Cookies for Santa

Santa comes tonight!Yes, it's New Year's Eve, but Santa is coming to the Milam home tonight. Since we spent the Christmas holiday in California with Andrew's family, we will be celebrating Christmas on January 1st here in Texas. In the morning we'll have our own family traditions with just the 3 of us - special Christmas breakfast, exchanging gifts, saying prayers for the new year and singing Christmas songs. After nap we'll celebrate Christmas with the Kubiceks, Carissa's family. Gigi and Mommy will make a big Christmas dinner. We are so fortunate to have Gigi, Papa, Sean, Seth and lots of cousins right here in Austin. Tonight we were busy making cookies for Santa and looking forward to the day ahead!

Mixing the sugar cookie dough.
Having fun with sprinkles - pink, of course;).

Cutting out the cookies.

Leaving cookies for Santa - now we're off to bed with duck and hop-hop for sweet dreams. Merry Christmas!

More Holiday Photos

A beautiful sunset in Del Mar.
Checking out sea lions in La Jolla.

Relaxing in La Jolla with Daddy.

Playing with puzzles - my favorite activity.

Swinging with Dad in Del Mar.
Playing at the beach.

Christmas afternoon at Disneyland - cold and rainy! Charlotte loved seeing "Mickey's House." Her favorite ride was Winnie the Pooh; least favorite was Pirates of the Caribbean.

Christmas Eve dinner at In-and-Out - yummy!!

Wild Animal Park in San Diego. Mommy's favorite - giraffes.

Hanging out with cousins.
Great Grandma Sally and Great Grandpa Roy.

Checking out fish and sharks (C's favorite!) at the Long Beach Aquarium with Mommy, Daddy and Jodi.

Mommy & Daddy's friends from University of Michigan.

Hanging out at our friend's house with Rosie, the sweetest doggie on earth!

California Holiday

We're back from visiting Andrew's family in California. We were very blessed to have the time to travel to southern California to visit with special relatives over Christmas. Charlotte got to meet her great Grandma Sally and great Grandpa Roy for the first time! We also played with cousins Peter and Katie, Aunt Dawn and Uncle Mike and cousin Denise and her finance Greg. In Los Angeles, we visited Jodi and David, Mommy and Daddy's friends from college. Charlotte especially loved playing with their dog, Rosie and talks about her every day. We had a really good time and we were happy to make the trip!

Gigi and Cici

Gigi is back from her Germany trip! She brought Cici doodle lots of fun treats from the famous Christmas markets. Charlotte's favorite is the Christmas tree with choo-choo. Hopefully we'll get to join Gigi in Germany one year to enjoy all of the festivities! This year we'll start the German tradition of putting our shoes outside our door for Saint Nicholas to fill them up with goodies.

ADC's Yuletide Magic

ADC dancers performed for a huge crowd at the Loyalton Assisted Living Center. We had over 50 ADC dancers share their love and passion for dance with the residents of Loyalton. Holiday spirit filled the air! Next performance for Yuletide Magic - Austin's Trail of Lights, Tuesday 12/16, 7:00 pm, Main Stage.

Run Rudolf Run!

Jingle Bell Rock

Our First Gingerbread House

This year we started a new Christmas tradition at church. We joined many other families for a festive morning of decorating gingerbread houses. Charlotte wasn't too in to the icing or candy, but loved putting the house together and smoothing out the icing with her plastic knife.

Checking out the candy toppings
Helping Dad construct the walls of the house

Gym Class

Mommy and Daddy take Charlotte to gym class on Saturday mornings. Charlotte loves running from station to station. Every week the gym is set up a little differently. C's favorites are climbing on the ladder, jumping on the trampoline and riding the choo-choo, of course. ;)

hey cupcake!

To celebrate our last music class, playgroup went to hey cupcake! The girls were more interested in cupcake icing, puddles of water and rocks than to be bothered by looking at the camera for a photo. It was a fun, warm December day.

Austin Dance Company Holiday Party

This weekend Mommy took the wonderful ladies of ADC out for our annual holiday party. This year we went to milk + honey spa for massage treatments and then to paciugo for gelato and cappuccino. It was pure bliss! It was especially fun to hang out together because our beloved office manager, Ms. Jen (left) will be leaving next month for Los Angeles. Thank you teachers for making ADC such a special place to dance!

Photos with Santa at the French Legation Museum

Last week's playgroup was at Ms. Aimee's French Legation Museum. The kids weren't too interested in Santa but loved running around on the huge lawn.

Countdown to Christmas

Charlotte and her Christmas trees. She loved decorating with Mommy and Daddy. We have trees in almost every room. These pictures show our family room tree, the hall tree and Charlotte's little bird tree in her room.

5 Obsessions

Charlotte's Current Obsessions (22 months)

1. Choo-choo trains. Charlotte loves all things related to trains. She loves riding trains, playing with trains, hanging trains on the Christmas tree. Over the Thanksgiving break, we went to Gigi's (formerly G-mama, re-named recently by C) beach house. At the nearby Barnes and Noble in Corpus Christi, there is a huge Thomas the Train set-up in the children's section. Charlotte could play there for hours. She now calls Barnes the 'Choo Choo' store.

2. Doing everything by herself. If someone even tries to help, she exclaims, "Shadow (aka Charlotte)!" and points to herself. Miss Independent loves to clean, organize and put things in their appropriate place. Our favorite one right now is when she insists that every cup (including her sippy/straw cups) must be placed on a coaster. We don't know where she got this? We never said, "Charlotte, let's put your drink on a coaster." We actually don't use them with regularity. Somehow she picked up on it and insists that all drinks must be placed on a coaster.

3. The baby inside her tummy. Since we talk about Mommy's baby in her tummy, Charlotte thinks that everybody has a baby in their tummy, including Daddy, Papa and the guy at the HEB checkout counter.

4. Jungle Book - the movie. Sadly, it is the one and only children's DVD that we own. We were planning on waiting until she was 2 to have any tv watching. At this point, Mommy and Daddy are looking for any other option, seeing as though we have the entire "Juh-book" memorized at this point. Its great to see her act out all of the characters - the marching elephants, the snake and the monkeys are especially fun. Owls are her favorite animal and she is convinced that there are owls in the Jungle Book, although we haven't seen them yet. She says that they're going night-night.

5. Going to the dance studio with Mommy, playing dress-up in the pretty tutus and wands and twirling around the big space. Charlotte always wants to join the big girls in their classes....I think she might be ready for ADC's Twinkle Toes class!

Mommy's Current Obsessions

1. Pilates. Although, the idea of 'core strength' at this point is a little silly.

2. Walking at Town Lake. I love this time of year with the crunchy leaves on the ground and trees aglow on either side of the lake.

3. Decorating for Christmas with Charlotte. She gets so excited by the lights, ornaments, etc. It makes it so fun and special to see everything through the eyes of a child.

4. Spending time with family. It could totally be the pregnancy hormones, but there is something so amazing and magical about our simple moments at the house. Dancing around to Christmas music or Norah Jones (my favorite), hanging out in our pjs and making pancakes. I just feel so blessed.

5. Nate Berkus on Oprah & Friends. Never thought I'd admit to enjoying Oprah, but it is really great to listen to all of her peeps on xm radio. Rabbi Schmuley, Dr. Robin, Gayle...I love them all. I listen to them on my commute from southwest Austin to the studio on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Holiday Photo Session

Oh what fun it is to take photos with a toddler! Check out some of the highlights from our recent photo session with Dorean Pope Photography. Ms. Dorean was amazing! She even brought 'treats' for Charlotte. If you smile, you get a fruit snack. Sounds like a deal to me.

Family Update

What's New in the Wild World of the Milams.....

Andrew (aka 'Daddy') is working hard as a project manager for Rogers-O'Brien. He recently finished building the Reliant Rehab Hospital in Round Rock, Texas. Now he is on to building the new film studios for the Austin Film Society. It is a fun project and he enjoys working around artistic people. It is a low-key job which allows him to spend more time at home - instead of those crazy hours at the hospital. We love it! Andrew continues to play basketball in the church league and loves playing poker with his buddies.

Carissa (aka 'Mommy') is having a blast at the dance studio. The dancers are working hard on their upcoming performance, Yuletide Magic. They will showcase their holiday dances at local assisted living homes as well as Trail of Lights on Tuesday, December 16th. Mommy is teaching jazz, ballet and the ADC competitive dance teams. She loves dancing and working with her students.

Charlotte Kate is ready for the holidays. She enjoyes all of the lights and sparkle of the season. Santa warrants a "Ho, Ho, Ho" followed by "Choo-Choo and Ball" - the two things she wants Santa to bring her this year. She is enjoying her church preschool on MWF with her friends and Ms. Corrie and Ms. Christi. She loves the fish in her toddler room, painting on the easel, going to Stretch-n-Grow, singing songs in Chapel and playing in the home center. Her favorite activity right now is riding the children's train at Zilker Park. She asks to go every day and we usually end up there at least twice a week. She loves music class and playing with her music group buddies. Her favorite spot at home is in the kitchen - helping Mommy and Daddy cook. She loves to measure and pour and thinks that cracking eggs is hilarious. We are looking forward to holiday baking. Her favorite pal at home is Chunnie kitty; although, recently Chunnie has not enjoyed giving Charlotte bear rides around the house. Chunnie will usually give Charlotte a little swat to which Charlotte exclaims, "No! choo-kitty."

Our family is very excited to welcome baby number two in the Spring. Our official due date is May 2nd and we look forward to Charlotte becoming a big sister.....and all of the sleepless nights, of course!

Introducing the Milam Family blog

It's true! We never thought we'd say this, but....We've decided to join the world of blogging. After reading a lot of friends' blogs we have been inspired to chronicle our life here in Austin. We are especially excited to share our photos and stories with family and friends that live far away. We miss you dearly and hope that we can share a piece of our life here in Texas with you through this blog. Mostly, we are thrilled to share some updates about our precious Charlotte Kate. Thanks so much for reading - we love you!!