Christmas dinner

My family's turn

Because I was so busy with the hustle and bustle of getting everything ready, I misplaced my camera and only got these pictures before everyone got here.  My mom wanted to come early and help, but really to many cooks spoil the broth and there was nothing for her to do. 

It was one of those Christmas dinners where I felt like I was busy the whole time and really had very little time with any one person, but a little bit of time with every one! 

The kids were downstairs playing a lot and teh adults were upstairs talking.  One Christmas I dream of everyone being upstairs together.  We had one scare when we found out that Tiercy had to take Steve to the hospital because his heart was racing.  The only good thing about hospitals on Christmas is that they are virtually empty because everyone is home where they should be.  Luckily, he was there for only two hours and then he was able to go home.  They were going to need to do more follow up tests this week, but he was home where he belonged! 

Unwrapping presents with everyone was complete chaos!  I think mom loved it though-Christmas isn't supposed to be quiet.  Because we had more room in the family room, the children quickly carried all of the presents from the living room where they were to the family room.  Paper was flying everywhere, kids were running everywhere, and everyone was saying "Merry Christmas!" 

By the time everyone left around 10:00, Andy were exhausted!  WE had stayed up until 2:30 am wrapping presents and getting ready for the morning and were ready to fall down.  We tried to watch a little tv, but we fell asleep.  :)

Christmas Morning

 Ahh....the morning tradition of waiting on the stairs while Andy and I turn on the lights, Christmas music, we get our video cameras and our digital cameras ready, and I take my first set of pictures before the children can come off of the stairs.  They are pretty patient usually, but we don't make them take too long.

 Christmas morning all wrapped up!

 Santa gifts for the year!  I guess they were good.

 Getting ready to unwrap Christmas! 

Noah trying to peek inside his gift to see if he can tell what it is!

Everyone got sooo much for Christmas this year.  I must say this is one of those Christmases where we overdid it!  I can't help myself; I have really embraced the old adage "It is better to give than to receive" and it really is true, especially when it comes to giving to your children.   They are really such great children and there is just so much we could give them- it's so hard to decide. 

This year, I decided to try something new out.  I came up with questions to ask the kids before they opened a gift.  If they got the question right, they could open it.  If they got it wrong they were supposed to wait until their next turn.  At first I was going to make up the questions about Christmas trivia, but then thought it would be a fun way for them to learn stories about Andy and me.  I don't think it worked as well in reality as much as it did in my head.  Maybe if we had only asked a question every other present or something it might have been better.  I think the kids liked the idea of it too, becuase when they gave each other their gift, they also asked a question to go along with it.  It just didn't do anything for the excitement of Christmas!  I will have to rethink if I want to try this again next year.  There's a good idea in there some where, I just have to tweak it!

Andy got a crepe pan for Christmas which I was excited about (I gave it to him).  We had crepes for breakfast on Christmas morning.  They were so good and Andy made fabulous crepes with the help of his crepe pan!  Maybe this is a tradition that will stick!


Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve

Usually Christmas Eve day is a lot of fun for me.  I love to go to the mall to go shopping.  I usually only have little things still to get, but this year I had some major shopping to do and so it became a stress-full day.  I also was hoping to get the wrapping done so I wouldn't have to do it after the dinner.  I made good use of RIO this year.  I was able to get my last minute (who am I kidding-it was last hours) shopping done!  

We were having a raclette dinner for Christmas Eve and Andy and I were hoping it would be a great big, roaring success!!!  But Andy needed to do the shopping for the meet and the prep work hadn't been done the night before like I'd hoped.  Even though the raclette dinner uses raclette cheese I wasn't even sure if it was available here.  I should have knonwn my honey would come through--he found the best choices of meats and he found raclette cheese!

Dinner was really fun and it was nice to be able to sit down together with Andy's family for dinner.  It had been a really long time since we'd spent any real time with Shari and Beth, so it was nice to be able to catch up with them.  And as always it was fun to see the Keenans.  It seems like between our Hannukah dinner with them and our Christmas dinner piled on top like a cherry as well, we were able to catch up more than usual.  It was also nice to see Jacqueline, home from college as well.  

Chris shared a story with us about a time he took Andy backpacking when he was about 8 years old and Andy ended up falling into a stream with his backpack on as he was stepping on the stones to cross.  Chris neglected to mention that Andy might want to lean forward with the pack on!

I know Andy loves spending time with his family.  I loved having it at our house with it being our "new" house and all of our Christmas decorations.  Andy did such a great job with the lights outside.  And the best addition this year was my tall Santa; he added a lot to our foyer in the way of welcome!  

Merry Christmas Eve!

Santa brings Smiles

Last Saturday, we showed up to Panera at exactly 8:30am.  Why is it that sometimes I am exactly on time and sometimes I am rediculously late?  This morning, I wanted to be there on time as I had arranged this outing with Brenna's friends and moms.  As we were walking in, several moms pulled into the parking lot and we were all able to walk in together.  I love Panera breakfasts.  Between bagels, souffles, muffins and oatmeal there was so much to choose from.  I chose a egg and spinach souffle and Brenna wanted a cinnamon crunch bagel!  That just has to come with a smile-they are so good and tasty.

The girls sat at tables next to us and we moms sat together.  My friend Kate just had her baby, a boy, and so the girls were irresistably drawn to him!  They wanted to hold him, touch him, and love him.  It is clearly easy to see that this little baby will not walk until he is five years old as he has so many "adopted" big sisters.  It was fun to hear the girls chatting about Santa Claus.  One friend, Josie, told the story of how she lost her tooth on Christmas Eve last year and how the tooth fairy met Santa Claus last year, Brenna told the story of how one year Santa left a pair of green pj bottoms for Tobin (?) and Santa left a note that green was Mrs. Claus' favorite color.  Another girl told how she heard Santa's footsteps on the stairs left year and on and on.  It is so cute to see the Christmas excitement with these little girls who believe.

Brenna and her friend Lindsay wanted to switch shirts!  They liked what each other was wearing.

Then we were off to see Santa.  This Santa was amazing.  He had each of the girls sit on his lap individually and then they sat on his lap in a group.  He asked them questions about what they wanted.  Brenna's friend Kate said to her mom, "Mom, I think Santa really is going to bring me a puppy becuase when I said that he asked me what kind I wanted!"  (Oh poor mother, she has to explain that they can't have a pet because they are allergic to dog hair). 

I wanted to tell Santa what a great job he was doing, but when he did so, he pulled me close and said, "You moms are doing a great job.  These girls were polite and well-mannered."  Thanks Santa, you really are a man for making people smile.

Laughing out Loud

After a long day of work, I'm just not up for it today; I hope we don't go.  I'm just soooo tired.

"Let's go," Andy said.  And he hopped into his car waiting for me.  I stood up, wanting to fall back down, but slowly walked to the car.  Andy drove us off in his zippy little car and as I felt the speed pick up my spirits.  I love it when Andy drives with intention and picks up speed for a short, safe amount of time to get ahead of some cars.  (Usually, he is much more conservative and lets everyone in and patiently waits his turn).  Tonight, he mixed it up and I felt like we were off and away.  Halfway through the drive, I realized we didn't have the radio on and we were totally enjoying ourselves.

We arrived at the outlets to Christmas shop for our family.  We had a definite plan, a store or two we would go and then return and head home!  I didn't think we would be there that long--it was freezing and having to walk outside between stores was unjust.  As we left Williams-Sonoma, our first store, we hunkered into our coats and hurriedly walked to the next store hoping for Christmas success.  However, we ended up empty handed for presents, but we each ended up with a pair of shoes (boots for me, shoes for him)!  How that ended up happening, I don't know.  But the even stranger question of the night was, how did Andy spend so much time in Kenneth Cole while I managed to go to four more stores waiting for him?  This was a true role reversal.

We headed home, freezing cold in the now cold car!  We literally went over the river and through the woods to get home. There wasn't much traffic and it was one of those nights where the air is so crisp, but your car heater is on and toasty warm.  As we sat on the ferry crossing the river, we both were amazed at the same things 1) how much slower it took us to cross the river this time and 2) the ice floating on the river and 3) the speed with which the current seemed to be drifting. 

Finally, we passed a fast food place and we decided to do the drive-thru for dinner (not romantic, but practical).  As we sat waiting for our food, a conversation I had had with my colleagues earlier in the day floated into my mind.  It was a conversation about "who wears the pants in the family?"  I explained that in my family we are 50-50 all the way; just look at our children- they didn't look exactly like either one of us the way some children do.  And each time I was pregnant different features of each of us won out! Neither one of us in charge, we're complete equals.   So, I wanted to test it out.  So, I asked Andy to throw away a can of soda that was sitting in the car.  I thought if I'm in charge, he'll do it.  It was his can, but when I asked him, he looked at me like I had two heads.  I thought for a minute he might balk and not do it, but I asked him again and he opened the door to walk the 20 yards to the trashcan!  And do you know what happened?  Just to dig in his heels that he was doing it, but he didn't like it (not sure Andy would say it this way), he left the door open, just to make sure I would feel the cold!!!!  See, 50-50!  I was laughing hysterically when Andy returned to the car.  And as the current situation didn't really warrant any sort of reaction like that he wanted to know what I was laughing at.

I shared with him our conversation and we laughed and laughed and laughed!  He thought it was soooo funny that he had indeed showed his 50-50, large and in charge attitude by doing something small and significant!  Really, it was a great night for us, being together, laughing out loud and trying to do something for our children.  It was truly one of those nights, I would like to say I would never forget because I loved it so much.  But with a terrible memory and so much information running through my head, it will most likely be one of those memories that slowly fades over time.  But I will always remember the love I felt.  Cheesy, but true. 

Decorating our Tree....

turned into decorating Calle.

But first the story of getting our tree.  We had a two and a half hour window to go get our tree.  We wanted to go to a tree farm and make it an experience with the kids like we used to before we got so busy.  We had Noah and Brenna's friends with us, Carson and Caroline.  So, we were determined to make it a good time.  Hay rides, hot chocolate, caramel apples, and cutting down the tree.  We were going to have fun!

On the way to the tree farm, Carson told us how he picked out his family's tree last year and that he was pretty good for the job!  We were driving, heading out into the country, when he said, "hey, there's where we got our tree last year."  Andy and I looked at each other as if to say, Should we do it?  We knew it would save us time and that would ease our stress.  Maybe they would have hot cider there at least.  So, we did a u-turn and headed to the Catholic church selling trees.
As we pulled up, Tobin said, "Hey, Megan gets her tree here.  I bet they do have good trees!"  Oh good, the kid we need to win over has just been won over!  Maybe this will be good I thought.

Andy and the kids jumped out of the car in a flash and headed right for the trees!  And by the time I arrived after getting my coat on, they had the tree picked out!  Seriously, picked out.  There just seemed something so wrong with that.  Kind of like, you can't pick the first wedding dress you try on; you have to look at the other's to make sure you still want that shape, size and detail!  So, I said we needed to keep going.  I wanted to look too!

The nice gentlemen from the church held up a second tree!  Andy went back and had Tobin hold up the first tree and....done!  We were taking our second tree home!  Within 5 minutes we were done!  Maybe Carson was our good luck charm--at least it wasn't even long enough to start a fight amongst the children, right?

Decorating Calle:

Like our lives these days, our decorating of the tree happened when it should have been bedtime which made for tired and cranky kids.  Oops.  We tried really hard to have the spirit of Christmas in our hearts and in our words as we decorated.  I think for the most part we made it fun, but that was partly because Calle became the focus of the kids.  They thought one ornament was put on the tree and one decoration was to be put on her.  She was such a good sport and really handled it well.  She even posed for some pictures!  I do love our tree and I do love my family.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Santa Wish Lists

Notice the difference between Noah's list and Brenna's list. And Tobin's list is non-existent!  Oh the joys of being young again.  Merry Christmas!