Christmas 2008

If there's one thing I learned this Christmas, it's that being the first and only grandchild on both sides of the family means you score huge in the gift department. On Christmas Eve, we met the Brights at St. Michael's for the children's service in the basement. Ellie has a Little People Nativity Set and a book about Christmas that we've been reading, but she obviously hasn't figured out the whole birth of Jesus thing yet. She knows there was a baby, a star, an angel, and a donkey involved, but that's about it. After church, we went back to the Brights for dinner and opening presents. We let Ellie open all of hers first since she had to go to bed. Once she figured out that she was the recipient of many gifts, she started going nuts and screaming "Ooooooo!!" as she opened each gift. She got two babies, a stuffed doggie, some blocks, crayons, a puzzle, and a beautiful bracelet. Uncle Ben set up the train set which was a big hit with Ellie. It only took Ellie two hours to go to sleep... then the adults opened gifts downstairs.

We woke up at our house on Christmas morning. Santa brought Ellie a ride-on Elephant and an Elmo live. She really likes the elephant. It sings four different songs while she rocks on it. We made it over to my parents by 11AM where there were more festivities and she hit the motherload with the Elmo Restaurant, a gift from Grammie and Grandi. She LOVES the Elmo Restaurant. She saw it and immediately started cooking up a storm and has not stopped cooking since she received it. She has taken to putting her new baby in the oven which is troublesome, but maybe she thinks it's nice and dark for baby in there. She also likes handing out the money in the register to everyone.

We spent the afternoon of the 26th at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science and the next day, we saw the Trains at Northpark. It is a nerd paradise of miniature trains. That have the trains running through scenes of Dallas, New York City, Washington DC, a forest, and a western town among other things. Ellie really enjoyed it and they had some trains at her level . Mom and I saw the movie Doubt on Saturday afternoon. It's getting lots of nominations for awards and such but it was sort of slow and disturbing.



Lee and I spent Sunday surveying what Ellie does and doesn't play with and making two piles - save and give to charity. The problem is that I would get something out she hadn't played with in six months and she'd act like it was the long lost toy she'd been missing and start playing with it. Half of her stuffed animals are getting the boot. Sometimes I wish we lived in the 1800s when children had a corn husk doll and a block of wood to play with. And they liked it. Now everything makes noise, is the size of a baby hippopotamus, and requires 4-AA batteries which have to be inserted using a Stewart Little-sized screwdriver.

So here we are at the end of 2008 and I am exhausted. I think I aged 5 years in the past 7 days. I feel like I'm recovering from Spring Break 1997 without all of the beer, vinyl pants, dance offs, and midgets. I don't know how I'm going to do it year after year... and especially the years when Ellie starts getting up at 5AM. When that starts, I'm going to stay in bed, set up the camcorder, and tell her to hit record when she gets up. At least I have 11 months to get geared up for the next season.

The Bright Family wishes you a happy and healthy 2009!

The Science Place

I took the day off the day after Christmas and Lee took the afternoon off, so after Ellie's nap, we took her to The Museum of Nature and Science in Fair Park. In the downstairs area, they have a ton of things for little ones to do. She loved driving the fire engine with Dad....

Picking veggies at the little farm...

Milking cows...

Harassing turtles...

Sailing boats...
It's all fun and games until we have to leave.

Poor Ellie.

December Events

I have to get a post in before Christmas or else I will be totally behind and stuck writing a 10,000 word essay on December 31. I'll start with Deck the Hall, the annual children's Christmas concert at the Meyerson on December 13. We went last year and Ellie had a great time then, but an even better time this year. Dallas native Lisa Loeb was the entertainer. We started off with Breakfast With Santa which included a picture with Santa. That didn't go well. Ellie had NO interest in meeting Santa. We have Santa all over the house so she knows who he is and she'll even say "Ho! Ho! Ho!" if you asks her what Santa says, but was not so interested in actually meeting him. I expect that this behavior will continue until she's about 3 or 4.

After breakfast, there was a lot of great lobby entertainment. Ellie enjoyed listening and dancing to a one-man band, watching a magician, getting a reindeer balloon hat made, and was particularly interested in watching a string quartet play. By the time the concert started, Ellie was operating at a level 10. She sat fairly still during the concert, but was ready to get out of there when it ended at noon. Too much stimulation.

Front row at for the one man band.

The String Quartet.

She's had enough of Decking the Halls.

When we got home, she was being pretty cranky so I fed her and put her down for a nap - which she would have none of. It marked the first time she's never taken a nap during the day and it's not something she's going to repeat anytime in the near future. I tried for 1.5 hours to get her to go to sleep... patting her back, singing, more books, and at one point I rocked her which is not easy any more because she's 5'6" now. So eventually we got up and made the cookies that I wrote about in the last post. That night we met our friends, the Hardemans, for dinner. Ellie and Cooper kissed each other on the lips when we left and I about fell over I started laughing so hard.


This past week, we celebrated the holidays with more fun - I met my college girlfriends Meg, Debbie, Annie, Bonnie, Jenny, and Kristine, for dinner and an ornament exchange at Olenjack's in Arlington on Tuesday night and then Ellie and I went to the Dallas Women's Club with Beth and Elizabeth for a Mother-Daughter-Granddaughter Tea. Santa came down from the North Pole again for the Tea and again Ellie was steadfast in her determination not to take a picture with him. She was much more interested in the ladies in a little band that was playing Christmas music. They brought instruments for the kids to play with and Ellie had fun shaking a tambourine.

We met my parents at the Gaylord Texan on Saturday morning to see the Ice! exhibit. It is a hugh exhibit of ice sculptures... really a lot more interesting than it sounds. They had a 15 foot slide... which Ellie could not ride because she wasn't tall enough, a giant Santa, a huge angel, gingerbread men, and a life sized nativity scene. The only problem is that they kept the entire exhibit at 9 degrees. That's about 60 degrees colder than I like to be. They give a parka to all of the visitors, but it's NINE degrees. My ballet flats didn't hold up. I think Ellie's favorite part of Ice! was jumping into a huge barrel of teddy bears at the end. After lunch, my parents took Ellie home with them because Lee and I were supposed to go to a holiday party on Saturday night, but we hadn't had a free night with no kiddo in... forever... so we decided to stay home. I made chili and Mike came over to watch the final Cowboys game at Texas Stadium which they lost.

I picked Ellie up on Sunday, and according to my Mom and Dad, Ellie was pretty good. She only threw all of her food on the floor once. They kept a lot of my old toys so she has plenty to do when she's there. While I was working around the house on Sunday, I forgot how productive I could be when she's not there. I got 6 hours work done in about 2. And I took a nap and went shopping. But it was strange not having her around and I felt like something was missing the whole time.



I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year because I know Ellie will be excited when she opens her gifts. There's such a small window when children are genuinely excited about Santa, the reindeer, the elves, the gifts, the cookies, the lights, the tree... I am going to soak it all up while it lasts.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Cookie Time

We did a lot this weekend, but one of the highlights was making cookies with Ellie. My mom always made cut-out cookies with me when I was little so I have been looking forward to making cut-out cookies with my little one almost since the day I found out I was pregnant. I bought the cut-outs even before that. I'd never made cut-out cookies by myself... and by no means would I consider myself a great "baker", but I used the recipe that my mom used when I was little and they were quite good.

I rolled out the dough, cut the cookies, and Ellie decorated them. I was surprised that Ellie really did decorate the cookies. She sprinkled the red and green sugar on the cookies and patted it down like she knew what she was doing. Then we put them in the oven and I turned the oven light on so she could watch them bake. Beth gave us a little snowman cookie jar and she knows just where they are now.

In the end, she discovered that the sprinkles taste the best.

Thanksgiving 2008

I know I've been a little absent from blogging, but this happens every December. I cannot find the time to sit down for a few minutes and gather my thoughts because of the holiday specials on TV or Christmas parties or taking Ellie to see the lights someplace. The big problem with extended lapses in blogging is that I usually can't remember what happened yesterday so trying to write about things that happened 10 days ago is difficult. I was home by myself this weekend because Lee went hunting at the ranch with Matt and Ronnie. I thought I was going to have time to blog then, but I actually have less time when Lee is away because there's so many other things I have to be doing when Ellie is asleep.

Ellie had her 18 month appointment last week and these were her stats:
Weight: 26.9 (80th percentile)
Length: 34.25 inches (95th percentile)
Head: 18 inches (25th percentile)

Since birth she has been in the 95th percentile for height but this is the first time she's broken the 50th percentile for weight. Looks like she needs to go a little easier on the Cheerios.

We went to Tyler for Thanksgiving this year. We arrived on Wednesday night and about 30 minuted from the Bright's house, Ellie decided that she was through being in the car and threw a fit. I think she was a little hungry too, but it wasn't pleasant. We swung by a party that the neighbors were having and then relaxed. The next day my parents came to Tyler to celebrate with us. Ellie and I spent the morning at the park while Lee helped his dad get some items out of storage. That afternoon while Ellie was asleep, I saw the movie Twilight with Ben. I felt sort of bad dragging Ben with me to the movies, but there was nobody else who could go with me.

For Thanksgiving dinner, we had Tee, Beth, my mom and dad, Elizabeth, Ben, David and Lissa, and our family. This year Ellie could actually eat the turkey, dressing, and all of the extras, but I think most of the dishes were too flavorful or spicy for her because she didn't seem to like most of it. On Friday, we came back to Dallas and picked up our Christmas tree.

Ellie established a new favorite word - "no". She's known this word for a while, but now uses it with great gusto. I took her for Christmas pictures on Saturday and the poor photographer had quite a time. Ellie, do you want to smile? NO! Can you sit here? NO! Show me your teeth. NO! Or at home: Do you love Daddy? NO! Can I have a hug? NO! Please give me the remote. NO! Did you just poo-poo? NO!! Are you sure because I smell it. I poo-poo? Yes, you did. NO! Seriously, let me change your diaper. NO! Anyway, the pictures were somewhat of a disaster, but the guy got one shot I could use so that's what we're going with. I was worn out by the end of it. We finished up the morning by walking around the Galleria to look at the Christmas tree on the ice rink and visiting the American Girl store. I can't wait until Ellie is old enough to get into the American Girl stuff. I think I'll probably like it more than her. That night, Lee went to poker while I put up all of our decorations and watched part of WALL-E with Ellie. Such a cute movie. She called him "Wah-wee" and she called his little cockroach friend "bee" mostly because she thinks every bug is a bee. She saw the DVD in the grocery store the next day and started screaming "Wah-wee! Wah-wee!".

As I mentioned, Ellie and I were home alone this weekend while Lee went hunting. I had big plans for us to go to the Adolphus Children's Christmas Parade in downtown, but she started coming down with a cold on Friday night and was running a low-grade fever so I thought it would be best if we stayed home. My company Christmas party was Saturday night at a nearby co-worker's house and it was quite possibly the most fun I'd ever had at a Christmas party. It was out of control. We had an ugly Christmas sweater contest and since I helped plan the party, I made an executive decision on Tuesday to rent a karaoke machine and our office parties may never be the same again. Everyone got so into it. I spent most of the night holding my sides because I was in pain from laughing so hard. Some people actually want to buy a karaoke machine for the office so we can sing during the lunch hour. I don't know if I want to take it that far. But I may want one for home enjoyment.

Needless to say, it was hard getting up on Sunday morning for Katy's Christmas brunch. Ellie had fun playing with the three other children at Katy's house and had even more fun carrying around the pink bag that Katy gave her. She showed it off to the whole party. That's my wallflower. We have so many events planned for the upcoming days until Christmas arrives... I'm going to do my best to work in some blogs!

I Poo Poo?

We had a big moment at the Bright house this weekend. Ellie has finally gotten to the point that she realizes that she is about to poop and tells us. This is big because she was telling us after she went and now she's telling us before she goes. I celebrated this big event by buying Ellie her own potty. And no, I don't seriously expect to start potty training her because she's only 18 months and she can't get her own pants off yet, but I wanted to buy her a little potty so she could get used to seeing it and it wouldn't be a big event when we finally do potty train. When I brought the potty ("pah-ee") home on Sunday afternoon, she was very interested in it. We told her that it was "Ellie's potty" and that big girls poo-poo and tee-tee in the potty. She pointed to it and said "poo-poo". I told her no pressure - she didn't have to use it yet, but she wanted to take it for a test drive, so I took off her diaper and let her sit on it. Nothing happened, but Lee coached her on how to relax and I half expected him to give her a newspaper to read.

We went about our afternoon activities of going to the park, feeding the dogs, and eating dinner. I was in her room making her bed (which takes 15 minutes and is harder than passing a camel through the eye of a needle) and she was in her chair reading when she looked at me and said, "I poo poo?". I asked her if she poo-pooed and again she said, "I poo poo?". I checked her pants and there was nothing there. I told her that she hadn't gone yet, but reminded her that big girls poo poo in the potty. With that, she ran out of the room. I continued making her bed and when I looked up, she had carried her potty into the living room where Lee was watching TV. Then it went a little something like this:

Lee: Tiff, she just brought her potty in here.

Ellie: I poo poo?

Me: Yeah, she just told me that she went but there was nothing in her diaper.

Lee: Well, maybe she has to go?

Ellie: I poo poo!

Me: I don't want to pressure her. Maybe we just let her sit on the potty and poop in her diaper to start out with?

Ellie: I POO POO!

Me: Or maybe I should take it back into the bathroom? I don't want her to think that she can poop on her potty in here.

Then Ellie stood up, let out a loud, frustrated scream, and started stomping her feet. I checked her diaper, and there it was - the poo poo. Poor kid. And you know she was thinking something along of the lines of, "Okay, let me get this straight - three hours ago, you buy me a toilet so I don't have to soil myself anymore, but when I tell you I have to poo poo and physically BRING you my toilet, you stand there and discuss me taking a dump with each other until I crap my pants?! I am starting to think I am the smartest person in this room." I guess she's going to have to potty train ME.

More from the weekend:

Reading her book

I was "that mom" at the grocery store. Man, those things are hard to steer!

At the Zoo with Grammie and Grandi

As I mentioned in my last post, my mom and dad looked after Ellie while we went to Wurstfest two weekends ago. Their big outing was to the Fort Worth Zoo. I've attached some pictures from the zoo and from their house. She looks like she had a great time!

Grandi and Ellie look at the giraffes

And elephants

(The elephants were very interesting)

Ellie and Grammie play in the sandbox

A movie and drinks with Elmo before bed

Wurstfest is the Bestfest

When Lee and I got married, someone gave us a book called 1001 Things to Do Before You Die. Wurstfest is not in there, but it should be because it's the best festival ever. I've never been to Octoberfest, something I've always wanted to do, but I'm pretty sure this is the Texas version of it. As we did 3 years ago during our first trip to Wurstfest, we stayed in Das Flus Haus #3 at the Gruene Mansion Inn. It's a cute little bed and breakfast overlooking the Guadalupe river. My parents were nice enough to keep Ellie for the weekend so it was just the two of us. On Friday night, we walked around the stores in Gruene, which is all of about two blocks, ate some Mexican food, and saw Cory Morrow at Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. If anyone remembers the movie, Michael with John Travolta, there's a scene from that movie that was filmed there and pretty much every Texas country star has played there. It's a cool piece of Texas history.

On Saturday, we did a little more shopping before meeting up with some of my college friends. Marcie's parents retired to New Braunfels and have a great house along the river. If I was retiring, it's exactly where I'd want to retire because the Texas Hill country is so beautiful. This year we spent most of our time in the Wursthalle kicking back with pitchers of German beer, dining on all things German, listening to "Czech and Then Some", chicken dancing, and watching professional clogging. It's more fun than it sounds. I think Ellie would have had a really great time because all of the little kids are running around and dancing and playing on the rides... but I think she still may be a little too young to enjoy it. We also bought a 48th anniversary commemorative beer stein and some outstanding new aprons. Something we totally didn't need, but had to have.

Around 5PM, we headed back to the Ahren's house for dinner. I always enjoy time with Paul and Judy especially because Paul was an engineer and we can talk about all things engineering together. Our topic de jour this time was global warming, which we both agree is a load of crap but that's a whole different blog. I guess a few hours of German beer drinking will do strange things to you because all of the guys decided to try on the bark collars of the Basset Hounds that were there. I think there was some weird peer pressure at play because all five of the guys did it. It was entertaining to watch and it reinforced my belief that women are the smarter sex. That night, we met the group again at Gruene Hall for more Cory Morrow.

My parents brought Ellie back on Sunday and we all went to the kick-off party for Deck the Hall together. I was the kick-off party co-chair so I had to attend. It was a fundraiser for the upcoming event and for my Dallas readers with kiddos, it's a must-attend Christmas event at the Meyerson so please consider supporting the Symphony and attending. I think that Ellie had a spectacular time with Grammie and Grandi. Their big event was a trip to the Fort Worth Zoo. My mom also took Ellie to mass and endured the first hand torture that is taking an 18 month old to church. The only difference is that her church has a luxurious "cry room".

In other news (because I have failed to blog in several days), Ellie is officially obsessed with Elmo. This is great for me considering that she's getting a new Elmo for Christmas, but it's also bad news because we have an "Sesame Street Greatest Hits" CD and we have to listen to the Elmo theme song nonstop in the car. When I ask her if she wants to watch Elmo, she starts singing "La-La-La-La", the Elmo's World Theme Song. I guess that's a milestone because it's the first song she's singing. It's a good thing I like Elmo so much. It finally clicked with her this week that "more" can translate to things other than food. I read to her every night before I put her in bed and now after I tell her that we've read the last book, she gives me the sign language for "more" (she uses her left index finger and points to her palm" and says "more!". Then I usually give in for another book or two before putting her down.

We attended the Dallas Junior League's Auction and Casino on Thursday and I think that we were the highest bidder on the trip to Florida silent auction item. We left without checking out so I'm still waiting to hear. All of the items were a steal because of the economy. There was a $5500 Valentino leather jacket for bid in the live auction that went for $250. It was nuts. On Saturday, Ellie, Beth and I toured the Luxe Home. It's being billed as the most expensive house ever built in Dallas at $40 Million and at 21,000 square feet, it was every penny of it. I kept on thinking what an outstanding party I could host at the house. We'd better start saving up for it!

Beer Goggles

Seriously - beer goggles.

I Couda Have Been A Contender"

Greetings from Wurstfest

Budding Artist

Halloween 2008

I must say that we had the cutest poodle on the block on Friday night, and getting Ellie into her costume was not as hard as it was two days before at the Lakewood party. I think that's due in part to the fact that I snuck up behind her and pulled it over her head before she could see it coming.


She had a really great time on Halloween. Aunt Elizabeth came over to help hand out candy with Lee while I took Ellie around. We started out atour next door neighbor's house where Gracie - also babysitter to Ellie - was handing out candy before the football game. Ellie took the piece of candy from her and then gave it back. Gracie told her she could keep it and that made Ellie very happy. Ellie then ran from house to house collecting candy saying, "tick teet". Her trick was that she would run up to the house, collect her candy, run halfway down the sidewalk, and then return for a second treat in hopes that she would not be recognized. The pink poodle costume gave it away because there were not many running around in the neighborhood.

About halfway through trick or treating, Ellie met up with a group of girls from the neighborhood who were about 3-6 years old. When they'd go to a door, she'd be in back at first, but by the time candy was being handing out, she was in the front row. We ended the evening with some pizza from Campizis. There weren't as many kids out this year as there were last year. I think that was due to the fact that there was a home football game being played.

On Saturday, Lee and I had plans to go to a Barnett Vineyards wine dinner at Lakewood. We'd plans to go for about three months. We love Barnett wines and it was our favorite winery when we visited Spring Mountain when we visited there in 2006 so we were really looking forward to the wine dinner. Our babysitter, who had never sat for Ellie before, was scheduled to come at 6:00. I started getting nervous around 6:10 when she hadn't shown up so I started calling and texting her. Nothing. She no-showed. Honestly, if she'd called two hours before and faked an illness, I'd be somewhat forgiving... but no-showing? That's inexcusable. When I realized we were not going to have a babysitter, Gracie from next door came over immediately. Thank goodness she was home. We wound up having an awesome time... the wines and the dinner was fabulous. The onlyproblem was that Saturday night was daylight savings so Ellie woke up at 4:30. I stayed in bed while Lee got up to check on her. He changed her diaper and maybe due to the wine dinner, he put her diaper on backwards. It could have been worse, he could have put it on inside out.


Ellie got in her first fight this week. That's right - fight. I picked her up on Tuesday and Irma told me she, "wasn't too good today". According to Irma, she didn't see the fight start, but when she looked up, Ellie was clawing at some girl and pulling her hair. My girl is smart to go for the hair since it's not an advantage any opponent has on her. Irma said she pulled Ellie off the girl (they don't name names at daycare) and then Ellie ran back to for more. Ellie usually plays well and shares better than I ever did so I'd like to think that the other girl started it, but who knows.


In other news, the election was this week. I didn't vote for the guy who won, which was Obama. I recognize that the election was historic in that he will be our first black president, but I don't think that he was the right person for the job, and I think our forefathers are rolling over in their graves because of the ideas and beliefs that he espouses. I'm a worker and I always have been. I went to work on the day of my 16th birthday because that's the first day I could legally go to work and make money. I believe that hard work is the way to get ahead in life and the government has no right to step in and redistribute my wealth. If you want money, work for it. I didn't get here by sitting on my butt and collecting welfare checks. I got here by spending thousands of hours studying. If you looked at McCain's resume versus Obama's it was a no-brainer. People wanted change and they're going to get it on my dime. I'm trying to look at the bright side and that is that many people were motivated to vote in this election. My hope is that this makes more people interested in our government and that they become more active participants.