Christmas Blessings and a WONDERFUL 2 Week Break

Our Home this Christmas...

We had a wonderful Christmas visit with both our families! Our break began with Andy's 27th birthday on the 18th of December. His brothers, and best friend, Greg came up to celebrate and his cousin, Elizabeth, along with my sister and dad and our neighbors, Robbie and Cami, and David Jones, Andy's friend, along with Jake and Courtney, our friends from college/Andy's old roommate joined us at Billy Bob's for Reckless Kelly. It was a fun concert and we enjoyed listening to the good music! The pictures below are at dinner in Sundance square before dancing.

Andy's sheet cake with 27 candles on it - he got them ALL out in ONE blow!

At Billy Bobs...

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with Andy's brothers and cousin.

Then we got serious and finished Christmas shopping/gift making (my family's tradition), baking, laundering, and cleaning before we could leave town. I also had to start and finish my defensive driving course ha! A lot to cram into only a few days but we did it! We finished mopping the floors/showering/packing and loading the car by 8:30 just in time to leave. With the car packed to the gills with Christmas presents, enough pre-made food to last Eleanor while we were gone and all of the "stuff" necessary for 4 days in college station we stopped by Which Which and Costco gas and headed for College Station.

We arrived around 11pm Wednesday night and Eleanor, rested from her 3 hour sleep, got to play for a few minutes with Grammie and Grandpa as they reunited after a few months of not seeing one another.

We put Eleanor to bed and enjoyed the conversation with Andy's parents for a few hours. This was the beginning of many late nights at the Reinberg household. I sit here exhausted and decided I need another week of vacation to get back into my routine and relax from my vacation...typical though.

Eleanor was up bright and early on Thursday morning and excited to play...Daddy ws not ready to wake up...

Thursday morning we got a special visit from The Wentrcek family. Eleanor hadn't seen her godparents in a month or so and it was so wonderful seeing sweet Reese Wentrcek!

She has grown so much since we saw her when she was born!

We enjoyed catching up, eating Layne's (Andy's FAVORITE fried chicken finger place only found in sweet home College Station) and the girls' first real time to interact and play on the floor. Well, Eleanor was kind of rude and more interested in her toys than talking to Reese but Reese was so sweet and just stared at E the whole time. Soon they will be playing together and will be the best of friends! :) We just love that sweet little bug and hate that we live so far from our dear friends! After they left we made a quick trip up to St. Mary's, where Grammie works, to let Eleanor meet her coworkers and also people Andy and I worked with when we worked at St. Mary's in college. We snuck into Grammies office for a few shots, this is my fave of Eleanor in Grammie's chair :)

Thursday night we went to Koppe Bridge, Andy's favorite burger place, and his childhood friend, Amber, joined us.

Andy's childhood friend, Amber, who also sat with Eleanor as she slept while we were at Midnight mass. Thanks Amber!

We were going to go to Santa's Wonderland but the line was over a mile long so decided to go home and play games/watch Christmas movies instead.

Friday morning (Christmas Eve) we woke up and 'Nell and I went to get pedicures. What a treat, we even picked out red for Christmas to don our toes (and my fingers). We just hung out the rest of the day wrapping presents and watching more Christmas flicks and then ate tostadas, another one of Andy's favorites he usually can only get in CS (I am not one to cook refried beans in bacon grease and then dolloping them on grease saturated fried tortillas so I leave that to his mom and dad ha! Maybe one day I will attempt to learn to make them. Anyway, tostadas were Andy's birthday request and we celebrated his birthday with his family on Christmas Eve.

We showered and put Eleanor down after putting cookies out for Santa. My only regret was that in the rush of getting ready for mass we forgot to read Eleanor "The Polar Express." My family's tradition is to read it before going to midnight mass/before Santa comes. We kind of also hesitated reading it because we thought Pop Pop might read it when we got home but it never happened. Oh well, Pop Pop will read it next Christmas when Eleanor is a little older and can understand.

Mass was beautiful, Fr. David's homily perfect and the music beautiful! We came home and Andy's family kept up with their tradition of eating tamales and shrimp cocktail before going to bed. I had a glass of wine trying to keep my eyes open ha! We put our stockings out and went to bed to so excited, almost as much as when I was little, to see what Santa had brought. We didn't go to bed until almost 4 that night AH! Not good when your 7 month old wakes up at 7.

Eleanor let us sleep in a little on Christmas morning and we awoke to her talking and clapping excited to see what Santa brought (or just in a good mood ha but we can assume what we want).

I fed her and then we went down the hall to wake up the rest of the family.

We had a wonderful time opening presents and for me watching others open what we gave them. That is my favorite part! Grammie loved her apron with "Grammie" monnogrammed up top and Eleanor's handprint and the date at the bottom. It is going to be somewhat of a "charm bracelet on an apron" as Eleanor and other grandkids to come will stamp their handprints each year at Christmas! It will be fun to see how much they grow and who all appears over the years! Eleanor got a little kitchen from Santa and a star stacker that lights up and makes music that she loves from Grammie and Grandpa.

Andy's and my favorite gifts were relics that Andy's mom had blessed and touched the relics of my saint, Maria Goretti, the veil of Mary, and Andy's touched Saints Andrew, Jude, Anthony, and all the apostles. An incredible gift we will always love. Andy's relic is a rosary and mine a gold cross on a necklace.

Eleanor also was given an "elf outfit" by Andy's parents and she ended up wearing it all day...it was quite hilarious!

Andy's dad smoked the most amazing smoked turkey I have ever tasted for Christmas dinner and we stuffed ourselves with that, all the usual sides, and wine of course. We loaded the car so we could leave first thing the next morning and enjoyed visiting with Amber and her mom, Linda and drinking wine/eating desserts along with playing a very boistrous and wild game of "Apples to Apples."

Our visit in College Station was super special being our family's first time to celebrate Chrsitmas with Andy's family AND Eleanor's first Christmas. We feel like we don't get to see his family enough so it was great getting to spend a few days with them and not have an agenda! We truly got to just relax and hang out which was much appreciated.

With it being my first Christmas away from my family you could only imagine my excitement to make it to Dallas to see them and spend time enjoying Christmas #2. We arrived right around noon on Sunday the 26th.

Eleanor all ready to open more presents, now at Marmi and Pop Pop's

Marmi and Pop Pop, Aunt MEA, and Aunt Keekda were ready with cinnamon rolls in the oven and coffee made. We started opening presents as E had just awoken from her road trip nap and was in good spirits. Eleanor got so many more fun gifts including a piano you can hook up to the TV...what will they think of next!? My Aunt also sent her this adorable little mailbox that she loves!

Dad got Tiger Woods golf from the kids and all of us got a Dance game for the Wii from Santa so we played on the Wii all day and enjoyed an amazing dinner ( as you call tell our break has been marked with delicious indulgent and not so healthy food) of Dad's famous London Broil and all the fixins. As you can see, Marmi got an apron as well with Eleanor's handprint.

We capped the night off with desserts and wine with the Walhoods for an impromptu Happy Birthday Jesus party without the cake...

The next morning Aunt Mea and I went shopping and spent the rest of the day preparing her and Dad for their long-awaited trip to visit Aunt Katie in "Nica." That night, Andy and I took the packed car home, unloaded it, and I unpacked and started laundry that still has not been finished and we are now two days out from school starting up again...

Tuesday, I had a hair cut appointment and after discussing with my sweet hair-cutter, Michelle, decided Eleanor needed her first hair cut. Andy brought her up and she was so good. You can see more about that in her haircut post. Afterward, Andy and I made some returns and ran by Marmi's to get the remainder of the Christmas presents that couldn't fit in the car the night before.

We then enjoyed a super fun day with Amanda, Annabelle, and Hallie.

Eleanor and Annabelle playing in her room before we went shopping. Hallie was napping and missed out :(

They came up for a few days and we were so excited to get to spend some time with them. Hallie napped at Granna's and Annabelle and Amanda, and we went to Buy Buy Baby and shopped with the girls and then went back to Granna's and got to play with Hallie for a bit (Eleanor had to get dropped at home for a nap). I miss my sweet bosom friend so it was such a treat to get to catch up and spend some time together and to see her sweet babies who are just growing way too fast! That night, Andy and I made a really yummy tortilla soup and margaritas and watched movies. We have so enjoyed this time to be together and not worry about work!

Wednesday Eleanor and I went downtown for a Dr. appt. and then met up with Heather, a friend from school, and her 10 mo. old son, Jace. We had so much fun with the kids interacting and of course did some shopping.

Eleanor insisted on me carrying her instead of being pushed in the stroller...we will need to break her of that preference! Wednesday afternoon we got to meet Casen Place, Andy's gradeschool friend, Clifton's third son.

He was so sweet and made me probably a little closer to being ready for another baby. We still would like to wait a little while longer but it was so funny watching Eleanor interact with him.

She was actually a little jealous when I was holding him which makes me wonder if she needs a sibling before she gets too old and used to being the only one! :) Until then, we will just enjoy all the babies our friends have! That night, The Vaniceks came over and ate Pot Roast and played 42 with us. The girls played and them went to bed, it is so fun that we can put them down and have time just the four of us to hang out! The girls are such good friends, we love how much time we get to spend with sweet Katie Jo!

Thursday was such a treat! Andy watched Eleanor while Mom, Kelsey, and I (the ones left behind while the other three of our family are in Nicaragua) spent the morning and early afternoon at the Spa at the Crescent. We got massages and then lounged around for a while in the spa, sauna, and steam room, took our time getting ready and then enjoyed a lunch at Breadwinners. What a fun day! I hadn't felt so relaxed in a LONG time! My massage therapist said I need to do this more often...maybe I can convince Andy of that ha though I wished he was able to enjoy the spoiling as well because I know his neck needs it just as much as mine! That night, mom treated us to a date night out. She came over so we could go see "True Grit" at Studio Movie Grill with a gift certificate Andy got from his students!

Friday morning we woke up and Andy headed to mom and dad's with Wes to commence the day of smoking the brisket for our NYE feast. Eleanor and I hung out at home getting random things done such as cleaning out/organizing the freezer, writing thank you notes, working on but still not finishing laundry, and straightening up the house/getting ready to head to mom's for NYE. More New Years Eve dets to come in the New Years post. We had such an amazing Christmas with family and friends and are gearing up to be motivated as we go back to school next week!

Eleanor's First Haircut

Eleanor had her first haircut today! It wasn't exactly planned. I had a routine cut scheduled and while Michelle was cutting my hair we discussed when to cut Eleanor's. As you might have noticed, her hair was really beginning to get in her face and was all different lengths. Michelle and I decided to have Andy bring her up while she was still cutting my hair. Because the whole event was so impromptu not only was Eleanor still in her PJ's but poor Andy didn't remember the camera and so my daughter's first haircut is documented on nothing more than an IPhone :( I was pretty disappointed in that but it was better than nothing.

Eleanor took her first cut like a champ. She has a little of her mommy's vanity in her and loves looking at herself in the mirror. That was pretty much what she did the entire time Michelle was cutting. She didn't utter one cry the only negative thing I could say was that she was squirmy and curious as usual looking around which made it a little difficult to hold her down but she didn't react negatively to the almost headlock I had to hold her in. We love her hair begin out of her face now, it really brightens it up! Thanks Michelle!

The best "before" picture we could muster...you can kind of see her little hairs hanging on the side like a member of the tree stooges...

Her hair is all wet and ready to be cut!

Such a good girl sitting so still...well in this pic at least!

All finished and checking our "new do" out in the mirror

The sweet lady, Michelle, who gave her her first haircut. Michelle has cut my hair for a long time and also did my up-dos for prom and my wedding!

Merry Christmas to All!

We took this in front of our tree before my school Christmas party. We are so excited for our 2 weeks off and to spend time with family and friends. Here are few things we have to look forward to:

- Visits from Andy's brothers for his birthday
- Visit to College Station for Christmas
- Eleanor's first Christmas
- Playdates with friends
- Special time with my family as well after Christmas

Here is our Christmas card this year:

We hope you enjoy a wonderful Christmas and New Year and remember the true reason of the Season, our Savior's humility that he would make himself present to us in the form of a baby in a dirty manger and our God's love for us that he would send us His Son to show us His true love in the form of a person. I just LOVE Christmas!

Eleanor is 7 Months Old!

Eleanor was 7 months old on the 18th of December, also her Daddy's 27th birthday! She is simply amazing! Her personality continues to come out as she is getting more and more able to tell us what she wants! She can now shake her head no which she often does when I am trying to suck things out of her nose, when she is finished eating and wants no more, and when we are putting her in the car seat. Since she knows "no" with a head shake, we are going to try and implement that when we are telling her no as well - like when she grabs mommy's necklace or glasses ha!

A few things Eleanor has started doing since her 6th month include...

- Pulling herself from the laying on her stomach position to sitting up. She now does this in bed, I guess it is time now to lower her crib down :(

- She LOVES to clap at anything. We don't even have to prompt her by saying, "Yay" or "Patty Cake" she does it on her own.

- She has added foods to her repertoire of delicacies of Mommy's homemade food. She still hasn't had anything processed except the little organic puffs she SO loves to eat and an occasional bottle of formula! She eats sweet potato, brown rice porridge, oatmeal porridge, avocado, carrots, spinach (though I held off on the carrots and spinach once I heard you were supposed to wait until they are at least 7 months due to possible nitrates found in those foods...oops), pears, green peas, and banana. Still yet to try over the break are apples, winter squash, green beans, and maybe some millet (another grain to introduce). We are trying new combinations too. Last night she had oatmeal, banana, and peas. She loved it when usually she turns her nose up at peas!

- We think Eleanor might be a lefty. She has pretty much mastered picking up the puffs with her thumb and pointer finger on her left hand and still grabs with her whole fist on her right. It is quite funny to see her stuff her whole fist in her mouth and then still come out with a soggy cereal piece in her hand. When she uses her left hand though, she simply places it in her mouth and pulls her fingers out.

- Still only the two bottom teeth though with all the drooling, spitting, blowing bubbles, and putting her hand in her mouth, we think a top tooth is on the horizon.

- E is getting SO CLOSE to crawling. I am sure her 8th month post will have a bit about that new feat triumphed. She scoots around and pivots and she can definitely clear the whole room crawling backwards but she still has yet to move forward in pursuit of a toy. She will get up on all 4s and just rock back and forth and usually throw a fit because she wants to go so badly!

- She has added more sounds to her vocabulary. At first it was just mmmmah and bbbah but now she has added the nnnah sound as well. We are on the edge of our seats to know her first word! I am sure it will still be a little while...

- Eleanor loves to play with her activity table we took the legs off of still, she also has learned, from her Aunt MEA to knock over a pile of blocks! She loves playing with her blocks as well!

- Eleanor also made it through her first night away from Mommy and Daddy without a family member in attendance. Marci Perez and her friend watched her along with one of Eleanor's many suitors, Canon Blackwell. We think the two of them kept each other busy enough to realize their parents weren't gone. They were great and Eleanor went to bed without a fight. I will post their "date" on another post. Marci videoed it!

We continue to fall in love with you sweet Eleanor every day! We are SO looking forward to the next two weeks away from school and spending time with you 24/7!

Upcoming this month is Eleanor's first Christmas and New Year!

I LOVE Coupons but don't love hard drives...

SO God is good and because of coupon codes I just saved $60 on my Christmas card order!! HOORAY!

I had 4 different websites up as I was choosing Christmas cards and uploading photos and much to my supposition was proved wrong and Tiny Prints is in fact no more expensive than any other website when comparing the same paper and card size! I was so excited because I am familiar with their website and like it better anyway. Not to mention, I had a million coupons, some expired and some not, that I could apply to the order which made it even better!

So I was about to check out. I had already spent at least 3 hours working on the card and choosing the perfect one, emailing options to mom and Andy soliciting opinions and finally decided. I typed in the code I had for 20% off my order and was so excited about my over $40 in savings. It even gave me free shipping but wouldn't guarantee the cards to me until Christmas Eve which just wouldn't work so I paid only $9 to get them by Monday. Pretty good for rush shipping if you ask me...

I then stumbled upon a coupon that expired in October. The code was TP1010 (tiny prints, Oct. 2010). My resourceful self thought, why not try and see if I can use this code and apply it to December. I typed in TP1210 and hit apply and waited thinking something would pop up saying "not a valid code" but was SHOCKED when it took another $20 off my order! AMAZING!

This utter gittiness over saving $60 definitely overshadowed my dismay about possibly having lost EVERYTHING on my external hard drive. Here is my predicament. As some of you know, my laptop has been down for quite some time. It isn't completely crashed but could go any day and is really non-functioning. Because of that, I decided to back up my laptop on my old faithful external hard drive. I brought it to school with pictures to upload and play with as I designed my invitation and it opened up right away! I was able to take what I needed and then suddenly it disappeared from my, "My Computer" drive.

I unplugged and plugged it back in and it said it needed to format the external drive and did I want it to. I said no and am glad I did because after consulting with my computer whiz mother, found that it was going to wipe out everything on the hard drive. I am so distraught! If I take this thing home and it doesn't open up on my computer that is all my pictures and documents from college forward! AHH! What is the point of an external hard drive if it is going to fail you too!!!??? Do I have to back up three different ways or something!?

I don't know what God is trying to teach me in this but am trying to be patient and trust and pray to St. Anthony that he will pray to help me recover my lost files. Silly that I am being so obsessive about something on my computer - it is a thing and at times like Christmas you realize how important family and friends and the people you love are compared to things so maybe God is trying to teach me that lesson. I don't know...I am still super sad if I have lost everything on that hard drive! I will keep you posted. Until then, I am focusing on the positive - $60 saved WAHOO!

If you are a later orderer like me and still are looking for Christmas cards, feel free to use these codes to save some money on http://www.tinyprints.com/

CATCA2B78FBZ

TP1210

And another code for $10 off orders of $49+... FANS Too bad it gave me that after I put my order in! Make sure you use it before 2011, it expires Dec. 31st.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Having a new member of the family to introduce all the fun customs and traditions to has been SO FUN this year! I love the year of firsts, in fact that is all Andy and I have known since we married - the first year was "Our Firsts" as Reinbergs and now, we have Eleanor's firsts to enjoy!

This past weekend we visited Santa at the Galleria in Dallas. I was very particular and borderline offensive and snobby (sorry if I was that to you if I in any way scoffed at your Santa) about which Santa we would go to. I even thought about scouting out each of the malls/places Santa appears and picking which one I thought would be best for Eleanor but ran out of time. I finally narrowed down my decisions to Northpark and Galleria. Galleria actually had a picture of their Santa on the website unlike anyone else and I just love Northpark so was a little partial in thinking theirs would be good. After looking at the calendar and time schedule, decided that Galleria was the choice. It worked better with Eleanor's nap schedule as they opened at 11 whereas Northpark opened right when the whole city of Dallas would be done with church at 12:30.

Galleria ended up being a wonderful choice! My hopes for Eleanor's first Santa encounter were that of sweet little Susan Walker in Cole's department store in "Miracle on 34th Street." Galleria Santa's little wonderland wasn't more than a bunch of tasteful Christmas lights on lots of greenery and his big velvet chair but it was perfect! I was quite surprised when we arrived at 11:07 and there was already a line wrapped halfway around the wonderland. When the little elf told us it would be 10 min I was relieved. We finally got to see Santa after waiting for not 10 min. but an hour and Eleanor was a champ throughout the entire wait! She was so giggly and as I worried that her giggles would turn to fussiness at any second, she pulled through until she got to Santa!

When we sat her on him she just stared at him in wonder. Not necessarily in shock or "who the heck are you?" but just in the perfect awe and wonder that every child has when they get to see and touch and be in the presence of that mystical figure, Santa Claus! When she heard all the bells and tambourines she finally looked at us and my desperate attempts to stray her gaze from the jolly old man in the red suit finally proved successful and we got a decent picture!

After pictures we took a stroll down to the skating rink and COrner Bakery and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast while Eleanor was enthralled in the little objects moving on the sea of white and the GIGANTIC Christmas tree in the center of it all. Any commented that he would like to see a tree like that in real life - "Only if you are Clark Griswold," I told him!

We then went shopping for Andy's class' Angel gift and he decided HE wanted to pick out a toy for Eleanor which led him to make her hand touch and push every button on every toy in the kid's section of Target. He decided that "she" liked a little farm animal piano thing. I guess we now are giving her a toy for Christmas ha!

After shopping we picked up "Aunt MEA" and headed to the Gaylord to take some more pictures. BIG MISTAKE! It was a MAD HOUSE! The line to get into the parking garage was forever long so I thought, let's spkurge and do valet. BAD decision...it was $20. So I got back into line and resorted to paying $12 for parking. Keep that in mind if you are wanting to go get a few pictures taken. Probably not worth it unless you go on a not so busy weekday and can actually get some pictures without people in them. Regardless, we got a few shots though I haven't been able to view them on the comp. When I can, I will post the best.

We are STILL waiting to get our Christmas card together. I haven't been able to get the "perfect shot" where one of us doesn't have snot dripping out our nose (we have all had colds) and we are all in good moods (mainly Eleanor) and smiling and in coordinating clothes. Andy growled at me when he came out in a red shirt (very sweet of him to try and dress himself in the holiday spirit but not what I had in mind) and I politely informed him that I had already picked out his shirt and his red shirt clashed with the red shirt I was wearing :) He is such a sweet and agreeable husband for letting me have my way with family matchy but not too matchiness...coordinate is really my word of choice. We will see how these pictures turn out and hopefully have cards in the mail before Santa hits the roof. I might just need to accept that not every picture we "publish" in a Christmas card will be perfect and resort back to my blog title and remind myself that our family is a beautiful "mess" not a model of perfection. Though it is very hard for me to accept that everything can't be perfect, I am working on loving my imperfections and living with them rather than stressing my life away to fix them. That is a whole different blog post though.

Until next time, Merry Christmas and remember, not presents, stressful mall (or in our case Gaylord) traffic, Christmas card mailout deadlines, baking, report card deadlines, perfect coordinating outfits BUT JESUS are/is the reason for the season! :) I am more or less saying that for my own reminder...God Bless!

Growing Growing Growing

Eleanor went to the Dr. last week for a weight check. She had only gained an oz. from 4 - 6 months and our doc was worried so we scheduled a check to follow up a few weeks after her 6 month check up. She weight 14lb6oz. at the 6 month checkup and after we have since put her on solids AND her spitting up has gotten SO much better/almost nonexistent, I am happy to report she now weighs in at 15lb12oz. Much improved and our doc is pleased. That still only puts her in the 40th percentile...she is a petite little bug but growing beautifully we are told!

I think her weight gain was definitely attributed to us starting solids but also to the fact that she can sit up on her own now! It is adorable, she is such a big girl! She still needs us to burp her some but occasionally since she sits up so much, she burps on her own - so ladylike :)

My favorite new trick she has up her sleeve is the clapping. Mom and Andy taught her to clap on command. She will either clap when you start singing the "Patty Cake" song or when you start clapping and say YAY!!!! Here is a little sample of her trick :)

We just love how much she is growing and changing - more updates to come on her 7 month post...less than a week away!