I Got Crabs For Christmas!

So most of you know I was born and raised in Maryland. I grew up spoiled in a house smack dab on the Bodkin Creek. My bedroom window overlooked the pier, the sailboats, and the lone Great Blue Heron that fished from our dock every morning. This is a picture I took sitting on my bed last summer:
During the summer, if we weren't at the barn, we were on the water. Swimming, boating, and crabbing were just second nature to us. Maryland is famous for their blue crabs. Crab claws, crab cakes, crab dip, cream of crab soup... you name it and you can make it with crab! Sprinkle some Old Bay on it, grab yourself a beer and a mallet and you can make a day out of picking crabs. Finish it off with some Berger cookies and you've got yourself a perfect afternoon.
I've lived in Arizona for almost 7 years now, but no matter where I am, I can close my eyes and take myself back to that place. I can see the fireflies blinking as the sun starts to set. I can feel the humidity and the mosquito bites on my skin. I hear crickets in the thick grass and jet boats buzzing by on the creek. And my mouth waters just thinking about crabcakes and black bottoms.
This year for Christmas, my mom and dad sent us a package that "needed special attention." I told mom if they sent us a hamster I swear..... To my surprise.. it was crabcakes! MARYLAND Crab cakes!
So last night (and tonight) for dinner that's just what we had! Oh man oh man was it delicious! I guess if I can't be home for Christmas, I'll take the next best thing... crabcakes!!!!
So there you have it... best Christmas present ever. I got crabs for Christmas.

Family Pictures!

So this year we finally broke down and got our first family pictures taken! Now every year we have done a Christmas card, but always just had a friend or Tim's mom take it of us in front of the tree. This year I wanted to do something different, especially if it's going to be our last year in Arizona. A friend of mine is a photographer and offered to take our pictures out at the dunes! We were a little nervous at first at the thought of posing 2 small children and all the sand everywhere (we did bribe Leah with lollipops to give us big smiles..hey whatever works, right??)... but I'm so glad we did it! They came out amazing! Thanks to our awesome photographer, Andrea Hauck, who captured such great moments for us! Here is a sampler of some of our pictures... You can see the rest on my dropshots website: www.dropshots.com/vanderhoff









And those are just a FEW of all the awesome pics she took of us!

On another note, this morning I laid Chase down on his blanket and went to go take out the trash. When I came back inside, he was sitting up all by himself! And he's going to crawl ANY day now. He's also blowing rasperries and starting to babble. He CRACKS up every time Leah says or does something! And he LOVES cheerios!


Leah is SO excited for Christmas. She loves going to look at the lights. Whenever we pass a house with Christmas lights she yells out "Thanks for the lights!!" She's too cute. We also told her that Grandpat is coming for Christmas and so she asks everyday if we can go to the airport to see Grandpat... she's so excited!




Leah's Lingo

Me: What does the cow say, Leah?
Leah: He says 'Moooo'
Me: And what about a horse?
Leah: The horse says 'mmmhmmmhmmm'
Me: That's right! And what about a kitty cat?
Leah: Meoowww meoww
Me: What about Chase? What does Chase say?
Leah: (thinks about it for a second) He says 'WAHHH WAHHH'
haha i guess we're not the only ones who thinks he cries a lot!!

The other night after I gave Chase a bath I was putting his lotion and jammies on. Leah likes to help put his lotion on. She was staring intently at his..parts. I asked her out of curiousity to what she would say, "what's that Leah?"
Leah: "That's his booty...that's DISGUSTING!"
Bahahaha Tim liked that one.

Orange You Glad You Ate That?

So Sunday night I was on my way home from dog-sitting (yes, I'm a jack of all trades..) and I didn't feel like making dinner so I did what any normal mom would do... take out! I ran through the Panda Express drive thru for my favorite - orange chicken! I came home and Leah and I shared my rice bowl.... or shall I say DEATH BOWL! A little less than an hour later it hit me like a ton of bricks... I will spare you the nasty details but let's just say at one point I was on the toilet and throwing up in the bath tub at the same time. What else was I gonna do? Leah seemed fine at this point so I thought I was coming down with the stomach flu that was going around. I put in a call to Tim, who was at work that night, to warn him that he might have to come home early to take care of the kids because I thought I had the flu. After losing it a few more times, I called him back and told him you better hurry! He rushed home to save the day, just in the knick of time! He gave the kids a bath and put them to bed while I was praying to the porcelin gods...
Not 5 minutes after Leah went to bed, she started crying and then throwing up. I knew we were in for a rough night and I was SO glad Tim had come home. Leah and I laid on my bed, both of us shaking and taking turns throwing up. After about the 4th time Leah threw up and my 10th, we decided we should go to Prime Care.
Grandpa came over to sit at the house while Chase slept and Tim swept Leah and I away, buckets in hand, to Prime Care. There they determined we had gotten food poisoning and gave us both some Zofran to help with the nausea and told us that it would pretty much have to run it's course.
We got what sleep we could that night when we got home around 2am, after washing sheets and blankies and bleaching the bathtub and carpets. The next day we both were pretty much zombies. We didn't start to feel better until later Monday night and then on Tuesday we were both completely back to normal. Phew. I have never felt that sick before. Needless to say I will never be eating there again!!
I'm just so glad Tim was home to pick up the pieces and take care of Chase AND sick Leah because there's NO way I was going to be able to do that on my own!! Because there's no PAUSE button on motherhood!