Christmas Morning (well, the 26th) at Mima's

On the morning of the 26th, we all gathered at Mima's house for the Chris Maguire family Christmas celebration. We listened to the Hallelujah chorus while enjoying a yummy egg casserole and other fixin's for breakfast. And then the kids finally got to open all of the presents waiting for them under Mima's tree!

Cousin Sadie with a good morning smile for Joey.

Joey found another new thing to chew on.

Joey playing with one (of many) new toys.

Charlotte telling her sister Sadie to giddy-up!

Joey examining his new choo-choo toy from Mima.

Joey and daddy smile about all the good loot they just raked in!

Joey just doesn't want to let go of his cousin Charlotte!

Group photo of all the grandkids.

Joey and cousin Sadie sharing a tender moment.

Da introduces Joey to Fredbird (the mascot for the St. Louis Cardinals)

Joey listening intently to what Mima has to say.

Hotel Contessa

On this trip to San Antonio, we stayed at the Hotel Contessa on the Riverwalk. It was a beautiful hotel with a great view of the Riverwalk. And the best part is that our room was a suite so Joey was able to go to sleep around his usual bedtime and we were able to stay up and watch a movie (Ocean's 13 - not too bad).

Joey playing with his new TMX Elmo in the living room area of our room.

Joey looking out at the lights on the Riverwalk from the bedroom window.

1st Christmas at Oma's

Every year on Christmas day, the entire Tschoepe family (Brian's mom's side of the family) gathers at Oma's house. It's a guaranteed great time and we always leave with our mouths hurting from laughing and talking so much. We do a gift exchange for every age group and then there's always a delicious dinner of various soups, tamales, shrimp cocktail, deviled eggs and lots of other yummy stuff. This year marked the return of the Christmas pageant starring Oma's youngest grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.

Joey and Aunt Katie

Oma with Joey and mommy

Da entertaining Joey with a remote control truck.

Da playing with Joey and cousin Maggie.

Cousins Beth, Maggie and Sadie patiently awaiting the start of the pageant.

Joey makes his debut as Baby Jesus in the pageant.

Joey and cousin Sadie soaking up the applause after the pageant.

Joey in his PJs and ready for bed. Here we are with Mima and Oma before we make our exit.

Last picture of the evening - here we are with all of the Chris Maguire siblings: (from l-r) Brian, Uncle John, Aunt Katie, mommy, Joey and Uncle Kevin

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, here is the curtain call after the pageant performance:

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we hosted the Chao family at our house for some traditional Chinese hot pot. And Joey got to start opening some of his Christmas gifts. It was a great start to Christmas and now we're on to San Antonio for some more festivities. More pictures are sure to follow...

Cousin Michael was back in Austin for the holidays and came by to visit us the day before Christmas Eve.

Mommy and Joey relaxing on the couch before the dinner preparations begin.

Joey just chillaxin with his Stretch 'n Fun Elmo on one side and his TMX Elmo on the other. It kind of looks like he's ready for a martini in his left hand.

Joey, meet your new ginormous Pluto - a Christmas gift from your Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Susan.

Joey doesn't quite know what to make of this big yellow thing.

Joey and Grandpa Charlie ringing the bells on the Christmas tree.

Grandpa Charlie, Joey and Grandma Susan

Joey with cousin Sandy from California.

Bathtub cutie

It's been awhile since we've posted any bathtime photos of Joey. He's always liked taking baths, and now our little Splashy McSplashy has started to really enjoy his bathtub toys. Anyways, we always find ourselves laughing every night while giving Joey his bath so we thought you might enjoy these too.

Rubber ducky, you're the one...

Just got splashed by daddy!

Hmmm....interesting. Wonder what this thing does?

And just for the heck of it, here's a little bathtime video. Nothing too exciting, but very cute nonetheless!

Joey's role model???

I think in this case, the pictures speak for themselves. These pictures may end up being our Christmas card next year...

Mommy's Christmas gift

My favorite gift ever all wrapped up with a bow on top!

Busy holiday weekend

Last weekend was an action-packed, fun-filled couple of days for our family. On Friday evening, Brian and I attended a holiday party at his boss' beautiful home. Then on Saturday, Joey attended a 1st birthday party for his friend Arav who lives two doors down from us (Joey even let his folks tag along). Later that day, the whole family (including Grandma) trekked over to Lakeline Mall in an attempt to get a Santa picture. Unfortunately, right as we arrived, Santa was going on an hour break. So needless to say, we did not get the picture taken that day and Joey will not be getting his picture taken with Santa this year.

We had a pretty packed schedule on Sunday too:

First, we all had to get clean and pretty so Joey sat patiently in the bathroom with us.

First stop - a visit to the Neibert house to visit their new baby girl Riley. She was such a sweetie and Joey kept trying to give her love pats. While we were there, Riley's grandma was playing with Joey and said, "Go Blue" to him (she's from Michigan). My boy did me proud and immediately started crying, obviously because everything but UT is pure evil and he knows it!

Joey caught a little cat nap on the way home...

And then we were off to the Boyds' ornament exchange party. Here are Joey and Stormi Boyd in front of one of their eight (yes, you read that correctly) Christmas trees.

Joey and Anna (we used to work together at KW). This is the first time that Joey has not yelled and screamed at Anna, but we determined that it was because we were finally in an environment away from the office.

Joey with the Lauves (newlyweds Daniel and Brandi). They look like they know what they're doing, huh?

And here's a group shot of everyone with their ornaments. What a fun night!

Family Pics

We found a few more family pictures that were still hiding on our camera. These are pictures of Joey saying goodbye to everyone before they hit the road.

Joey and cousin Steve

Joey and Uncle Jeff

Aunt Minna, Joey and Grandma

Joey and the Chaos

Last weekend, the out-of-town Chaos (by the way, it's no coincidence that our family name also means craziness) came to Austin for their annual pre-Christmas visit. The craziness lasted from Thursday to Sunday. All in all, it was a fun time for everyone, especially Joey who completely took advantage of all the attention he received.

THURSDAY: We ordered Rudy's to go and had a nice evening at home with good food and the first of many nights of mah-jong.

Here's Joey showing off his jumping skills for Aunt Minna.

It's too bad for Joey that most of the fun usually started after his bedtime. Here he is saying goodnight to everyone while we chomp down on some delicious bbq.

And here we are playing mah-jong. If I remember correctly, I raked in $40 on this particular night.

FRIDAY: Before the weekend, my cousin Steve and I decided that it would be fun to make homemade chinese dumplings and potstickers during his visit. We made everything from scratch so it was a complete family effort. And yes, there was mah-jong action this evening too but somehow we don't have any documentation to show for it.

Here is Grandma wielding her big rolling pin to make the dumpling wrappers.

Here I am kneading dough with my cousin Steve and Aunt Minna is in the foreground putting the dumplings together (which is a delicate skill that I've never quite mastered).

Here is Uncle Jeff taking a break from the dumpling-making to hang out with Joey for awhile.

Mommy hanging with Joey at his personal little kid table while the grown-ups enjoy the delicious meal.

Cousin Steve brings his dumplings over to eat and keep Joey company.

SATURDAY: We spent Saturday just visiting with each other and catching up with everyone's lives. Since we had some leftover dough from our dumpling night, we decided to make some traditional Chinese green onion pie for dinner. My dad also contributed some Korean bar-b-que and some other delicious fare. And of course, mah-jong!

Joey spent Saturday morning hamming it up for everyone while he ate breakfast.

Here is Aunt Minna feeding Joey a bottle. He got so much attention over the weekend that I'm sure on Monday morning he was missing his audience.

We took this picture to show how big Joey is compared to Aunt Minna. Look at their heads - practically the same size!

Here is Joey learning how to make Chinese green onion pie.

Here is Joey observing a mah-jong game. This is a skill he's going to need to pick up pretty quickly if he wants to hang out with this side of the family.

Joey sitting down at the mah-jong table for the first time.

We didn't plan it this way, but Saturday evening turned out to be such a nice night outside that we moved our meal to the backyard. We're already looking forward to next year's visit from the family!