8 Christmases

The past few days I've been thinking about Christmases past, perhaps more than usual due to the fact that this year is the most different than any other. Here's a little chronicle of how we've spent the day since we've been married.

2003- Living in Vegas. Had been married 4 months and lived in our condo. I was working at Nordstrom and Alex in school at UNLV. Spent Christmas at the Isom home. Cornish hen dinner on Christmas Eve. I remember indulging on Ethel M chocolates from 2 huge boxes Alex's mom brought out. We got our coffee table!

2004- Christmas Eve in Vegas, since I was still at Nordstrom. Tasha (Alex's sis) announced she was pregnant with Wesley. My family was in Minersville, UT with my grandpa, so we drove up there Christmas morning to spend the day with them. Drove back that night to be ready for work the next day.

2005- First Christmas without Alex's mom. Still living in Vegas. Flew up to WA to celebrate with my family.

2006- Living in San Francisco. Had driven to Vegas for Thanksgiving, so went up to WA for Christmas. Bobby back from his mission.

2007- Living in SF. Flew to Vegas for Christmas, then back to SF, then New Years in WA. I remember playing lots of Rock Band.

2008- Living in SF, last year of dental school. Christmas in WA.

2009- Alex's 1st year of residency, living in Emeryville. Took a last-minute flight to WA on Christmas morning. Stayed at the Courtyard Marriott since the Kaler house was quite full. Freezing cold. I was almost 3 months pregnant. Alex went back the following day, I stayed through New Years.

2010- Living in Emeryville. Alex on trauma rotation, so he's working all day Christmas until the 26th. He was off Christmas Eve, so Lizzie opened her Santa gift (Laugh & Learn pup) and some cute gifts from Grandma & Grandpa Kaler that morning. Hung out in San Ramon for the day, did some window shopping. Lizzie and I spending Christmas day home in our pjs.

Merry Christmas!!!

Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread house decorating is a must-do in the Isom home. Usually, we do it up in WA, but it's time to move along with that. Guess what, now Costco sells the houses already glued together, tree and a resident included. Oh Costco, you keep outdoing yourself and I absolutely love it.

The Heddells joined us for some fun designing. I have to admit, theirs was much more creative than ours- Santa even stopped by, along with a hidden snowman!

Lizzie supervised for the first half or so of the night, until bath and bedtime took precedent. Here she is getting used to her high chair.

Us all admiring our finished products. We are definitely making this a yearly tradition.

6 Months

I really can't believe our little Lizzie is 6 months old yesterday. What?! That's just crazy. Anyway, here are a few of her facts & figures (I waited to post til today since we had her Dr. appt and dreaded shots):

- 16 lbs 6 oz (60th percentile)
- 26.25 inches (70th percentile) Where that comes from, I have no clue.
- 16.5 inch head circumference (34th percentile)



She sits up all the time and loves her little Sofie giraffe chew toy and gloworm.
Loves playing with her feet, especially when getting a diaper change.
Also loves to roll over (only to the right, however) when getting dressed or diapered (oh so convenient, haha)
No teeth yet!
Can get on all fours, but hasn't figured out how to move on from there
Tried some peas as her first food last night and tolerated them.

So the doctor says on with the solids! To say I'm a little anxious is an understatement. I don't really have a reason to be, either, since we have no food allergy histories and she's quite interested in the eating process in general. Oh, well, wish us luck!

A Consumer Christmas

Is this not the ugliest Holiday tree you've ever seen? And I did intentionally use "holiday" because I'm quite sure that's what whoever designed it would deem it.I found this beauty in my own backyard and just had to snap a photo to show how interesting it really is. And, to let Alex see since he hasn't had the pleasure of making it over to Bay Street recently.
I have to admit that the first few times I strolled by, I thought it was just the frame of a tree being created. Finally, after about a week of wondering when in the heck it'd be done, I looked a bit closer. Ah, that's the final product. The photo may be a bit hard to tell, but they're a bunch of shopping carts. So, yeah, it's an artistic idea, and if it's gotta be anywhere, Emeryville is a perfect location, with all the lofts and tech businesses and such. But, really? Who would want to take a nice Christmastime family snapshot in front of that thing?