Christmas Conclusion- 2009

So I am finally going to finish up Christmas and move on to 2010. Once we got back home from all of our holiday travels, we enjoyed our first Christmas as a family of three here at our house. We kept it minimal this year since we had already received the best gift ever on December 1st. For New Year's, we stayed home and for the first time in my life, I was in bed before midnight. We celebrated on Eastern time and went to bed at 11. On New Year's Day, we stayed in our pj's and watched Up and the Hangover and had Black Eyed Pea Soup for supper. It was uneventful but so nice!

Q in her cute Christmas outfit with her first ornament from us. Sutton and I get each other ornaments every year- He gets a plane and I get a snowman. We started this tradition 8 years ago when we were dating and it is always my favorite gift from him. I was able to start Q's collection this year with a sweet Christopher Radko Baby's First Christmas ornament.

It was so neat to finally get to hang a third stocking this year!
Q and Daddy
Q's tree
Our tree

Gillham Christmas/ Christmas in Eldorado 2009

We drove to Dallas on Christmas Day to have Christmas with Sutton's mom and Rick. We did not get there until that afternoon because the roads were bad and travel was slow going. We had a great time and it was especially fun watching the girls open their gifts. Caroline is 2 and Davy is 1 so they are both at such a fun age for Christmas. It is neat to think about how much fun next year will be with Quincy in on all of the excitement...This year she just slept through opening presents. Aunt Chels got all of the girls a precious cousins necklace and Nancy got them all matching outfits. It is such a blessing to have cousins who are close in age and I know they are going to be great friends. Dinner was fabulous...Nancy made Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon and it was perfect! The next day we left around lunch to head to Eldorado for Christmas with Sutton's grandma. Quincy was a trooper until that night and she had had enough. I think we pushed her too much and we had a hard time getting her to calm down and go to sleep. We stayed the night with Sutton's aunt and uncle and Sutton stayed in Eldorado on Sunday to hunt with the guys while his aunts brought Quincy and me back to Angelo. We all had a fun girls lunch at Cheddar's (Quincy's first time to go to a restaurant.) Here are a few of my favorite pictures...
Dadden, Gigi, and the girls
Uncle Michael and Q
Michael, Caroline, Ricky, and Chels
Davy
Q with her great aunts and Great-Grandma Lux

A White Oman Christmas 2009

We went to my parents on the 23rd of December. This was our first time to travel with Q and she did pretty well. I got my hair cut in Abilene on the way and that also required a stop to change and feed her, otherwise she slept most of the way. We were glad we went a day early because when we got up at 5 am on Christmas Eve, we looked out the window and there was snow blowing everywhere! We fed Q and then joined my dad in the living room where he had coffee and a huge roaring fire going. The Tusas also came in the day before, so we all just spent the day watching the snow and waiting for everyone to arrive. The guys did venture out to check cattle and run to town and Sutton said the roads were awful! It snowed the rest of the day making travel difficult for the rest of my sisters and their families. Fortunately everyone made it in safely and we had a great Christmas. The best part was having everyone meet Quincy for the first time. There are now 11 grandchildren on my side ages 13 to newborn, so it was wild! You can also visit Ingrid's blog for other Christmas pictures.
It was snowing so much you could not even see the church which is only about a mile away and usually very visible from where I took this picture.

The Kelleys

The Dettens

The Groteguts

The Pages

The Tusas

The boy cousins

Mor Mor and her grand-daughters

The youngest cousins- Sam was born in April and Quincy was born in December.

The oldest and the youngest- It feels like just yesterday Emily June was this size!

Quincy and Pop

I took this one of the church as we were leaving Ericksdahl headed to Dallas. It was so pretty Christmas Day morning in the snow I had to take a picture. Sutton could not stop so I took this as we were driving by. We were sad that Christmas Eve Candlelight Service was canceled because of the bad weather, but as tired as we were at this point we might not have made it through it anyway.

This was what the roads looked like for most of the way from Mom and Dad's to Cisco.

Once we got to Cisco the roads were clear, and we were so thankful we were heading east to Dallas rather than west to Abilene...Look at the traffic on I-20!

Page Christmas 2009

We had the best Christmas of our lives and it all started the weekend before with the Page side of the family. We hosted Christmas at our house on Friday night for Sutton's dad and his brothers and sister. It was such a fun night just hanging out and enjoying time with each other. I don't think we could have done it 2 weeks after Q's birth without everyone's help. Sutton was awesome and did everything I asked of him. Ashley took care of Q one afternoon so I could grocery shop and run errands. Paul brought an amazing tenderloin and a side dish. Chels brought dessert and Becky and Russ helped with the dishes and serving. All we had to do was host. The best part was after dinner everyone hung outside by the fire and the guys enjoyed their new pipes. Quincy slept through most of the fun. On Saturday night we celebrated with Sutton's aunts and their families with a fun cocktail party at Patty and Randy's. This was the first time we had left Q with a babysitter and though we had fun, all we could think about was wanting to get home to her and then into bed...We were so exhausted at this point!

The guys got pipes in their stockings...

Papa, Daddy, and Q
Russ, Becky, and Davy
The house before everyone arrived...It took me over 2 weeks to finish the tree. We put it up the night before Q was born and I would add a little each day when I could. Sutton helped me finish it up the day everyone arrived.
The table- This is the result of watching lots of HDTV while nursing...I loved the way it turned out.
Most of the Page family minus a few of the little ones.

Thanksgiving 2009

Since we were already past my due date with Quincy and I could not travel, Sutton's family came to us and we enjoyed Thanksgiving lunch at Patty and Randy's house. Here are a few pictures...
This one makes me laugh...My sister Ingrid tried to talk me out of buying this dress when we were shopping for maternity clothes because she said it was entirely too large...Well, a week past my due date it was entirely too tight! And check out the cankles...My feet and ankles were so swollen!
The Pages (We missed Russ, Becky, & Davy this time because it was Becky's year to be with her family.)

The Davidsons- It was such a beautiful fall day that we stayed outside most of the time. Poor sweet Caroline tripped on the patio and bumped her cheek. She was a trooper though and did not let it get her down long.
LOVE this one of Papa and Caroline!
Isn't this a handsome group of guys? Sutton, Michael, Paul, Casey, and Randy

I am back!

Well, I finished my long list of thank you notes this morning, so I am now back to my blog...I just feel like I can't get caught up with things lately, but it sure was a relief to mark that off my to do list and drop that big stack in the mail today. Be patient because I am updating pictures all the way back to Thanksgiving! Also, a quick update on the job share situation...Still no news! We were told we should hear something by the end of February, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I appreciate your comments and support and hope to update you with good news soon!

MIA...

Sorry for my recent blog absence...I have been busy writing my proposal for job share. We submitted it on Monday night and now we are anxiously awaiting the verdict. I found out that I still had a job on November 30th (the day before Miss Q arrived). This gave us peace going into delivery because there were many people who found out they did not have a job that day...They laid off about 750 people. The bad news for me is that my territory changed dramatically. My goal for a long time has been to job share once we had a baby and fortunately, I have a co-worker that has been wanting the same thing. We are praying the proposal is approved, otherwise I am looking at a lot of time away from San Angelo and many nights on the road. That was fine before Q because Sutton is gone a lot with his work, too, but I have no desire to do that now that she is here. Funny how your priorities change so quickly once you have a baby! Please pray that all the decision makers involved will have an open mind and open heart to this shared working arrangement. We put everything we had into the proposal and we are both tenured reps with a successful working history, so we have done all that we can do. I am also very behind on thank you notes, so that is what I need to finish now. I will be away from the blog until I am done with those and then I will come back full force with lots of pictures and updates. I am realizing I have to set goals in order to get things done around here or I end up wasting entirely too much time on the computer. I was much more efficient when I was working. I appreciate your patience and thank you for reading our blog. See you back here soon!