A Few Strange Weeks and More Christmas Pics

As the title stated, it's been a few strange weeks. Scott went back to school for a week, then we had a whole snow week. The snow days were unexpected, wonderful and surreal. We baked a lot, played a lot, and just enjoyed each others' company. Then, Eli went back to school, begrudgingly, and it all seemed to be going back to normal... Until, last Thursday night, Keira was up all night throwing up. When I say all night, I mean, ALL NIGHT. She did let me sleep for an hour twice, but most of the time she was up puking or dry heaving every fifteen minutes. Not fun. I came down with the plague on Saturday and Scottie followed suit in the wee hours of Sunday morning. We thought Eli escaped, unscathed, but he finally came down with a mild form of the stomach flu, a few days ago. Now the kids and I have cabin fever, and I'm looking forward to returning to normalcy soon. Again, I'm so thankful to live in our new beautiful house, where being cooped up isn't so bad and the playroom remains an amazing asset. I'm also thankful to live in our new neighborhood -- Keira and I spent a relatively mild evening in a neighbor's backyard enjoying their swing set and sandbox. All of this excitment in the last few weeks has meant once again I'm woefully behind on the blog. All I can do, is plug away...

And, now back to catching up on Christmas...

On Christmas Eve, we spent a mellow day unpacking and playing with new presents. Then, at 5:00 we attended the children's service at church. Both kids enjoyed their first church service in a while and were extremely well-behaved. The service was chock full of great holiday music. Heavy on the music, light on the talking and sermons -- perfect for the kids. After watching the Angel Choir (three to five year olds) perform, Eli has decided to join. When I was putting her to sleep on Christmas Eve, Keira kept popping up and talking to me about her day, she said, "Keira dong (song), Mommy dong, Grammie dong."

I responded, "Yes, Keira, Mommy, Grammie, Eli and Daddy went to church and sang lots of songs. Did you like church?" She nodded an emphatic yes.

We woke up the next morning to an exciting Christmas morning where for the first time we had two kids interested in the stockings and presents -- so much fun.

Christmas at Grammie and Babo's

Our official Christmas festivities started on the evening of December 23rd at Grammie and Babo's house. We got together with the fam for family time, party food and to exchange gifts. A good time was had by all -- it's always so special getting time with everyone around the holidays.

The kids started the evening on the couch with us, but right after opening their first gifts they retreated to happily playing instead. Eli's drill set was a hit with both kids.



While the kids were happily occupied, it gave the adults a chance to talk and open a few gifts. Here are a few pictures of my beautiful siblings and their wonderful significant others.




Finally, after playing for a while, Eli and Keira got back into the action of opening presents, giving thank you kisses and spending some quality time with the family.

Another Close Encounter with Santa

Elijah saw Santa one more time with Grammie at The Birthday Party for Jesus at church. Eli wasted no time eating a piece of the birthday cake. It was the main reason he wanted to attend. In fact, Grammie said that Eli was by far the first person to eat cake. :)


A first for Eli was getting his face painted. He likes to play around with face paint at home, and doesn't mind me painting his face, but he was never interested in waiting in a long line to have a stranger paint his face. But, with Grammie he went for it, and got a snowman painted on his face.


And, of course, Grammie took advantage of some photo ops near the Christmas tree. Like daughter like mother! :)




Finally, the most exciting highlight of the afternoon was Eli's close encounter with Santa. It was the closest he's ever voluntarily been to the jolly old guy, and the closest since a disastrous photo shoot when Eli was just eight months old. Even so, he still didn't sit on Santa's lap, but he did tell him what he wanted for Christmas and he took his goody bag out of Santa's hand. That's progress!

Eli's Christmas Program

Eli attended a short, two week session of school before getting off for a four week Christmas break. He starts back to school this Tuesday. On his last day, he and his class performed once again for us. This time, there was no guest starring by Keira, and Eli did a great job. He sang an especially exuberant rendition of Jingle Bells complete with a joyful "Hey" after each verse. They also sang a Christmas song about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas, hence the Hippo masks.




Then, the four year olds played a song for us on the bells, which was a little hard to pick out, but adorable nonetheless.


Finally, to round out the celebration, they had a special visitor from the North Pole. Not surprisingly, my two had no interest in sitting on St. Nick's lap, but they did get close enough to listen to his story.



As usual, Keira loved her visit to Eli's school. She smiled, flirted and generally ate up all the attention of the teens who kept saying how cute she was.

And the Christmas Festivities Began...

The day after Thanksgiving, we officially kicked off our Christmas season by putting up our Christmas tree. I found that was one of my favorite parts of the holiday season this year -- sharing holiday traditions and memories with Eli. I loved putting up the Christmas tree with him and looking over all the ornaments.




Seana was feeling a little under the weather on Thanksgiving. When she was feeling better the next day, we invited her and Josh over to spend some holiday time at our house. It was the first time they saw our new house. We had a great time, and Seana got to spend some quality time with her neice and nephew.



After spending time playing with her aunt, Keira decided to spend some quality time with another one of her favorites -- spaghetti.


Later that weekend, Eli and I baked pumpkin muffins. Baking is one of my favorite things to do through the holiday season (or any time, for that matter). Eli and I used to bake all the time before Keira was born, so it's always nice to bake with my boy again! Our new kitchen, and massive island makes it all the more joyful. *Notice the face paint on Eli in this picture. :)

Thanksgiving at the Summervilles

We enjoyed a very successful meal and evening at the Summerville's on Thanksgiving. We only visit the Summervilles house once a year, and since there are usually about twenty people around, one or both of the kids in the past has been overwhelmed or crying for much of the night. This time was wonderfully different. There were periods of the evening where I didn't have either of the kids clinging to me and I felt like a new woman. It was so fun watching the kids warm up and really loving everyone's company. Of course, the kids enjoyed hanging out in their usual ways and with their typical favorites -- Eli played a block hiding game with Uncle Brian and Ms. Kathryn, and got some love from Daddy. While Keira played with her bee toys from home with Babo looking on. She also had a ball running between her two grandmas and being generally silly and crazy.







Maybe even more exciting, the kids warmed up to "new" faces this Thanksgiving, too. One of the highlights of the evening for Eli was playing with Ms. Trish. He told me afterwards that he "loves Ms. Trish." They had a great time building with blocks and playing a "guess what" picture game with a camera.


Keira made her own new friend in Mr. John. She brought over and handed him almost a couch full of blocks to his delight.


I think most fun for me was seeing my kids through other people's eyes. It's so easy to get caught up in all the little details of parenting and not really enjoy them for who they are.

CDC Thanksgiving Program

On November 17, Elijah's preschool put on a wonderful Thanksgiving program. Little did they know, they would have a surprise guest appearance! All I knew going into the program was that Eli was a pilgrim. I was tickled to see that he was the "head" of the pilgrims leading the boat out to the middle of the carpet. After he handed off the ship, he snuck over to Keira and I (we were right in front) to give Keira a hug before he got back to the action.



Well, it was all Keira needed. I guess she thought it was an invitation, or she got jealous. In the program, the pilgrims and Native Americans started hugging and after Eli started hugging his favorite little two year old girl, Keira was wriggling out of my lap. Before I knew it she was hugging Eli, too. In this picture you can see Eli hugging Keira in the left hand side of the picture, and his favorite two year old Avani is in the right side of the picture.


I debated jumping up onto the "stage" and grabbing Keira but I realized that I would cause more of a disturbance once she started howling. Also, I don't know how many parents even noticed. Throughout the performance, many of the kids were floating off the stage and into their parents' arms and back up into the action again. I decided to wait it until there was a little break in the program. But, Keira was definitely in her element. She beamed, smiled and clapped.





Eli did a great job of gently directing and herding her. I think in a way, it made it even more special for him to share his moment with her. He's such an amazing big brother.


After a few minutes, and lots of laughter from me and Dendi, the dramatic part of the performance finished, and they regathered to sing. Which gave me a chance to grab Keira. Then, all the preschoolers (at least those actually enrolled!) sang "I'm a Little Turkey." After the song, I got a quick picture with my two little performers.



After the show, we all headed down the hall for a potluck Thanksgiving feast. The room was decorated adorably with the kids' art. Here's a picture of Eli's pilgrim and Eli and Keira sitting at the kids' table for the feast.