JAMSquared

I’ve been a little slow in sharing pictures from all our Christmas celebrations. I’m sorry it’s almost the end of January before I get the last Christmas-related post in.

For New Year’s, we traveled to Keller for the Dzubinski family Christmas celebration, held at my sister’s house this year. You might remember, we went up a day early and visited the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.

Friday, New Year’s Eve, Sarah had a little party, although it was mostly just us with the addition of her neighbors across the street. They have a little girl that is Cameron’s age and you can tell they are great friends.

Here’s the newlyweds, well the newlyweds of the bunch, since they’ve been married the shortest at 2.5 years. Isn’t that sweet that Jason is so affectionate?

After the neighbors left and the kiddos were asleep, the adults exchanged Christmas gifts. This year, our family decided the adults would draw names. I was a little disappointed about that since I love shopping/making gifts for people, but that’s what everyone else wanted to do. It’s a good thing I didn’t start my Christmas shopping for the adults in June like I did for the kiddos. Although it worked out that at least one of us drew at least one of my parents since I did have Jessica’s Shutterfly 1st year memory book in the works when the decision to draw names occurred.

New Year’s morning, the kiddos opened their Christmas presents. In addition to a toy, a book and some clothes, we got all of them a hat from Beany Bling, the Etsy shop my friend Jillan and her sister Jennika run. Right now, they have some really cute hat and tutu outfits. The bumblebee one is adorable. You’ll see lots of pictures of Cameron in his new hat. He loves it.

Of course, every time all the Dzubinski cousins get together, we try for a photo shoot. This time, Jessica didn’t want anything to do with it. Remember last Christmas with them all as little munchkins. Our babies are growing up, sniff.

Yes, that is a Rosa’s cup in her hand. We went there for New Year’s lunch. I would love to make that a tradition, but alas no Rosa’s in Austin.

Once the kiddos all awoke from their nap, they shared a snack at the little picnic table. Aren’t they cute?

Afterward, we walked to a nearby neighborhood park. Cameron started off on his new scooter, but after only one house away from home, he decided he would rather ride his tricycle and he rode it the whole way. Jessica and Aspen rode together in Cameron and Trevor’s wagon, but Aspen didn’t like the rear facing view or James pulling fast for a stretch bothered her and she ended up riding in style on Jason’s shoulders for most of the walk to the park. It was really chilly out and I kinda wish I had changed Jessica into pants, but she had a blast and the cold didn’t seem to bother her.

Can you believe Cameron can now swing in the big kid swing and make it swing all by himself?

On the ride back, Trevor rode in the wagon with Jessica, while Aspen rode Trevor’s car. Trevor ended up annoying Jessica by playing footsie and she ended up being carried by James for a bit and me for quite a bit on the way back to Sarah’s house.

The kiddos continued their play while our New Year’s dinner was being prepared in the kitchen.

The cousins played together Sunday morning.

Notice those beads? Jessica enjoyed the beads so much that once we got home, I dug some out and she has enjoyed wearing them for at least a little bit almost every day since. And yes, her bangs are shorter than the day before. Sarah trimmed them for me.

Everyone else left an hour or two before lunch, but we left shortly after the early lunch (first to arrive and last to leave).

This post is very picture heavy (30 pictures total) and maybe I should have split it in two, but oh well.

We drove to Midland the Wednesday before Christmas. This was the first long car ride with Jessica forward facing. We took along some baby DVDs and she spent most of her time in the car watching them, outside of the very short nap she took. Her favorite is the Baby Einstein Baby MacDonald video about the farm. By the time we went to Keller for New Year’s weekend, she was pointing up at the DVD player if she was awake and there wasn’t a video in it. I’m not sure that is a good thing, but we don’t really watch any TV when we’re at home, so I guess in the car it is okay.

I tried to have holiday inspired clothing for each of the four full days we were in Midland. Here she is on the day before Christmas Eve.

Jessica enjoyed playing with her cousin Dawson while in Midland. The first two days we were there, he was all about “baby Jessica.” Here he is chasing her in the kitchen.

Christmas Eve morning, we went over to my parents’ house before going to Rosa’s to lunch with them. We pretty much always make a stop at Rosa’s when we’re in town.

Late afternoon, we attended the candlelit service at Crestview Baptish Church with James’ parents and our nephew Dawson. After the service, a photo op presented itself in the church lobby. Although Crestview was pretty casual in terms of Christmas attire, I loved getting all dressed up. Having a child makes me get sentimental, and I always remembered a new dress for Christmas. Jessica’s dress is Christmasy with snowmen and Christmas trees, but with the colors not outwardly Christmasy. I look forward to many more Christmases of getting dressed up for church.

After church, we all ate dinner (Tami, Randy, Granny & Pawpaw too). Then we opened gifts. Usually James’ family just digs into presents and no one really gets to see anyone open anything, but this year we watched the kiddos open a few things before everyone else dug in.

Dawson showed his Christmas spirit by wearing a Santa hat the entire evening.

It was so much fun watching Jessica open her gifts. I think she really gets present opening now.

James and I didn’t really get her much this year since the big Santa gift we had planned fell through due to being out of stock. However, the books we did get her, she really enjoyed.

One of the gifts James’ parents got Jessica was this Bethlehem book that sings. Jessica really liked how it lit up too.

For James’ Mom and my Dad this year, I made a Shutterfly book that looked back on Jessica’s first year. I made a third one for Jessica too. I had wanted to share it on my blog, but you have to set up a Shutterfly share site. Instead if you want to see it, come visit (I love to have company) and look at Jessica’s.

Before Tami, Randy, and Dawson left to go home, I took some family photos. I had wanted some with Dawson too, but he’s at an age where all he wants to do is make faces at the camera (I hope Jessica never reaches that phase).

Here’s Jessica in her Christmas pajamas Christmas morning. Aren’t those little reindeer on the feet cute?

One of her favorite activities at James’ parent’s house was climbing the high chair. She would go up and down repeatedly. It about gave James’ Mom a heart attack, but she only fell once and it barely even phased her.

After breakfast, Jessica opened her gift from Santa. She really enjoyed the stuffed dog Santa brought her. “Santa” only spent $5 on that dog since he was busy buying gifts for other kiddos and got the dog as a deal.

We then went over to my parents’ house to visit and eat lunch. Jessica opened her stocking there and she discovered how tasty marshmallows were.

Santa visited Jessica at my parents’ house and brought her a Curious George book and monkey. She seemed to dig the monkey and held him while I took some photos before we left.

That afternoon we opened stockings with James’ family. Jessica helped her Daddy open his stocking. She enjoyed all the sparkly sequins on the stocking James’ grandmother made for him a long time ago.

Dawson received a number of Wii and Nintendo DS video games for Christmas including a Wii Lego game from us. He spent most of the time he was at James’ parents’ house that day playing on his DS (a kid loves new play things). Jessica was very interested in what he was doing.

After the big Christmas dinner, I took some more family photos.

There’s even one of James and I.

Sunday was pretty leisurely. We went to church with James’ parents and had lunch at the new Genghis Grill. I then went over to my parent’s office and we walked to Manor Park to visit my grandmother. Alzheimer’s is the most depressing disease in the world. The previous time I had visited my grandmother, I hadn’t expected the Alzheimer’s to have progressed that much, so it was rather upsetting. This time I knew more of what to expect and it wasn’t as upsetting, but the disease still stinks, big time. It’s nice to know that she is well taken care of in the Younger Center at Manor Park though.

Tami, Randy and Dawson came over for dinner that night. I actually got a decent photo of Dawson and his Mom.

After Jessica went to sleep, James and I met up with my friend Brian. It’s sad that we both travel over 300 miles to visit  with each other when we live less than 300 miles apart (he lives in Houston).  Monday morning, we returned to Austin. It was nice visiting with family, but we were happy to be back in our own beds.

Stay tuned for more pictures from the rest of our Christmas festivities.

Happy Epiphany Day! Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about it here.

Two or three years ago, I bought these super cute plain wooden Christmas ornaments. I finally got around to decorating them and giving them as Christmas gifts to all the special kiddos in my life.

This first one is for my friend Jillan’s daughter Lillie. I didn’t have an appropriate photo to place in it, but Jillan was excited when Lillie opened it as she gets Lillie a photo ornament each year and she hadn’t gotten one for 2010 yet.

The next one is for Jessica.

This one is for my nephew Cameron. I got a picture of him and Santa from my sister’s blog.

Trevor’s ornament is like Jessica’s ornament. Even though Trevor didn’t like Santa, I thought it important to commemorate the experience with another picture from Sarah’s blog. You might notice that Cameron and Trevor’s Santas are different and that is because she tried multiple times to get a photo without Trevor crying.

My niece Aspen’s photo is not with Santa since she, like Trevor, didn’t like Santa, but Julia didn’t get a commemorative picture. Instead I used a holiday photo Julia posted on her blog. You might notice the photo quality is better with these last two ornaments. There’s two reasons. I took these last two photos on a different day when the sun was shining more. And two, I didn’t think about photographing without the plastic “glass” in the frame of the ornament until I had already wrapped the above four ornaments.

The last ornament is for my nephew Dawson. Even though he is already 10, I hope he doesn’t stop visiting Santa any time soon.

I initially planned to do the snowmen and Christmas trees with glittered cardstock, but after doing one of the snowmen that way, I decided sanding the edges was too much work. On the remaining ornaments, I applied mod podge and glitter. The gemstones are adhered using glossy accents, because I wanted to make sure they stuck.

Stamps: Stampabilites Fun Alpha Upper & Lower (for names); Hero Arts Cleardesign Numbers Two, Zero, and One (for year)
Paint: Apple Barrel Black & White; Folk Art Holly Leaf and Christmas Red; Elmer’s Painters paint pens
Glitter: Art Glitter Kelly (Christmas tree); Stickles Gold (Christmas tree star); Tree House Studio white ultra fine holographic (snowmen);
Embellishments: Recollections Pearl Stickers Black, Orange, Silver, White
Tools: Mod Podge; Glossy Accents

Thanks for stopping by.

Granted, Christmas is over. However, I haven’t shared all my tags yet, so here’s five more.

This first one is for my mother-in-law. Her favorite color is purple.

Stamps: C.C. Designs Harp Angel
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Dell printer
Embellishments: Stampin’ Up grosgrain ribbon Elegant Eggplant; glitter; eyelet; Recollections mulberry paper rose
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; atYou Spica gold; Nestabilities Labels Four; glue pen

Here, you can see it on the present. Isn’t that gold ribbon pretty? I reused it from a gift I received.

The next one is my friend Jillan’s daughter, Lillie. I made her a little Christmas present, which I will share in another post. Lillie likes red, but she calls it pink, so I decided to use both red and pink.

Stamps: Close to My Heart Merry Pursuits
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Real Red, Pretty in Pink
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Dell printer
Embellishments: satin ribbon from stash; glitter; eyelet; Robin’s Nest early dawn dew drop
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers; Nestabilities Labels Four, snowflake die; white gel pen; glue pen

This one is for James’ sister Tami. It is very similar to Lillie’s tag, except I ended up not adding a snowflake. Yep, her favorite color is purple too.

Stamps: Close to My Heart Merry Pursuits
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Elegant Eggplant
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Dell printer
Embellishments: silver sparkle ribbon from stash; Stickles Frosted Lace and Holly; eyelet
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers; Nestabilities Labels Four

Then we have the tag for my father-in-law.

Stamps: Close to My Heart Merry Pursuits
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Bashful Blue
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Dell printer
Embellishments: Stampin’ Up 1/2″ striped grosgrain ribbon Real Red; Stickles Xmas Red; eyelet
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers; Nestabilities Labels Four; Martha Stewart Snow Flurry border punch

And lastly (for today), this is the tag for my nephew Cameron. I kinda wish I had swapped the ribbon I used on Joe’s tag with the ribbon I used on Cameron’s tag, but oh well.

Stamps: Close to My Heart Merry Pursuits
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up Whisper White, Real Red, Garden Green
Ink: Stazon Jet Black; Dell printer
Embellishments: satin snowflake ribbon from stash; Stickles Xmas Red; Stampin’ Up pewter eyelet
Tools: Stampin’ Up markers; Copic markers; Nestabilities Labels Four; Martha Stewart  Snow Flurry border punch

I still have a few tags to share and I hope to share some scrapbook pages using the tags as embellishments, but I don’t know when I will get to that as I have some other scrapbooking priorities.

Thanks for stopping by.

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Christmas. Here’s some Christmasy photos to tide you over until I can post photos from our Christmas celebrations.

These next two are by our Christmas tree. Compare these pictures to those from last year in the same Christmas boxes.

These next few pictures were taken by Kristy at her house after our 2nd annual cookie baking extravaganza. I really like the one where James is tossing Jessica into the air and she is giggling.