Celebrating Christmas, Part I -- The 23rd at Grammie and Babo's

As usual our Christmas celebration lasted a few days. I was very thankful this year that we spread it out evenly. We spent the 23rd at Grammie and Babo's, the 24th at Dendi and Bapa's, Christmas morning at our house, then back to Grammie and Babo's for Christmas dinner. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but I think it was our best Christmas yet. Our two kids are finally old enough to enjoy the celebration in their own ways, and they had more stamina to enjoy all the festivities.

On the 23rd, the celebrations began. Both kids enjoyed their presents this year (to a point). :) Elijah loved unwrapping and even helped the rest of the family with their packages. On the other hand, Keira was a little unclear on the concept. At first, when we told her it was her turn to open a present she only wanted to open one of Grammie boxes, again and again. She acted like she was playing a "present game" and as she opened the empty box again and again she'd exclaim, "A present... for me!?!" Finally she got in the swing of things a bit, and was very enthusiastic about her Dora doll.




Both kids took a break from watching all the presents by playing with toys. Elijah built his new Lego helicopter, while Keira played with some of Grammie's toys and watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with one of Grammie's baby dolls.




Of course, most importantly, we spent some quality time with our family.

Early Christmas Vacation

Before the holiday festivities began, we spent a lot of time around the house. True to this school year, every day of the vacation one of us was sick. That kept us close to home, often in pajamas and relaxing around the house. Elijah has been bit by the helper bug. He's decided that he wants to help me with as many of my jobs as he can. I think it all started about a month ago when he made himself a waffle while I tended to his grumpy sister. He toasted the waffle, got a place mat, plate, fork, cup of milk and some syrup. Afterwards, he declared that it was a LOT of work. I chuckled and said, now you have a taste of what Mommy does all day! From then on he's decided to try and be more helpful. Such a sweet boy! He likes to help with the laundry, and the next photo shows his interesting technique. :)


Besides helping with laundry, one of the biggest ways he was helpful leading up to the holiday was that he wrapped every single present for the extended family. I helped him a little by cutting the wrapping paper for him and helping when he got stuck, but he did almost all of it by himself. Here he is standing next to a pile of presents that he wrapped.



Other than being extremely helpful, he did fit in time to read (sometimes to Keira), play with his Lego's and play with his sister. Often they just rough house with each other, but one night, Elijah invented an intricate elevator rocket game with the laundry basket.

A Busy Week, Part V -- Class Party

With the help of the grandmas, I was able to chaperone the field trip on Tuesday and help out with the class party on Wednesday. Grammie watched Keira on Tuesday morning, and Dendi took care of her on Wednesday. Thanks! The room mom who ran the class party taught Kindergarten for ten years before staying home with her kids, and you could tell. It went off without a hitch. Having witnessed MANY classroom parties, ran by many room moms I realized just how remarkable this party really was. She started the party by sitting the whole class down and giving them their instructions for rotating through the different stations. Notice the handmade snowman shirts the whole class is wearing for the occassion. The room mom had helped to create these with the kids' own feet dipped in white paint.


I was assigned the "Snowy" table. Snowy was a winter themed BINGO game where the kids used Christmas M&M's as their markers (and snack!) Coincidentally, and fortunately, Elijah's table group was my first group. Here he is with his table group. I LOVED being able to participate in the party and run my own table. It felt good to get back in touch with the teacher within. It was almost like I had forgotten about my teacher self and we had a great time getting reacquainted.


It was, of course, even more special being able to participate in Elijah's party. I'd volunteered in his classroom once before and that first time he kept shooting me crazy looks. When I asked him about it later he said that I sounded funny "pretending to be a teacher." :) While I gave my third group a break from Snowy, to eat their M&M's, I got to watch and photograph Elijah decorating his Gingerbread House.

A Busy Week , Part IV--Field trip

On Tuesday, I had the good fortune to accompany Elijah's class on their field trip to the Legacy Theater to see The Elves and The Shoemaker. I felt very fortunate to be able to attend. It's one of the many reasons I love being able to stay home. I had three kids assigned to me -- Elijah, Alex and Adesola. Alex is in Elijah's reading group and Adesola is one of Elijah's favorite. When I told him we had Adesola in our group, he said, with a huge grin, "I love Adesola!"



Elijah was a little scared of the antagonist in the play, but he definitely enjoyed spending so much time with Adesola. They held hands and played after the show and sat together the whole ride both ways on the bus.



I let Elijah borrow my camera for the return trip on the bus and Elijah and Adesola took great pictures of each other.



After we got back to school, Mrs. Nash wanted to get a picture of all of us in front of the bus. It was many kids' first time riding a school bus (including Elijah!) I also managed to get one more picture of Elijah with his table group once they got back to the classroom.

A Busy Week, Part III -- Elijah's Camera Skills

As if Sunday wasn't busy enough, when the kids and I got home from Jesus' birthday party, Elijah had fun playing with the camera. He took a lot of pictures, these are three of my favorites. He generally does a great job capturing Keira, as she adores him, he's right at her level and she gives him great smiles. He also got me reading a Dora book to her (her recent favorite) and playing "blastoff" with her on my feet.

A Busy Week, Part II -- Church and Jesus' Birthday Party

Our busy week continued on the following day, Sunday December 11th with two activities at church. First, in the morning, we attended the musical church service. It's a tradition each year. During this musical Christmas service, there's a full orchestra, choir and often other music like soloists or the bell choir. In fact, it's so full of music, there isn't even a sermon, which also means it's great for the kids. Keira liked the music, she even sang along,although I think she thought it was a little loud. Elijah LOVED church. Babo patiently pointed out the bulletin to Elijah and how he could follow along with the songs on the monitor. Elijah enjoyed all the reading and singing so much that he didn't even use any of his distractions that I'd packed. In fact, he enjoyed it so much, that he insisted he wants to go every Sunday.



After brunch with Grammie, Babo, Dendi and Bapa, we headed home for our nap. Then, later in the afternoon the kids and I headed back to church, to the youth campus, for Jesus' Birthday Party. The highlight for both kids was the plethora of chocolate to be had.



Elijah also loved the Jumpey Slide. He had a ball jumping around like a mad man and even slid down the slide face first -- Superman Style.

A Busy Week, Part I -- Benjamin's Birthday Party

This week has been an unusually busy week full of parties and the last week of school before Christmas. Our busy week started last Saturday afternoon with our third Kindergarten birthday party. Benjamin's birthday party was held at a local art studio. It was a great venue. The kids created a treasure map, got their faces painted (if they were interested) and painted on a canvas that was decorated with a pirate ship. The party was pirate themed (hence the pirate ship painting) and the kids were encouraged to dress in their pirate best. It gave us another excuse to dress them in their Halloween costumes. They were definitely the most ornately dressed as most kids just had on a bandanna from home. The kids didn't keep their costumes on for long though, in fact we didn't even get a picture of them since the whole party was a fun, messy affair. Both kids loved the coloring, painting and of course the cupcakes.




The only unfortunate part of the party was the timing. It was from one to three in the afternoon -- right during nap time. :( We tried to have an early nap time at about 11:00, but it wasn't very successful. Elijah falls asleep about half of the time, but we still do quiet time every day he's home. It's nice for all of us to have some downtime. While Elijah wasn't affected by the lack of a nap. Keira was a bit of a mess. Truthfully, she's been quite challenging lately. She's whiny, fussy, grumpy and she yells a lot. I think some of it is that she's VERY two, and some of it can be attributed to all the various sicknesses she's had in the last few months. Whatever the cause, Keira and I spent some of the party walking around in the sling outside while she pulled herself together.


After the party, she got over her grumpy spell and we headed to Barnes and Noble. Lately, Ashley Park is one of our favorite weekend outings. We can spend several happy hours playing with the train table and reading books at Barnes and Noble and then often we head to La Parilla for some yummy Mexican food. On that particular Saturday, Keira went to Ashley Park in her full Tinkerbell costume, including light up Tinkerbell shoes. She caused quite a stir. There were lots of appreciative glances, smiles and exclamations of "Oh, she's so cute!"

Baking and Reading Fun

We've done a lot of baking this past month. Along with our usual pumpkin muffins (which I always try to keep a batch of in the freezer) we've also done plenty of seasonal baking, too. We've baked for the Kindergarten bake sale, for Scott's Secret Santa, to break in a new sugar cookie recipe and try out our cookie cutters. The kids both like to help bake. Scott made a brilliant discovery a few months back. While the kids want to be helpful, mostly they just want to play. So, after they're done calmly helping us, we set them up with some dry ingredients and let them measure, scoop and pour to their hearts' content. While Elijah does actually help quite a bit with baking, Keira mostly plays. Here's our girl getting her flour on.





While Keira can spend tons of time "baking" Elijah loves to spend his time reading. His new passion is "Magic Tree House Books." Scott got him started on them last month. Scott's intention was to find books that were over Elijah's reading level so he could read them to Elijah each night before bed. True to form, our driven boy has decided he needs to read them himself. At first, the pace was a little excruciating, but now, after finishing eight books, he needs almost no help. It's hard to say no to him when all he wants is to cuddle up somewhere and read to you.

Thanksgiving Break, Part II -- Trimming the Tree

Unfortunately, after a promising start, we spent a lot of Thanksgiving vacation being sick. As of Thanksgiving morning, both kids had the stomach flu. Needless to say, we missed Thanksgiving dinner at the Summervilles. But, we made the best of it, and enjoyed a quiet turkey dinner at home instead. By Friday night I started getting sick, too. Fortunately, during a brief, relatively healthy hiatus early Friday we were able to get out and decorate the Christmas Tree. Decorating the tree is always one of my favorite parts of the season. This year was even more special since we had two helpers, as Keira was finally old enough to help substantially.



* A little side note on Keira's hair...
As you can see from these last two pictures, we got Keira's hair cut. I took her and Eli to get their hair cut at the beginning of November. Her hair was becoming more of a problem than it was worth, and we were having daily battles just to keep it brushed and out of her face. I decided it would be much saner for both for both of us to cut it into a more manageable style until she wanted long hair or would put up with the requisite maintenance. I'm so glad we got it cut! Our days are much more peaceful now without our hair woes. Although, getting it cut was very interesting. Keira does not like the hair cutting place because she's not a fan of the hair clippers or hair dryers -- she doesn't like the noise. After she went absolutely rigid and screaming when I tried to sit her in the little train seat, the stylist said I could try holding her. I did. It was fairly successful for a first try, but it took me close to a week of clipping a little hair here and there before it was basically even and looked like a hair cut.

Now back to trimming the tree...
This year Elijah helped by hanging ornaments, but he also helped in a new way. For a lot of the process, he assisted and supervised his sister. He'd attach the hooks for her, hand her the ornaments and help to guide her when she was hanging them on the tree. He would gently coax her by saying, "Good job, sweet girl." He is so unbelievably sweet and patient with her. :)


After the tree was decorated, we stopped to have some silly cuddle time. Scott did a great job taking a few pictures of me with my babies.