Here's some pictures...

...of Christmas and Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Scott's visit. Enjoy!

I got a new camera for Christmas! Yeah! This was the first picture it took.

Opening presents Christmas morning.

I think this is the only picture I got of the three of us together on Chrstmas day - bummer! But we did have fun with Katie's new bubbles!

I just think this is really cute.

Katie in her pretty Christmas dress.

Getting ready to walk and looking very grown up in her new clothes from Aunt Teri.

Practicing...

Hanging out with Uncle Scott in daddy's new backpack.

We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncel Scott!

Happy New Year everybody!

Happy Birthday!

It's hard to believe but it's true! Katie is now 1 year old! Wow, it has gone by so quickly.

We are so very blessed. Katie has been healthy, happy, and a lot of fun. We had a great day today that started off with opening presents, then a trip to the zoo, and then cake at home! Yum! Here are some pictures of our fun day celebrating our little Katie-bug.

Uncle Tim Has Skills

This never got posted from our trip to CA. We left Uncle Tim with Katie while we went to a meeting. she was wasted from traveling - we'd gotten in late the night before. it was so cute to walk in and see this. He's got skills.

Way to go, Uncle Tim!

3rd Pony Tail

...numbers 1 and 2 got pulled out before I could get a picture...do you think she liked it?

Mama

Not the most exciting video ever but she finally is saying "mama"!!
This was about a week and a half ago.

Chrstmas Tree

Yeah! Saturday we finally set up our tree!
It makes me happy...

Storming the Castle

Yesterday was a holiday so we decided to head out of town and visit some place new. We went to a super cute city in central Portugal. It has a huge castle/fortress/church at the top of the hill. Here's some pictures from our adventure.

Jonathan was very sweet and offered to carry Katie in my sling for a while. We turned it inside out so the pink and brown flowers didn't show as well. What a guy...

Mommy's Little Helper

...doing the laundry... ...or rather pulling the wet clothes off the rack... not really so helpful, little one, but kind of cute none the less.

It's been pretty rainy and cold so the clothes are drying inside. Katie seems to think that crawling under the rack and pulling all the clothes down is a great game - because Mommy puts them back up and she has more to pull down!

Cooking Lessons

I had my first Portuguese cooking lesson yesterday! Our teammate Terri offered to teach me some recipes since I've been wanting to learn - and she's a great cook!

So, what did we make? Balcalhão of course! It's dried, salted codfish and one of the most typical Portuguese foods. They say they have 365 ways to cook it so you can eat it everyday of the year and never have it the same way. Wow! We made balcalhão a bras which is cooked with fried potatoes and scrambled eggs. It was really pretty good, and I'm not much of a fish person!

This was a big step for me! I mean really, who would have thought that I'd be shredding raw fish with my bare hands??? Not me!

It really was fun and tasted pretty good too! Thanks, Terri! When's the next lesson???

Came visit, I'll make it for you! :-)

It is usually served with creamed spinach so that's what you see here. mmm...