A Merry Little Christmas

We welcomed December by celebrating little TomTom's birthday! Can you believe he's already two?!? I can't. The years have flown.

I LOVE having my kiddos wake up to a room full of balloons on their birthday, both helium-filled ones and the normal kind. It's just a fun little detail to get them excited for the day. Thomas enjoyed them so much we could barely get him to leave, even for breakfast (and that's saying something!)

Little side note here: Just a few days ago Abby asked me, "Mom, do you always go to the dollar store to get balloons for our birthdays?"
Me: Yes, I do.
Abby: Oh mom! You're so sneaky!

After breakfast we headed to Chibis, an indoor playground that my kids love. We haven't been there for a while since we live farther away from it now, but that just made it a more special place to spend a birthday.

Then we came home, had dinner, and celebrated with cake and ice cream. We invited another family over with a little girl close to Thomas' age, but besides that we kept it simple. TomTom was delighted, and it had already been a very full day.

Lots of loot this year

Seven months pregnant, simplicity was pretty important to me. His "cake" was brownies with crumbled up peanut butter cups and a dump truck on top. It was super fast and delicious.

And you know what?!? He LOVED it!!!!

It just so happened that Thomas' birthday fell on our town's Lantern Parade and Christmas Tree Lighting, so after cake and ice cream we headed outside to join in the parade. We didn't even bother to go to the start of the parade, we knew the route went right by our street, so we just joined in as they walked past. Here is St Nicholas leading the parade.

And here is the tree after being lit up at the Town Squirkle. The kids were very impressed.

Abby's lantern from the parade

I barely saw Thomas the next morning, he was so busy playing with all his new toys.

Jacob and I are not sure how we are going to handle this in the future, but this year we decided to not put up Christmas decorations until after Thomas' birthday. We just wanted to let his birthday stand alone and be emphasized instead of getting lost in the holiday chaos. But I tell you what, Abigail was in agony. Thanksgiving happened to be early this year and a lot of our neighbors put up their decorations immediately afterwards. Abby was constantly asking when we could put our tree up and she would just groan in despair every time we told her. So the day after Thomas' birthday, all the decorations came out.

AND, even more exciting, that night was the Christmas party at church, and the kids got to meet Santa!

Abby asked Santa for a yoyo. I'm pretty sure she didn't even know what that was, but it's what she wanted.

Thomas was really not sure about this.

We came home after dark and so, of course, the Christmas tree was so beautiful all lit up, and the magic of Christmas was in the air.

The Bear Advent Calendar, which I grew up with, is now a favorite thing for my children

One morning I gave the kids a bath after Jacob had left for work. Afterwards they were in Thomas' room and yelled into this vent for at least ten minutes - no kidding - "Daddy??!??! Are you there?!??!?! DADDY!??! WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING US?!??!?!"

Jacob took up weight lifting, which the kids saw as an invitation to crawl on him and try to steal his weights. My solution was to give each of them a pair of toilet paper tube "weights", which somehow and miraculously solved the problem. Here is Thomas weight lifting with Daddy.

First snow of the season came in early December. It wasn't much, but it was lovely watching it fall.

When it got too cold to play outside, we brought some snow inside.

Abby's preschool class put on an adorable holiday program right before they let out for winter break.

And Thomas is just so cute.

The kids helped me put together lots of these cookie mixes, which were our presents to friends and neighbors this year.

Visions of sugar plums

Abigail's dance class had their winter revue, a much less formal recital than the big one they have in the spring. She did a fabulous job, as always.

Making cards for Granny's birthday

Abby: Mom, could Thomas and I just snuggle next to the Christmas tree?

Abigail has transformed our home into her own little gymnastics arena.

 And then, before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve.

Jacob and I were busy preparing our traditional feast when Abigail started getting really fussy. I sat on the couch with her to try calming her down, and next thing I knew, she was asleep on me. It happened really fast, and it wasn't even five o'clock yet. I chalked it up to exhaustion since we had been so busy for so many weeks. I carried her upstairs and put her to bed. I was sad that she would miss out on our Christmas Eve traditions, but what can you do? The rest of us carried on.

Thomas trying his first taste of wine. He loved it! Just kidding, it's grape juice.

Around 8:30, after Thomas was down and asleep for the night, Abigail cried out from her bed and declared that she felt all better. She was wide awake and there was no stopping her. So we gave her some dinner, let her make cookies and write a letter to put out for Santa, let her sprinkle magic reindeer food on the lawn, had her hang up the stockings, and finally at 11:30 I did the thing I never thought I would do as a parent: "Abby, you have to go to bed now or Santa will not come!" She rushed upstairs, Jacob went up to help her settle down, and I checked the Santa Google tracker. He was right over our house! *Phew*, just in time.

He came!

The next morning, in a pretty typical fashion, Thomas woke up early and Abigail slept in. He was eager for breakfast so eventually we woke Abby up. I said, "Let's go see if Santa came!" and Thomas said, "Ho, ho, ho!" We all cracked up, it was so cute.

We don't have a fireplace, so we hung our stockings on the stair railing. The kids were so excited to see that Santa had come. There really wasn't much in their stockings, just a handful of candy and a box of animal crackers each, but they were just tickled pink. They carefully took each item out and lovingly examined it, eagerly showing us what they had. And what happened next is one of my all-time favorite Christmas moments of my life. Jacob and I were trying to move them along because we knew what was waiting in the living room. I jokingly said, "Well, should we go get breakfast now?" I thought that surely the kids had seen enough Christmas movies to know that there was more coming, but I was surprised to realize that they actually didn't. Jacob and I encouraged them to move on to "breakfast", Abby said, "Can we eat some candy first?" And I said, "No, let's go get some breakfast first." And both kids said, "Okay," and put their candy back in their stockings. They were totally, absolutely satisfied with the treats Santa brought them. We lead them into the living room and they stopped in their tracks, jaws dropping, when they saw all the presents. It was so cute and hilarious.

This year was one of the years that it took forever to open presents because the kids wanted to stop and play with every item after they opened it. I LOVE it when this happens. We leisurely opened gifts, exploring and enjoying each thing as we unwrapped. And when every gift had been opened, we continued playing while Jacob made us breakfast.

Later that day we went to Granny & Poppy's house and celebrated with extended family. By the time we got home, Abigail had a slight fever. We put her straight to bed but didn't think much of it. The week went on and she became sicker and sicker, and then I came down with it, and then Thomas got it. Jacob showed some symptoms but never really succumbed all the way, but the rest of us were crushed by it. As I mentioned in a previous post, I barely left my bed for seven days. By that Saturday I was alarmed by Thomas' breathing, which was labored and rapid. I rushed him to the ER, they ran some tests and came back with a double diagnosis of flu and pneumonia. As soon as I heard "flu", my brain clicked together. I'm pretty sure it's what Abigail and I had, also, since we were just so overwhelmed by illness.

Five minutes before they released us from the ER, Thomas finally fell into a peaceful sleep. 

We rang in the new year with early bedtimes and pain medications. Better luck next year.

Ere the Winter Storms Begin

Hello! Well I'm still here, trying to catch up on as many things as possible before baby arrives (only five days until my due date. Just saying.) And one of those things, which I never completed, was blogging about November and December. Here's a quick snapshot of November.

First of all, we started the month with one of my favorite things: our gratitude tree. You may recall that we had a fabulous Halloween, but I have to say that I LOVE going from that "gimme" holiday into the Thanksgiving season. It's a good way to stay level-headed after all the treats of Halloween. And it was really lovely to have a child old enough to "get it" this year. We didn't do our gratitude tree last year because we were in the middle of moving into our house and things were so chaotic, so the last time we did this was when Abigail was two. We kind-of just went through the motions that year. But this year she actually understood the concept and LOVED adding leaves of the things she is grateful for. She had some surprisingly mature responses, too. I was kind-of expecting most leaves to be things like "candy", but most of hers were people, like family members and friends and teachers from church/preschool.  It was really sweet listening to her.

Thomas got into it, too. He sure loved scribbling on his leaves every morning!

Gratitude Tree 2017: Day One

I've mentioned before Abigail's preschool buddy Joseph who we have a standing playdate with. We've become good friends with the whole family, and in November they had us over for dinner. The table wasn't big enough for everyone, so Abigail and Joseph had their own little table. We joked that they looked like they were on a date. She is certainly enjoying herself.

We tried to fit in lots of outdoor play before the weather turned too cold.

Ahhhhh, autumn in Virginia

We started the process of potty-training Thomas! I say "started" because...*sigh*...we are still working on it. He can be a very stubborn little boy. I was hoping to successfully train him before the "terrible two's" set in, but alas. But he has made a lot of progress and I am proud of him.

In his new underwear. Looking good, son!

With the coming of winter we pulled out all of the remaining veggies from our garden and then mowed over all the plants. Here everyone is enjoying the last of the carrot crop.

The kids went to the dentist again. I dread brushing the kids' teeth but push through it like a dedicated mama, so I sure appreciated hearing the dentist say how good the kids' teeth looked. Such a relief. Also, I have to give kudos to this pediatric dentist office for being so good with kids. The hygienists always give balloons and prizes at the end of the cleanings. So far, no trauma for either of them.

The playhouse, which Santa brought us in Christmas 2016, has been so fun. Not only do the kids play in it, but Abby LOVES painting it. It is usually her requested activity when Thomas is taking his nap, and she always requests that I paint with her. I have many fond memories of us working on this together over the last year.

We had a really, really nice Thanksgiving at my sister-in-law's grandparents' house. That is a mouthful, but it was so lovely. Unfortunately, the only picture I have from the day is this one of Thomas and the dog. At least it's a cute picture.

Boy with a Book in a Wagon

After months of me trying to get a family photo we could use on our Christmas card (I remember specifically saying to Jacob in the summer, "Let's please take our Christmas card photo before my face gets fat from being pregnant." Nope, didn't make it.) and every opportunity falling through, we finally just ran out to the pond next to our house one morning and took it. Jacob propped his phone on a trash can and set the timer. We are a classy family, no? Oh, well. At least it got done.

It was a good month. So many things to be grateful for.

Gratitude Tree 2017: Day Thirty