Anticipation....

Watching Dick Clark/Ryan Seacrest

She tried so hard to stay up....it's 11:45 in this shot

...and 11:55 in this shot.

A Post-Christmas update

Merry (belated) Christmas to you all! And what a wonderful one it was. I wanted to write a quick post about our holiday happenings, so bear with me. This post will be mainly pictures/captions :)

We left my parents at our house and headed south for this year's Christmas celebration with Patrick's family. Over 4 days we slept at 3 different houses, opened presents 5 different times, and at one point had 44 people crammed into a very small house. It was lots of fun!

Christmas Eve

Listening to Charlie (my father-in-law) read the Christmas story

Morgan and Great-Aunt Lola

Christmas Morning Stockings

(Yes Folks....Nannie bought her a recorder. Thanks a bunch Nannie.)

I am not really sure how this happened...sorry folks, end user error.

Christmas Day

Great-Grandma Opalene and the newest "Moffatt", Kole

Patrick and his Uncle Rodney

Morgan and her 2nd cousin, Anna

Christmas Evening

Me and my Afghani pashmina

Signed 2008 Fiesta Bowl ticket and Noel Devine (#7) picture and autograph

A castle for her princesses!!

This princess loves it! :)

Even our puppies got presents.

(Pfeffer on left, Bailey on right, both Dachshunds)

Christmas with Mom's Family (Dec 26th)

STICKERS! (And a beautiful kimono from San Fransisco's Chinatown)

Admiring her castle...

Morgan's Buddy--she hardly left my cousin Matt's side!

Mom teaches her sister how to wear her Afghani pashmina

Presents at Jeff and Cecelia's (Dec 29)

A new, special coloring book. Morgan really likes it and has drawn pictures for us already.

Cecelia's pashmina from Afghanistan

Play-Doh Ice Cream Shop!!! Morgan loves it. She and my mother made ice cream sundaes for everyone this morning.

Only an engineer wraps his sister's gift in Engineer of Record shop drawings!

After a whirlwind Christmas season Morgan and I are relaxing at my brother's house in Maryland. Patrick will join us tomorrow. I am taking this time to sit on the couch and be a lazy lump so when I return home on Saturday I will be rested and ready to tackle taking down the Christmas decorations (sigh).

We'll catch back up with you in 2010!

My BIG Problem

Today I have been dealing with a BIG problem. I've been cleaning, working, moving, and preparing, all for this BIG problem. After over a year of talking about it, it's finally here.

Today I got my Christmas present from my husband, just a little early. It had to come early because I had to be instrumental in picking it out! He said he would never dare pick one up without me approving. Intrigued? I was.

For Christmas this year, my wonderful husband bought me...


A KING SIZE, MEMORY FOAM BED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My problem is how do I fit this bed into a room that is already busting at the seams with furniture, since our bedroom functions not only as our bedroom, but as our exercise room, our office, library, and scrapbook room. It's only 200 sq feet. Whew.

Not that I am complaining....I am so happy! Once again he managed to surprise me on an amazing level. Thank you honey, you are so thoughtful and I am very happy with my gift.

Some more firsts for Morgan

We've had a lot of excitement going on in the Tenney household over the past few days. On Saturday my parents FINALLY arrived after leaving their home at 4:00 AM Friday morning, getting stuck in Wytheville, VA after 12 hours of driving, being relocated to an emergency shelter and sleeping on bleachers, to finishing a 15 hour trip 35 hours after it started. Morgan and I were both so excited that they are here. Since Morgan only gets to talk to them over the computer, when they are here she really gets excited. Naturally, after 5 months of not being with my parents, I always love when they come home.

Sunday we took Morgan to her very first movie! All 5 of us packed up and braved the snow to get to the theater for Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

Of course we got the BIG bucket of popcorn, as our little princess loves popcorn, and since this was a first, it naturally called for big snacks.

The movie was really cute, and we all enjoyed it. Morgan is now asking to go see it again!

Yesterday Morgan was in her first school production. The day care that she goes to put on a Christmas performance. Morgan was a very cute little cow, and was "that kid" who constantly waved at her parents and grandparents from the stage. It was SO cute!

The Chrsitmas festivities have officially started and it's totally crazy. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

A Baby No More...

On December 6, the day of her cousin's birth, Morgan gave up the last true vestige of babyhood. For months we had been preparing her for it, and when it came, she took it like a champ. On this day, she gave up her BeBe (her pacifier). We had told her that when Baby Kole came that she would have to give all of her BeBes to Kole, because only babies used pacifiers. Now it certainly wasn't a totally smooth transition. She asked for it for two nights, and we are still feeling the effects of no soothing tool because she now stays up well past 11:00. But she did it.

As a prize for her becoming a true big girl, and to ensure that she would always have a BeBe in her bed with her, we took her to Build-A-Bear to create a friend with a BeBe heart.

Unfortunately, and shockingly, I left the camera in the car. Thankfully, Patrick's Blackberry has a camera and we were able to remember this moment forever.

She didn't take long to pick out her black bear. She helped stuff her, and placed her BeBe and a very special heart in with her stuffing.

She washed her...

And picked out a Hello Kitty outfit for her to wear, right down to the Hello Kitty panties!

She chose to name her Holly, and in less than 30 minutes, Morgan adopted her.

It was really fun to do this with her, and once in a while when she asks about her BeBe, we remind her that Holly has a BeBe heart and Morgan snuggles in with Holly and falls asleep.

It's so adorable.

Cousins