Christmas 2013

I wrote a post a few week back over at Des Moines Moms Blog about letting go of the perfect Christmas. Turns out I was writing this post to myself because little did I know at the time that I wrote that post that I would really need to take every single bit of my own advice from that post. You see, I came down with an awful case of stomach flu on Saturday night that hung on hard and mighty all day Sunday most of the day Monday and only started to lessen it's grip a little on Christmas Eve afternoon.

I had grand plans of my family going to church, my boys standing in front of the Christmas tree for pictures in their brand new outfits, coming home to a yummy meal of appetizers and sipping on wine while we opened presents. Instead we watched church online ate sandwiches and all hung out in out pajamas and it was really, really wonderful. I had already promised myself, even before I came down with the flu, that this Christmas  I was going to roll with the punches and just enjoy no matter what happened and I'm SO happy to say that I did just that. Truly the only thing I missed on Christmas Eve was being able to attend Christmas Eve service at our church.   We had the best night opening presents and hanging out together as a family just soaking up the evening.

I hope you all enjoyed a peaceful and memorable Christmas with the ones you love.

Here are a few of the highlights of our Christmas Season-

The (Im)Perfect Christmas

"Christmas is not always perfect"

Those words hit me like a ton of bricks as I was sitting in church with my little family on Christmas Eve.

You see, I had this image in my head of how Christmas was going to be this year and in one word that image was perfect. Everything was going to be perfect. The food and gifts and clothes and kids behavior and light and cards and cookies-All of it perfect.

Only in reality it wasn't.

Drake was tired from a fun Christmas at Nana and Papa's the day before and was acting up. Charlie was fighting a virus and was not himself. My hair dryer broke 15 minutes before church leaving me no choice but to go to church with wet hair.  This Christmas was not turning out to be the perfect image I had in my mind.

But after hearing those words from our pastor, I knew he was right. Christmas does not have to be perfect because the reason that we are celebrating the season is perfect.

That evening as we sang "Silent Night" by candle light I found peace in letting go of my image of perfect and replacing it with all the blessings my imperfect Christmas held.

Here are some of my favorite memories from Christmas 2012

• My whole family together at my parents house. And all the people there that love my kids so very much. Best gift ever.


• Seeing Drake's eyes light up when he saw his 1st big boy bike.


• Watching Charlie experience the magic of Christmas for the 1st time.


• Parents who are willing to stay up really late with a sick baby and love on him.


• Knowing that Drake was listening to the sermon because when the Pastor said that "Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem without any family" Drake shouted loudly "What?!? No family?!?! They HAD family"


• Watching Drake hold his very own candle for the 1st time while singing "Silent Night"


• Starting our own Christmas Eve traditions-just our family of four.


• Listening to Drake laugh and laugh at "Charlie Brown Christmas"


• Watching Drake run down the stairs to see what Santa left him.


• Hearing Drake tell everybody that he saw "Merry Christmas"


• Enjoying a lazy morning at home on Christmas morning enjoying new gifts, a yummy breakfast and time together.


• Watching Charlie find the smallest pieces of any new toy and try to eat them.


• The appreciation of a Grandma and Grandpa who made thoughtful gift choices that were perfect for each of the grandkids personality.


• A yummy Christmas dinner with family.


• Watching cousins play.


• Going to bed on Christmas night and thinking that you are blessed beyond measure for the people in your life.

Yeah, I guess you could say that our imperfect Christmas was pretty perfect in it's own way.

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours.....

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Wishing you all a blessed and joy filled Christmas!

Santa Pictures: More Than Meets the Eye

Last weekend we headed to Bass Pro Shop  to visit Santa.

Charlie was first up. I told you this kid was sweet and boy does this picture prove it. He was in love with Santa, all the attention being on him and all the camera flashes. Also? A baby in a bow-tie  cheesin' it up on Santa's lap? Cutest thing ever.

Drake was up next. Poor guy, he had everything he wanted to say all planned out but when the time came he was a nervous wreck and coud only  mutter "I want a bat cave"  between his trembling little lips.  But despite the nerves, he is such a handsome little guy (who looks more like 5 than 3) perched up on Santa's lap.

I love these pictures so much as they express both boy's personality so perfectly.

But upon closer examination the photos started creeping me out a little.

First, the reindeer will not quit staring at me!!! I make eye contact with him every time I look at this picture. I'm going to admit defeat, you win the staring contest reindeer, I blinked. NOW QUIT STARING!

Then there is  the pacifier that is seemingly attached to Santa's belt. I am beyond curious what that is all about. The logical explanation is that some little girl dropped it while on his lap, but that still does not answer the question as to WHY it is attached to his belt. Also, are his little "elfs" not noticing this pacifier just hanging out? It's just weird. That is all I've come up with. Weird and Creepy.

That Santa, he  is always much more than meets the eye....

Christmas Advent Calendar

My mom made Ben and I this advent calendar the year that we got married. We used to fill all 24 little pouches with a piece of candy and take turns taking the candy out of the pouch every day in December. Last year things started to change a little bit, as Drake was old enough to eat the candy, so every evening he would take the candy from the appropriate pouch and have a little Christmas treat after dinner.

Although the candy thing was fun and worked great, I really wanted to do something a little more meaningful and start a new tradition for our family. After thinking it over for a while I came up with the idea of putting a little piece of paper in each pouch. Each piece of paper has an instruction on it. Many of the instructions are geared towards some sort of Christmas activity and some of the pieces of  paper have instructions to go get a piece of candy from Momma.

I was thinking that some other people might be interested in doing something similar so I thought I would share what our pieces of paper said.

• Bake Christmas Cookies


• Bake a Birthday cake for Baby Jesus


• Go to Jolly Holiday Lights


• Drive around town and look at lights


• Pick 3 things out of your cupboard to donate


• Drink hot chocolate


• Go visit Santa


• Go to a movie with Momma


• Go to a movie with Daddy


• Read a Christmas book


• Watch a Christmas movie


• Put up Christmas decorations on the window


• Make food for the reindeer


• Get a piece of Candy

I then sat down with our calendar and first filled in all the activities making sure we had time to do them on the appropriate day. After all the activities were placed I filled in any empty spots with the 'get a piece of candy' instructions.  I am anxiously awaiting December 1st when Drake takes out the first piece of paper and finds out he gets to go to a movie with Daddy!

I am so excited for our new family tradition and a fun and meaningful way to count down the days until Jesus's Birthday!

Decorating for Christmas with Kids

I L.O.V.E. decorating my house for Christmas. With that being said, the way that I decorate and where I have placed things has changed a lot since I've had kids. For example, we decided not to put up our big Christmas tree this year since Charlie is a speed crawler and silently gets into everything. Also? Take a moment to look at the following picture....

This happened last year. I kid you not our tree had been up for 20 minutes when I heard a giant crash. When I asked Drake what happened he said that he pushed the chair over to the tree to try  and get an ornament off which resulted in this giant mess. So, we opted to do a more 'kid friendly' tree and decoration set-up this year.

In our lower living room I set up a table with Drake's Little People Nativity set, his Santa train and his sleigh set. To the left of the table I filled a big basket with all of our Christmas books and movies for easy browsing. In the corner I plugged in the fun Santa Nightlight to give a little more light to the Christmas set-up.

Right next to the Little People toys we set up a small Christmas tree that has ornaments that are either stuffed or are OK for Drake to play with and safe for Charlie. Next to the tree we placed our wooden sleigh and filled it with all plush Christmas characters. This has been a huge hit! Behind the sleigh is our Christmas count-down calendar that my Mom made for us. This year we plan on filling it with little pieces of paper that will instruct Drake to come get a piece of candy from us, make Christmas cookies that night, go look at Christmas lights, etc. I can't wait to get started!

Of course, I have other Christmas decorations up as well (post and pictures to follow next week), but having specific place for Christmas stuff that Drake can touch and play with has totally cut down on him touching all of my decorations that he should not be playing with. We had a great time decorating together and Drake and Charlie love their little Christmas corner.

One last note- If you are thinking of buying any of the above Little People sets , I can't recommend the Nativity set enough. It is so cute and such a great way to teach your kids about the Christmas Story. Drake knows who Baby Jesus is and I can often hear him playing with him (even though sometimes that play includes Batman coming to rescue Baby Jesus) and talking about him. Just thought I would pass on that little tip.

Family Christmas/Santa

We celebrated our little family Christmas on the night before Christmas Eve as we were going to be out of town on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. While Drake was napping I got the brilliant idea to make hot chocolate for the 2 of us to enjoy while we waited for Ben to get home for work. I was SO excited about the idea (Drake had never had hot chocolate before) that I could not stand it and went and woke Drakie up from his nap. Apparently I like hot chocolate more than he does, as he did not even try one little sip. Oh well, it was still fun!

After Ben came home from work we got started on opening presents! I decided that we were going to do our presents to Drake a little different this year ( and every year in the future) and give him 3 gifts from us to represent the 3 gifts that Jesus received when he was born.

Drake had a fun time opening presents and loved everything he received. We got him a Melissa and Doug puzzle, a Lego set, and a set of 8 Cars with the Cars 2 DVD.

After we opened gifts we had a picnic in our family room where we ate pizza and watched Cars 2. We topped the night off with a ride around town to look at Christmas lights.

Santa must have known we were not going to home Christmas morning so he decided to stop by a day early!

Boy does Santa know how to make a train loving little boy happy! Drake's little mind was just blown when he saw the awesome train table Santa left for him. He loved it so much that he could not be bothered with opening his stocking or eating breakfast. When I told him it was time to head to Nana and Papa's house he looked  at me and said "No, I run away with my trains"!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas

Hi Santa

Visiting Santa has been a tradition since Drake's 1st Christmas. The first year Drake was only 5 months old and had no idea what was going on.

And then there  was last year.

You might remember that last year Santa did not go over so well.

Drake was a crying and scared mess.

I promised myself that no matter how much I would love a picture of Drake with Santa I would not make him sit on his lap or even go see him this year if he didn't want to...no need to scare the kid even more.

We asked Drake if he wanted to see Santa and he seemed excited so we packed up the car, roped Ben's parents into going with us and off we went. Drake talked the big talk the whole way there, telling us what he was going to say, and how he was going to sit on Santa's lap and "no cry."

He talked the talk but we did not know if he would walk the walk. We had to wait in line and as we waited Drake kept saying "Go away kids, go away" because he wanted to be at the front of the line.

The big moment finally came. He took my hand and walked right up to Santa. "Hi Santa" he said with a big smile. I asked if he wanted to sit on his lap and he said he did.

He told Santa he wanted trains for Christmas (I hear that Santa has that covered) and even told him he would prefer Thomas Trains (I think Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Papa are covering that for Santa).

And then we took what is to be the official Santa picture of 2011.

A few things about this photo

When did my baby grow up to look like such a handsome little boy?!?

I must have missed it.

AND

I promise he was enjoying himself much more than this photo shows.

All in all I think we will call Santa visit 2011 a success. So much of a success that I may or may not have teared up watching my little boy act so big.

And for good measure....

I die of the cuteness of this picture.

I can only imagine how I'm going to feel next year as I watch my TWO little boys experience the magic that is Christmas.

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours...

Perfect

The last 7 days ( I took a few days vacation) have been nothing short of perfect. Zoo with friends, pizza, shopping all day with my mom, evening out with friends, coffee and shopping with a friend, driveway beers, staying in pajamas until lunch, science center, curling up with a good book, grilling out with friends, zoo again, dragon pool in the yard, sprinkler and ice cream. Perfect I tell you, perfect.

You know what else is perfect? Last Memorial Day Ben and I took Drake to the zoo just like we did today. I even got a lot of the same pictures of Drake that I got last year. Boy oh boy, has my baby turned into a little boy.

 

I'm off to enjoy the last few hours of vacation buy curling up with my Kindle. "Water for Elephants" here I come!

The Perfect Christmas

You know how before Christmas you have images in your head of what Christmas is going to be like?

You hope it is full of  family and laughter and celebration and good food and a little snow and many memories.

You hope it all of that, but you know that sometimes things don't go as planned, so you tell yourself that you will just enjoy what you do get.

But on that rare occurrence that Christmas really is everything you hoped for, you take those moments and pack them in your heart forever and know that you are truly blessed.

It is the small things I will remember from this Christmas.

Things like:

Cousins sharing a Christmas Eve morning snack.

And trying to get that perfect picture of them in the matching sweaters only to end up with perfectly imperfect pictures.

And holding my baby in church as I choke back tears as we sing "Silent Night" by candlelight.

And finding out that it is not what is inside the box that matters, but just the fact that the box is big enough to stand on that makes opening presents fun.

 

And that face as my little man takes in the wonder of our Christmas Tree for the millionth time this year.

And a Christmas Eve feast that was big enough to feed an army even though it was just my little family of three.

And  a Christmas Eve picnic on blankets in the family room.

 

And the look on a little boy's face when he saw what Santa left him.

And a Christmas morning play session between Daddy and Drake.

And opening stockings with Papa.

And Christmas pajamas that are so cute that you just know they will be worn far past the Christmas season. 

And the excitement of the first set of your very own wheels.

And singing along with your new Sing-A-Ma-Jig.

And reading a story with Nana.

And most importantly celebrating the birthday of a precious baby born so long ago.

I hope your Christmas was filled with love and joy and was everything you hoped for.