Christmas 2008

We celebrated Christmas a few days later this year at Nana and Papa's house. We let the girls open their gifts from their Nana and Pop Pop from New Jersey on Christmas day, but made them wait for the rest of the gifts until Jennifer's side of the family got together.

Clara and Reese love going to their Nana and Papa's house. Getting presents on top of that makes it even more fun!
Here Clara and Nana work on stitching up little lamb.

Clara, Reese, and Daddy looking at the video of the girls opening their gifts.


Nana smocked and sewed the girls two very beautiful Christmas dresses. They thought they were princesses wearing them.

Sisterly Love

Just thought I'd show this little clip of how the girls get along sometimes. We had just gone to a puppet show put on by one of the churches in our area. It was a great show about the Christmas message. The puppets all sang original songs put to classic oldies songs. The girls really enjoyed it. This clip was after we had finished lunch after the show.

Allergy Testing and Fish Tasting

As most of you know, Clara has some pretty bad food allergies though we have no idea where she got it. I took her to an allergist at Texas Children's Hospital recently to get her retested. She has been tested once and came up positive for Nuts, Peanuts, Shellfish, Milk, Egg, Corn, and Wheat. We made this appointment about 8 months ago...that's how long it takes to get in to see this particular doctor.

So we go and have her tested for the more serious ones like nuts, fish, and shellfish. The doctor said the others are not that serious if she doesn't have reactions to them and it would actually make it worse to completely stop giving her things like wheat or corn. This doctor and her office were great. They brought in a child specialist who explained what was going to happen and gave Clara some toys to play with to distract her a bit. Clara did wonderfully.

The results confirmed what we already knew about nuts....she is extremely allergic to all tree nuts. So much so, that if someone else eats a nut and then kisses her, she could have a bad reaction. She tested positive for peanuts too and shellfish. Milk came out negative on this round, but since we have discovered that cow's milk gives Clara nightmares, the doctor told us to continue to avoid milk.

The one food that Clara was most interested in finding out if she was allergic to was fish. Just plain old fish. She came out negative and Clara was thrilled. She has been wanting to eat fish ever since she went to the Children's Museum and played with them and since she and her Papa caught a big fish together.

So after the 4 hour appointment, off we went to the grocery store to get some fish. I brought it home and Clara immediately wanted to eat it. I (Jennifer) am a fish loather. I can not stand the smell, taste, or texture of fish, but like a good mom, I brought myself to fix it for her. I give it to her and she looks at it with skepticism. She then asks me to take a bite to see if it's good. Ugh! So there I am pregnant and detesting fish, but for the sake of Clara, I take a nice bite and put a big smile on my face and declare it yummy. Clara eats half of the fillet I had bought and loves it! She can't wait until we have fish again. I think Daddy or Papa is going to have to do the next round of fish cooking for her.

Clara's Big Catch

One afternoon we went to visit Papa at his house and Clara wanted to go down to the dock and fish. We all went down and relaxed by the water. Clara played with the bait worms and Reese tried to throw leaves into the water while Papa fished. Reese does not like to get her hands icky by touching things like worms. At one point Clara put all the worms in Reese's shoe which did not go over very well with Reese. Reese soon tired of waiting and I took her back to the house.

Papa and Clara fished for a while and according to Papa Clara held onto the fishing pole when the fish took the bait and reeled in the fish. She was so proud of herself! Papa took this picture with his camera phone before they let this fish back into the water.

Family Day at the Children's Museum

We decided to take the girls to the Children's Museum one day. They had so much fun running around and looking at all the stuff and playing with everything. Reese was just mesmerized by everything. Clara enjoyed participating in some of the activities. One thing they both liked was the market area. They pretended to be fish, meat, and cheese merchants for a long time. Clara became obsessed with eating fish then.

Crazy Houston Weather

Houston is notorious for crazy weather in the winter. One day it will be hot, the next day it will be cold. We just experienced a very extreme form of this a few days ago.

On Tuesday December 9th, it was in the mid 70's and muggy outside. It rained off and on all day and then had about a 20 minute downpour which flooded our backyard. Clara and Reese had a field day playing in the water.


The very next day, December 10th, we experienced a cold front that actually brought about a 1/2 inch of snow!!! It has been about 4 years since it has snowed here in Houston. Here are the girls playing out in the snow. Reese liked it, but wasn't thrilled about the cold. Clara enjoyed running around in the crunchy snow.
Clara has seen snow a few times, but this was Reese's 2nd time and the first time she actually played in it. The first time, she was only 8 months old.

It was so beautiful while it lasted. December 11th it was 55 and all the snow melted away.

Christmas Pictures of the girls

We visited my parents on Thanksgiving day and took the opportunity to take pictures for our Christmas card at their property. They came out great!

Clara's Pre-school Thanksgiving Lunch

Rob and I had lunch at Clara's school the week before Thanksgiving. They hosted about 600 parents and students.

Clara sang songs at the Thanksgiving concert right before lunch. It's hard to see her because a very tall boy was right in front of her.

Paolillo Update

We've had an interesting 2 months. In October Rob was laid off from Merrill Lynch. We were supposed to have taken a vacation to Maryland and New Jersey to see family, friends, and a high school friend get married. We decided to cancel the trip in order to save money and let Rob interview for new jobs.

We were blessed in that Rob received 2 job offers after only 3 weeks. He took a position at Deutsche Bank. Rob will be starting his new job December 15. It took a little longer than we would have liked for him to start, but we are grateful that he has a job.

The girls have been enjoying having Daddy home all day and Rob has enjoyed seeing them more. But we are all ready to get back to a normal life and Rob is looking forward to working again.

Hurricane Ike

Sorry, this post should be below the Disneyland one as it happened a few weeks before....I am just learning the blogging world ropes.

Well, we survived the hurricane without a scratch. None of our trees fell and we had no damage to our house. We only had a bunch of debris from other trees to clean up which we easily handled. We lost power for 5 days, which comparatively to some people, was nothing at all. So I very thankful to God that He spared our home and didn't make us suffer without electricity for too long.

The hurricane actually was kind of fun. With no one going to work, no businesses open, no electricity and no where to go, there was a lot of free time to be with friends. Almost every night we went over to a wonderfully gracious couples' house (who got power the day after Ike) for dinner and had wonderful fellowship with friends and new acquaintances. We also had a good friend of mine and her kids over almost every day just to hang out or have breakfast together. It was a neat time to just enjoy each others' company.

Here Clara and Reese are helping Daddy clean up the backyard.

Disneyland

My mom was so kind to take me and my two girls to Disneyland for a few days. Clara loved all the princesses and thought it was the best thing to meet and take pictures with a few of them. Reese discovered Mickey/Minnie Mouse and fell in love instantly. She thinks they are the same mouse just dressed up differently, so she calls Minnie Mickey, which I think is cute. She now has a Minnie princess doll that she carries everywhere and sleeps with.

We had a great time going on rides and being with my aunt and two of her grandsons. It was a great few days of visiting and catching up.

We even won VIP passes to a special seating area to view the Friday night fireworks. It was fun to go and have reserved seats with a great view of the fireworks. They even gave out free drinks. But unfortunately the fireworks were canceled that night. Both girls had fallen asleep in their strollers by that time and my mom and I had to make the 30 minute walk back to our hotel. But at least we were somewhat rested from those great seats!

Clara is actually steering the car. My mom is merely pushing on the gas. I am in front of them driving with one hand and trying to take pictures with the other. Poor Reese is just sitting in the car getting tossed around. Luckily the cars are on rails so I can't veer too far off track.