Merry Christmas!

(It seems quite silly to be blogging about Christmas when it's now March. But I do want to have all the big things written down somewhere.)

Christmas is so much fun with kids! And they are so much fun at their ages. Chuck & Nancy didn't come down this year, so it was just the 4 of us on Christmas morning. Butch started the casserole before we came downstairs so it would be done when we finished with gifts. (More on the casserole later!)

Lacey & Leah were amazed to see all the gifts under the tree! (What kid wouldn't be?!)
They immediately started digging in. Santa had wrapped the really big gifts and it took them a bit to realize there was something BIG to open. I'm glad they didn't realize it right away since Lacey was so into her new bike that I'm not sure she would have kept unwrapping right away!

And, yes...Santa brought them bikes. Lacey's is a big girl one with training wheels. Leah's is a Radio Flyer trike that has a handle on it that we can push until she learns how to peddle on her own.

At some point, the timer went off and Butch checked the casserole. He thought it still needed to cook more, so we put it back in. Checked it a bit later and it still wasn't done....I then checked the recipe & realized he had set the timer for 30 min.....instead of 1 hour. Huh. No wonder it wasn't done!

Somewhere around noon, we headed to Rick & Kristina's house. I love holidays with my family. I know what a lucky person I am, too....to have a family that I really like to spend time with.

We had a fabulous dinner! I usually try to take a picture of the food & somehow didn't get that done this year. We had roast beef, stuffed ham, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, salad....and I know I missing things!

And, then the cousins opened up all of their gifts, while the rest of us watched
Every year....or most years....for a long time, we get a picture of the cousins. The past several times, there have been serious pictures with everyone smiling, then the less serious....silly face picture.

I love those "kids".

Christmas Eve 2009

The holidays are always so hectic. And, Christmas Eve is one of those days where I feel like we run around a bit much. But it seems worth it all in the end.

I had to work (from home, luckily) until 12:00 and daycare closed at 1:00. Aunt Marilyn had invited us to an open house for the girls to see Santa. (She has a connection to him through her brother!) He is amazing! So, we picked the girls up & drove to Indian Head. For those that don't know, it's about a 30-40 minute drive. The girls got changed into their Christmas dresses, then sat with Santa and posed for pictures.
We had planned to only be there for an hour or so to allow time to pick up pizza before church (at 5:00). That didn't work out!

We ended up visiting longer than we had planned. It's just too hard to leave when you don't see someone often enough. By the time we left, we knew we'd be late for church (40 minutes back toward home). While Butch was in Ledo's picking up our pizza (in La Plata), it dawned on me that there is a Methodist Church right in La Plata that we could go to. So, that's what we did. It was okay. The 5:00 is supposed to be the "children's service" or "family service". At Mt. Zion, our regular church, this means that the service is really done for the kids. It incorporates them and makes it more fun for them. However, at the La Plata church, I felt like it was just a regular service that was more tolerant of noise. Live and learn, right? Next year we will be at Mt. Zion, I think.

After church, we headed home for pizza. In case you don't know, Christmas Eve is also Butch's birthday. We had birthday cake for him after the pizza and he opened his gifts. I had gotten him an iPod....finally he decided he wanted one!

Then, we switched back to Christmas mode. :-) The girls get to open 2 gifts each year. One is usually PJs and the other is an ornament. We got them new robes this year, too.

Something new happened this year! Lacey was able to write a note to Santa!

I can't believe she's old enough to do that! I love it!

Daycare Christmas Party

The Daycare Party was Tuesday, the 22nd. Miss Lisa's daughter had written a play about the animals in the forest taking care of a little tree that was lonely. Sort of a Charlie Brown tree. Lacey's best buddy went out for her part before Lacey (with her sister) and "froze". Lacey & Leah went out and Lacey refused to do her speaking part, too! Oh well, they were cute! And, when the time came for singing, everyone participated.
Santa came - arriving on a fire truck! No surprise to me that Leah was the first one to run up to him. That girl has no fear.

It was a bit surprising that Lacey went up right after Leah! She sat on his lap for a few minutes and talked.The kids had picked names a few weeks before for a gift exchange. Miss Lisa had also gotten them gifts. And, Miss Lisa had helped them to make gifts for us. They were little bags that had been decorated with fingerprint painting and it said a hug was inside. Inside the bag was a piece of yarn that was as long as their arms are wide. It was a very sweet gift that we'll be keeping.

December 2009 (Pre-Christmas)

Lacey & Leah headed to the dentist in late November & I was amazed at how well they both did! Lacey did fairly well last time, too, so I shouldn't have been surprised. Leah sat by herself in the chair & let them do what they needed to. They told us that Lacey's bottom teeth (middle) were both loose, so she got quite excited about the tooth fairy coming at some point.

Leah had a cold at the end of November and by the first week in December her sleep had deteriorated enough that I took her to see Dr. Jill. She'd had the cold for nearly 2 weeks by that point. As it turned out, she had a double ear infection - both ear drums were bulging. Dr. Jill called her a tough cookie, considering she wasn't complaining. Poor baby.

We started with winter early here this year! It was really just a dusting, but we don't normally get snow so early. This was December 5th. It was just enough for the kids to explore, but not to cause issues with driving.



Just wait until the pictures from future snow storms! Yikes!

Butch & I had taken off on December 18th to take the girls to see Sesame Street Live. For anyone that doesn't know, Leah is a huge fan of Elmo. She loved it! Lacey enjoyed it, too, but not nearly as much.
We had planned to go see the Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes on Saturday, the 19th. Dee, Kristin, Lacey and I were going. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for us....a blizzard. We got 16 inches at our house. It snowed for 24 hours straight. Unbelievable.
Saturday morning, we knew we weren't going to the show. They didn't cancel it, but they did give refunds to those that couldn't make it, so at least we got our money back.

We stayed inside that day since it was so windy and cold, but made it out to play on Sunday.

Lacey isn't much of a daredevil, so she wouldn't go sledding in the backyard (big hill). Instead, she liked the mound of snow made from Butch's shoveling work.
The snow wasn't packing very well (too powdery), but it worked okay for a snow castle.
And, Leah didn't like going into the snow since it was so deep. But she had fun with her sandbox toys.

We had lots of fun throwing a tennis ball for Brady into the snow. She'd hop through the snow & see the hole where the ball went....then dig for it. Made for a tired dog that night.
I have some great videos from that day, but have never had luck uploading them to blogger for some reason. I'm really not sure why, but I try to do it an 2 hours later, it's still trying to upload. So, I'm giving up. Maybe I'll put them on Facebookor email them out.

Catching Up

Okay, okay....I know. Way behind. Not sure how that happens. And now I have so much to catch up on. I'm trying not to skip through things because I'm thinking about having this put into a book for the kids to be able to keep. So, just know that you are going to see a lot of posts here & many of them are old!