorrow. :-(

Gatsby and I have had a fantastic and relaxing first day of Christmas vacation. We were up pretty early because Gatsby likes to eat his breakfast at the same time everyday. Per usual, he had the same mix of chicken, rice, liver, wheat, and some other stuff. Afterward, we did our first chore of the day and watered the Christmas tree. (I watered and Gatsby helped drink the water as I poured.)

We then made an executive decision that we'd done too much work for the day, so he decided to play with his toys while I did the crossword puzzle and watched my DVR copy of Private Practice. Gatsby helped me with some of the hard crossword puzzle clues; with one human and one doggie brain, we got the puzzle finished.

Gatsby continued to play while I watched Rachael Ray, The View, and the noon news. I had a salad for lunch and lil G had liver treats.

We've spent the afternoon watching soap operas and Gatsby has been taking a nap in front of the fireplace.

I LOVE BEING ON VACATION and having a husband with a normal working schedule where he can actually take vacation too!

The rest of our holidays look like the following:

Monday, 12/22 - Laura vacation and Brian working
Tuesday, 12/23 - Laura vacation and Brian working
Wednesday, 12/24 - Laura vacation and Brian holiday
Thursday, 12/25 - Laura and Brian holiday
Friday, 12/26 - Laura holiday and Brian vacation
---
Monday, 12/29 - Laura and Brian vacation
Tuesday, 12/30 - Laura and Brian vacation
Wednesday, 12/31 - Laura working from home and Brian working
Thursday, 1/1 - Laura and Brian holiday
Friday, 1/2 - Laura vacation and Brian working

Outback, Southern Pines, Nutcracker, and FOOTBALL

This weekend, we celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family. On Saturday night, mom, dad, and Callie came into Knightdale and stayed with us for the night. We went to Outback for dinner with my grandmother and then went back to her apartment for a little while. We had a very nice meal. I love, love, love Outback's blue cheese chopped salad with pecans and the ahi tuna appetizer (soooo yummy!). I was also able to convince my mom to trade one of my tuna pieces for one of her coconut shrimps (Also yummy...my family tells me that I often have entree envy, but I don't think this counts because we both had appetizers!).

Sunday morning, we were up and at'em pretty early and went to Southern Pines to visit my granddaddy and step-grandmother. We also met up with my aunt and her family and my uncle. We had a yummy homecooked lunch and then got to have some quality family time while we exchanged gifts.

My dad took some good pictures in Southern Pines, so I added them to our Christmas 2008 Picasa directory:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lsleblanc82/Christmas2008

Unfortunately, Brian and I had to leave early to come back to Raleigh.

Fortunately, it was because we had free tickets to the Carolina Ballet's Nutcracker. The show was totally awesome...I'd never actually seen it before and I'd never read the story, so I really enjoyed it. It's absolutely amazing how talented those dancers are. (Plus, it's always a good thing when the N.C. Symphony is playing!) Brian and I decided that it probably wouldn't be an annual thing for us, but we definitely want to see it again and maybe even a few other ballets during the year. We also need to hit up some symphony shows and I want to see a few plays in 2009. I just think it's so incredible how talented performing artists are.

So...long story short...if you're looking for a good show, we highly recommend the ballet.

Afterward, we hit up El Señor in Knightdale for some yummy Mexican food and then we've spent the evening chilling on the couch watching the Panthers/Giants game.

Gatsby, in turn, has spent the evening playing fetch and burying his rawhide bone in as many places as possible.

MORE NEIGHBORS!!!

We got some more neighbors this week. People moved into the house at the end of the street, which was the house built for the Parade of Homes.

Here's the updated graphic:


Legend
yellow: Laura, Brian, and Gatsby
fuschia: house under construction
neon green: lot sold, but no house built yet
red-orange: occupied
light blue: completely empty lot
dark blue: built, but not yet occupied