who's got a beard that's long and white...

We took Wheeler to meet Santa at the mall last weekend. And since it is his 1st Christmas we got suckered in and paid the 25 bucks for one photograph. (who are we trying to kid we probably would have paid it even if it wasn't his first Christmas... first kid = spoiled, or rather first time mom = spoiled) anyway... it was pretty cute, and since we bought the package, they let us snap as many of our own pictures as we wanted. Here is his first time meeting Santa!

Happy boy waiting in line

Checking things out

Not so sure about this guy...

Uh oh, take the picture quick!

Too late.

Bribe.

Forgot all about Santa playing at the park with Daddy.

First Haircut.

Why is it so sad and hard to cut your baby's hair for the first time? I don't know the answer, it just is. But we seriously could not delay this any longer than we already did. Poor Wheeler has been looking like Pig Pen for the past month. So after Thanksgiving we bit the bullet...

 Here are the pictures of the boy's first hair cut. 

BEFORE

(The sucker bribe worked great to keep him still but turned into a horrible sticky mess when the falling hair stuck to the blue goo all down his sticky chest and legs. And the bath before the hair cut was an ever worse idea... )

AFTER  

Such a handsome grown up boy! 

Crazy fun Thanksgiving week.

Oh man, I better get around to blogging about our Thanksgiving before Christmas hits and I forget completely!
We had a crazy and busy past week with so much going on that I decided to throw myself a turkey bone and put the camera on the shelf and enjoy the festivities. (The few pictures I have are stolen from other peoples blogs/cameras:)

We kicked things off the Sunday before thanksgiving with a pre-Thanksgiving potluck feast with my girl friends and their husbands. ( The 5 of us do a monthly girls night out and decided to mix things up and include our husbands and kids for a change) We had it at our place and it was awesome! We had the whole traditional Thankgiving feast plus some... and with everyone only in charge of a few dishes it was easy and stress free.

Here is Julia and I being anti-social and eating with the babies in the kitchen... ( note the paper plates and forks... when I host I do it in style! ;)

Wheeler was let loose on his first piece of pie at our potluck. If he could talk he would say it was delicious.

After our early potluck we stayed Thankful by starting the long weekend off early and getting a babysitter so we could go for Phillycheese steaks and to a matinée of Harry Potter with The Nuttalls. (*this was our first non-grandma, non-friend baby sitter we have EVER had. A very liberating and noteworthy occasion in my opinion) The movie was great but a word to the wise... don't go see Harry Potter with a group of people where you are the only nerd who has read the books. The entire move you will be battered with questions and wont be able to fully enjoy.

Thursday our friends the Raes arrived! Oh how we love the Rae's. They have now been in Texas almost as long as we have and it has been fun to share the woes and loves of being Canadian-Texans with them. We have started a tradition of doing American Thanksgiving with them, and this year we were grateful that they made the drive to our house. We made the feast. Watched A&M beat UT (again). Went to the Houston Children's Museum. And attempted Black Friday shopping. (this year we were smarter than other years and casually wandered out to the mall at the end of the day instead of at 4 in the morning with the other crazies.) It was a really fun visit. Here is one of the only pictures I broke my no camera vow to take. Wheeler and sweet Ali were just too cute in their pajama's and playing so well to pass up.

After the Raes left, we closed out our Thanksgiving festivities with a post feast feast of Turkey dumplings at Matt's parents house. Wheeler was excited to see his Grandma and Grandpa who had been on a motorcycle trip for the past week, and stared in his Papa's debut video camera movies for him. Of course Papa took some great Thanksgiving pictures to commemorate. (but pics to follow as papa is in London until the end of the week!) 

So that was our crazy fun Thanksgiving week. I think I need a really long nap followed by a really long run to get ready for Christmas!