Christmas w/ Grandma Dalbey

On Tuesday evening, the Dalbey Trio celebrated Christmas with Grandma Dalbey or Grossi (Great Grandma) to Preston. Thank you, Grandma, for your thoughtful gifts and coming to STL for a visit. Here is a picture from our time together.

Merry Christmas - Part 3

We spent Saturday (Christmas Day) with Grammie and Papa Dalbey. The day started off with some warm, yummy sticky buns.

After reading the Christmas story we headed off to open gifts.

One gift that Preston loved was a new cement truck. He wanted to take the truck outside to help move the snow off the deck - super cute.

Another gift Preston loved was a Aquadoodle. As you can see, this is a huge drawing board that needs only water and will dry in just a few minutes. The gift is reusable and does not make a mess. Thank you, Grammie and Papa.
Finally, Steven and Uncle Eric headed outside to make another snowman. This was was decorated a bit more...eclectic. Preston and I loved watching the boys make the snowman. We still, however, think they are very silly.

Merry Christmas - Part 2

This is the first time in 7 years that we have had a White Christmas. This is Preston's first White Christmas! I snapped a few photos of the beautiful snow and the snowman that Steven made yesterday afternoon. I just love snow - it makes everything look so beautiful. Here is my parents house with the lights!

Here is the snowman.

I hope you all are enjoying the snow this weekend. Please stay warm and be careful.

Merry Christmas Part 1

Part 1 of our Christmas Holiday was spent with Grandma and Grandad Denton. Here are some phtoos from our time together. Here is a view of the tree.

Mommy and Daddy gave Preston a Windmill to go with his 'Thomas the Train' collection.
Here is a view of Preston playing with his trains. I am not sure why he has that look on his face - but he just loves playing with the trains. Grandma & Grandad also gave Preston some new train engines. He now has Gordon and Henry in his collection. Thank you.

I just like this picture of Preston with the Christmas bow - super cute!

Thank you, Grandma & Grandad, for everything. We are thankful for the food, the thoughtful gifts and time together. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas from the Dalbey family! Before I post some photos and updates from our Christmas - here is our Dalbey family Christmas letter. Note - some of you may not have received this letter yet. For this, I am sorry. I hope you all can read the small print :)

Butter & Dogs do NOT mix

Here is a story about our dogs and what happened when they ate some butter.

Last week I invited 2 students in college over to hang out and make Christmas cookies. I pulled out 3 sticks of butter from the fridge so that they could soften to room temperature. Before the girls came over that evening I found a few scraps of the paper wrapping to the butter, but no butter. I quickly learned that my dogs (not sure if it was one of them or both) had consumed the butter. Our dogs have consumed all sorts of items throughout the years (socks, granola bars in the packaging, stuffed toys, etc...) and have survived. All seemed well that evening but sometime during the night our dogs became sick and 'un ate' the butter all over the carpet on our stairs and our rug. Not cool. The smell was horrible. We tried cleaning the stairs multiple times with carpet shampoo, regular soap and Dawn dish soap. Nothing worked. We also tried the same stuff on our rug. Steven even took our rug outside and hosed it down with soap - the smell and stain still exist.

We made the hard decision to get rid of our rug and rip out the carpet on the stairs. Here are the photos.

Now, new carpet and a new rug are not what I wanted for Christmas. I really wanted a crib for Peyton and perhaps some shelving/storage for our family room. With the need to get rid of the old carpet means the need to purchase new carpet. Sure, the wood stairs are beautiful but we know it would be more safe to have the stairs covered with carpet for the little feet running around the house. You may also notice that all of the wood trim in our house was painted white before we moved in. We are sad the original wood is no longer visible. I imagine it was beautiful. Anyway, some friends and family have given us some $$ for Christmas that we will use to replace the carpet. This is a blessing and we are thankful. I guess the storage will have to wait and I am sure we will find an affordable crib before our little girl is born. We have not picked out the new carpet yet. We are doing our homework and trying to find the best carpet at the best price. I hope to post pictures soon of our covered stairs!

A few little surprises

I was cleaning out my desk drawer the other day and found a Target gift card. I went online to see if it had a balance. It had a $15 balance which I used to purchase this basket we needed for shoes by our front door.

Later that evening I found an unused $30 gift card to Anthropologie (one of my favorite stores) and decided to go and pick up something cute for Peyton. I found these Alphabet cards and the Letter P for her room. This was a nice little surprise!

Today I was opening our mail and noticed a little gift card to Macaroni grill attached to a Christmas card. What a blessing.

I don't know about you, but it has been a hard year for the Dalbey family. We've had to learn more about buying what we need and not just what we want. We have also had to make some hard choices and changes to our budget. We long to be more generous, to update some major needs in our home and take Preston to some fun places. We keep reminding each other that the time will come when we can be more generous, when we will be able to make some needed improvements to our home and have the ability to do more with our children. In the meantime, we are thankful for these little gifts/surprises that seemed to appear out of no where this week.

Friends

This morning I had a chance to catch up with some dear friends. This is the group of girls I hung out with each week while at Mizzou to talk, laugh, pray, etc... (Leah, we missed you). While life had changed a lot for us the past 10 years we still find the time to be together whenever we can.

Here is the group with some of our little ones - so sweet!
Oh yes - thank you Miss Carolyn for hosting us this morning and making a super yummy brunch!

Santa

We took Preston to see Santa the other night. This was his first visit and we were not sure how it would go. While we waited in line we talked with Preston about how he was going to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas. We also told him that Santa was very nice and that we wanted to take their picture. We were a bit nervous after the little boy in front of us cried and cried but Preston did great. He told Santa he wanted some trains, books and toys for Christmas and gave us a big smile for the camera. Steven and I were very pleased. Here is the photo were were able to take - not bad.

Family Photo

Here is a preview of our 2010 family photos. Yes, we went to a studio at the mall. I had a coupon for 6 portrait sheets for $18. That is cheaper than Walgreen's or Walmart. I also received 15 free photo cards since I am a portrait club member. Yes, I am a photographer starting my own business. Do not fear, I still take photos of Preston on my own ALL the time. I I wish I could clone myself so that I could take our family photos. Oh well, its nice to get a break every once in a while :) Enjoy the photos.

Christmas Cookies

Last night I made Christmas cookies with some dear friends, Lucy & Grace. Here are a couple of our cookie masterpieces. Lucy can take credit for the tree! I brought the heart cookie to work today 'for a snack' and Preston took a dozen of them to Peeps to share with his friends :) I just love making cookies around Christmas.

Snow

Today was a snow day here in STL. The Dalbey Trio bundled up and headed outside for some fun. As you can see from the photos we went sledding, attempted to make a snow angel and even stopped to smile for the camera. We are now bundled up inside our warm house and enjoying some hot chocolate - yummy!

Christmas Lights

The Dalbey Trio headed to Tilles Park tonight for their Christmas light display. (Thank you, Leah, for sending me the STL deal email. $5 is better than $9). Preston LOVED the light display. He kept pointing out all the different color lights, the tunnel of lights and the many different Christmas characters. Here is us going through the tunnel.

Here was our favorite light display - the Christmas Train!

Santa greeted us warmly! Yes, we talk about Santa in the Dalbey family. Yes, we also talk about Jesus and no, we are not afraid of our children confusing Santa with the true meaning of Christmas. However, Steven is still set on making sure that Preston is 'that kid' that ruins the mystery of Santa Claus for the other kids in Kindergarten :)
Ah, I really like this sign. I can't wait for 2011. I am tired of 2010. Its been a hard year.

SLYnet

SLYnet (St. Louis Youth Network) is a bi monthly gathering of Youth leaders from the St. Louis area. This group is a tremendous source of support, encouragement and affirmation. Here are a few photos from our meeting/Christmas party this morning.

Here is the gift table for our white elephant gift exchange!

Here was my first gift: A piece of fake poop - interesting.

My first gift was taken away and I ended up with this piece of pie - yummy!

Peyton Update

We went to the Dr. on Tuesday for an appointment and ultrasound. Peyton's heart, brain, kidney's etc... all look good. We are very thankful. Here is an updated profile picture of our little girl. Enjoy.