Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas to all!!!

We had such a wonderful day yesterday. Of course I took way too many pictures (especially given I got a new camera from someone special). The kids we totally into it and had a real blast all day, even though they are both feeling under the weather.

We had a nice Christmas Eve together at the house. Since we had gone to church earlier in the morning, we didn't go back for the evening service. We cooked a pork tenderloin and got some other yummies together. Then the kids each got to eat a cookie they had made Saturday with Tom. Since Jeffrey decided to wipe his hands through his hair a short bath was required after that. When both were dry and in PJs we gathered up some Christmas stories and went downstairs to read together. Erin chose Clown of God (which is this beautiful Italian Christmas story)first. Then Jeffrey had me read a mitten book. Lastly we decided to read The Night Before Christmas together. By the 3rd page of the book Erin was fast asleep in Tom's arms. I carried her up to bed before she even got a chance to leave goodies for Santa (we'll do that next year). One last story and Jeffrey headed to bed too. Tom and I turned out the lights and listened to the Nutcracker on the radio and looked at the tree.

In all honesty I was probably more excited than the kids were about Christmas morning. Erin knew that when she finished her calendar that Santa would be there, but I'm not sure she really comprehended it. I actually had to get up and start moving around about 8:30 so they would begin to rouse. Noni had sent them Christmas morning outfits and "Santa" hung them on their doorknobs after they had gone to bed. Erin woke up thrilled to see her little dress and to show Jeffrey his.

We got dressed and moved the kids downstairs to take some pictures in front of the tree. Oh the excitement!!! So many presents under the tree. This is the first year Erin has really gotten excited. Jeffrey just feeds off her energy. Santa left them great stockings full of new stuff for the kitchen for both, Little Pets for Erin and trucks for Jeffrey. It took at least 30 minutes for them to get through their stockings.

Then we made special eggs and bacon for breakfast. The kids ate a little but were too excited to really focus on eating. A few encouraging words like "Erin if you eat all your eggs we can open presents from under the tree" got them eating.

Several hours later we were swimming in piles of paper, boxes, clothing and toys (including a new camera for me and an Ipod for Tom). The biggest hits seem to be these little phones from Target that work like real cel-phones. Both of them got one and they make real ringing sounds and talk to you. Best of all - if you set them down closed....they call you back. A plethora of Little People invaded the house also including a plane, firetruck, zoo and, best of all, a pirate ship. Nearly everything Jeffrey received had wheels on it and he pushed it all around the living room. And of course being Jeffrey, the first thing he did with his new dump truck was sit in it. Erin also got a bunch of dress-up clothes from Grandma W. She spent most of the evening sitting around playing pirate ship, saying "arghhh" while wearing a purple feather boa, big pink hat, and fuzzy purple high heels. Quite a site to see.

So the living room is still filled with boxes and paper, toys, games and clothes. But it's just thrilling to see the kids have such an exciting time playing with everything. We hope you all had equally exciting and fulfilling Christmases.

Oh Christmas Tree...

We decided to tempt fate and get the Christmas tree more than a week before Christmas this year. With Jeffrey, Erin and 2 cats poking around the tree we'll see if we decide to do the same thing next year. We picked it out in town yesterday and got it put up and decorated last night. We started at the Boy Scout set-up in town. Although they had a fairly nice selection of trees it was a "self-serve" operation. Meaning there were no scouts there and a sign reading measure your tree here and put a check in the slot. Although I'm in favor of buying from the Boy Scouts I prefer if there are actual Boy Scouts on the premises. So...there was another nursery selling trees in the same shopping center. We headed over to look at them. Gorgeous trees, displayed well ---- WAY out of our price range unless we wanted a white pine that had be wrapped up or tossed on the ground. Needless to say we continued our search for the perfect Christmas Tree. We moved further north to someone who had a sign "8 Foot Trees $25". When we got there there were lights and an older woman coming out of a camper. As we looked around I realized that most of the trees were white pines, but at least these had been standing up and had a nice shape. We walked around for 10 minutes or so letting the kids, well mostly Erin we didn't trust Jeff enough to really put him down, to run around. We eventually stumbled upon a great tree for our corner. Tom shoved it into the trunk of the Intrepid, packed up the kids and headed home while I went to Target to get a couple strings of lights.

After staring at an empty shelf where lights used to be, I finally found some that would work grabbed a couple stocking stuffers for the kids and headed to meet Tom and the kids. I entertained the kids while Tom got the tree ready to come into the house. You know how they always look so much smaller standing outside? Well Tom's first attempt to bring the tree in revealed we needed to cut at least 18" off the bottom. Even then it was still a little tall and the angle almost didn't fit on top.

After a short pizza break we got to decorating the tree. Erin got all the ornaments ready and handed them to mommy and daddy to put on. She tried a few on her own, but white pines can be tricky and she got frustrated. Jeffrey tried his best also - mostly by throwing ornaments at the tree hoping they'd just stick there. No matter, they both had lots of fun getting all the ornaments out and up onto the tree. Erin's favorites are the few bells we have. Jeffrey likes the mesh balls that we sit over the lights (sadly this might be the last year for those as they are looking pretty smushed these days). After we had properly adorned our tree, Jeffrey got a quick bedtime story and headed off to sleepy land while Erin, Tom and I sat in the dark living room looking at the lights and just relaxing.

So we'll see how long it takes Jeffrey to knock the whole thing down. Certainly I'm going to be receiving ornaments from the tree as little gifts all through the day for the next couple of weeks. No matter it looks beautiful and the kids really had a blast this year getting it all ready for Christmas.

Getting into the Spirit

We spent some time getting into the holiday spirit this morning. We've already got the advent calendars and some Christmas lights up. This morning we decided to make some Christmas cards. Noni brought us so really cool stamping blocks when she was here in November and we used those. Getting Jeffrey to use paint without getting paint everywhere is a little bit of a challenge (to say the least). After several struggles and a bit of time letting him just play on the floor with his trucks he joined in the fun. Erin had a blast and stamped every last card and gift box that we had. Thought I'd share some pictures of our projects. Enjoy :)

Erin beginning to get the idea of what to do

Showing off her work

Jeffrey decides to give it a try

Getting into it now - look out mom

A Sign of What's to Come?

Clearly I'm just in big trouble with our little man. We've known this for a while. But this morning I got another sign of what's to come.

While lazing around in bed I could hear Jeffrey waking up. He seemed happy enough so I didn't stress about hopping up to get him. I let him play in the crib for a bit. Eventually Erin came in to get me and the two of us went downstairs to get some milk and start breakfast.

Hearing people up and moving, Jeffrey got a bit more agitated. I went upstairs and opened his door. I immediately called Tom to come upstairs and see the sight that was greeting me.

You see, when Jeffrey went to bed he was snuggled tight in his footie PJs with his assortment of blankets (including the ever important "blankie"). Letting him play around in his crib when he wakes up is not an unusual occurrence. So what I saw when I opened his door was quite a surprise.

There was Jeffrey standing naked in his crib swinging his PJs around his head like a lasso. Thankfully he hadn't gotten the diaper off yet as it was loaded with quite a stinky. All of his other blankets were thrown on the floor about the crib. I was totally surprised that he'd managed to unzip the PJs and get them completely off. Imagine how much more astounded I was when I wrestled them away from him and realized that they were still mostly zipped up. Either he had wriggled out of them without unzipping them, or he zipped them back up after getting out of them and turning them into a lasso. Either way it was quite a feat.

Sadly the camera was all the way in the basement so I didn't get a photo of Jeffrey in all his glory so proud of his accomplishment. Hopefully there won't be many more chances to capture one but with my little wild man, you never know.