'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

As soon as I told her she should dress fancy for church tonight, she tore off her "plain" clothes and went straight to her dress up box to put on her "Irish Princess" crown (and of course we had to add a necklace and bracelet).

Making "Elf treats" for Santa's elves

Sprinking Reindeer food on the lawn.

It would probably look prettier on top of snow, but most of it melted.

Christmas Eve tradition

Milk and cookies for Santa (and snacks for the elves).

Christmas-y things

Even though I have a list of at least ten different things I want to write about here, I just realized that it's less than a week until Christmas and I haven't said a thing about the 856 Christmas activities we've done. And since it is the season I feel obligated to share at least a few of the things we've done relating to the holiday. Because we have been having fun getting ready for the big day.

Kaelyn talked to Santa for the first time ever. I'm not one to take my kids to the mall and pay $50 for a picture of my kids screaming and crying with a fake Santa.  And any time we've had the opportunity to see Santa for free in the past 4 years Kaelyn has not at all been interested. I don't blame her. In fact, I've always been a little glad that she doesn't happily go running into a strange man's lap.  However, when the opportunity came after her preschool Christmas program I thought we'd give it a shot. She was still a little nervous and hesitant.  At first she wouldn't get closer than a foot away and would only whisper.

But with a little encouragement she finally sat on his lap and told him what she wanted this year. A bike, by the way. And I've been coaching her on that for the past four months so she wouldn't expect anything more. (And Brennan is asking for tricycle since he always wants to ride Kaelyn's but Mama and Dada aren't so sure we want him riding only a pink trike for the next couple years. He does deserve to have a few things that aren't girly hand-me-downs.)

Brennan had no interest in seeing Santa so we didn't push it. But he does respond with a big "Ho! Ho! Ho!" every time he sees a picture of Santa, toy Santa or Santa on tv.

He does however, have a lot of interest in a certain little thing under the tree. And it's not any of the pretty packages waiting to be opened.

He could seriously watch the "choo-choo" for hours and still be happy. The expression on his face when Dada first set it up was priceless. Makes me glad I told Maya to pick up that train set for him at IKEA a couple months ago. It could very likely be his favorite thing about Christmas.

He's had a fascination with trains for awhile. We usually hang out around downtown Franklin when Kaelyn is in school and he loves when we are near the tracks at about 10:45 when the train comes by. Luckily we can see it from the community center track where we like to go walking on chilly days. We can even faintly hear the train from our house if it's quiet enough inside. He still gets excited every time he hears it even though he can't see it. He loves this "choo-choo" so much we have resorted to using it as a bribe to get him to do things. In fact, that's how I got him in his pajamas tonight.

Whatever are we going to do when Christmas is over and we have to pack the train up for next year?

A letter to my children

My dearest children,

My wish for you is that you will love each other this way always.

Even amidst fights over toys and the ever constant battle of sharing and taking turns during childhood,

after the teasing of adolescence,

arguments about who's the favorite or who gets treated unfairly, 
and the teenage battles over phones and cars and who spends too much time in the bathroom...

I hope you remember how you loved to cuddle with each other and make each other laugh. How you would hug first thing in the morning. How Brennan would follow his big sister around and try to copy everything she did because he wanted so much to be just like her. And how Kaelyn would take care of her baby brother and try to protect him around other bigger kids.

I hope you will love each other like this always.

Please don't ever forget to treat each other kindly, to celebrate the uniqueness of each other or to just give each other hug even if you are mad at the other for not sharing a toy, or the phone, or the bathroom.

In the words of Kaelyn, "I love you, I love you, I always love you!"

Love,
Your Mama

Muscle Man

Bren has been doing the cutest thing lately when you ask to see his muscles. The video doesn't quite do it justice, but you'll get the idea.

Big muscles!

A tragic day. Almost.

Kaelyn has had Bun-Bun since right after she was born. And from about 6 months old the two were practically attached at the hip. She hasn't gone a night without him. We've had few close calls in the past, like the time I spent an hour retracing our steps multiple times at Target and even checked with the Service Desk. I was pretty sure, and more than a little scared, that we were going to have to go home without him when I got a call as I was loading Kaelyn in the car that they found him at the Pharmacy. Phew! For awhile she wasn't allowed to take him out of the house. She could bring any other "friend" but Bun-Bun had to stay home.

Kaelyn, about 2 months old. I thought Bun-Bun was the cutest lovey so I was always putting him next to her in her bouncer.

She's older and more responsible now so she's allowed to take him out once in a while. But the other night poor Bunny almost lost his head. Kaelyn and Dada were playing one of their silly games when it happened. Kaelyn didn't get quite upset as I thought she did. But I immediately got out the sewing kit and went to work. His head was hanging on by a thread.  Coincidentally, we had just watched Toy Story 2 where Woody loses his arm.

Expert sewer I am not. But I did manage to reattach Bun-Bun's head. However, Kaelyn noticed that there was still a gap (where you could see what color he was originally) and some loose strings. So the needle and thread came back out the next night. This time I double sewed and pulled all the strings tight to make sure they weren't showing. Still not perfect but it should hold for awhile at least. Fingers crossed.

I really don't know what we'd do if we ever lost him. I might actually be more sad than Kaelyn. He's been such a big part of her life so far!

Thankful,part 2

I may be a little late to the game and the Thanksgiving stuff, but that really shouldn't surprise any of you.

So, here's a list of a few of things I have to be thankful for (which also happen to highlight our visit to Wisconsin last week).

Tiny clip-on ties that make B look extra handsome and goldfish that keep him happy during wedding ceremonies,

wide open floors for running and dancing,

a little boy who finallly fell asleep and lots of willing family to hold him,

a beautiful November day,

cuddly kids,

the joy on my kids faces from colorful lights, Christmas music and trucks at the Christmas parade and a kind stranger who let us park in his driveway,

bowling alleys,

watching the kids play games together,

Ok, there may have been a little pouting involved but at least she looked cute doing it.

an undefeated Irish season,

Cheers!!!

and of course, a wonderful family who love and support us and who can be pretty fun to hang out with too (including those not pictured - the Schmidt and Cusati bunch).

I'm amazed that with one shot everyone is actually looking at the camera and smiling!

I'm thankful for...

Dancing...

And...

To be continued...

Nana's Birthday Party

And finally, the whole reason we went to Georgia was to celebrate a very special birthday for Nana!

Unfortunately the birthday celebration didn't get off to the greatest start when the night we were supposed to go out for a nice dinner the Notre Dame football team decided to go into triple overtime and dinner out turned into takeout. Fortunately, the food was still delicious. And the Irish pulled out a win.

And we still got to celebrate Nana on Sunday with a beautiful day and a fun family cookout.

Kaelyn trying to play badminton with the other kids

Brennan doing his own thing

I actually think there were at least 3 different sports being played on the badminton court at the same time.

Playing bocci.

Kaelyn's first attempt at bocci. "Just take it!"

A cranky Brennan stealing the bocci balls.

And the palina.

Nana cheering up Brennan after he was removed from the bocci game.

Girls bonding over an iPad.

We also celebrated on Nana's real birthday. We relieved Nana from cooking duties and tried to give her a delicious birthday dinner followed by ice cream cake. Can you guess what the kids favorite part was?

Lighting the candles for Nana

Patiently waiting to dig in while we sung "Happy Birthday."

And we ended the night with a bedtime story with Care-Care.

 

Actually, that's how the kids ended the night. The rest of us continued to celebrate. And waited to hear from Matt who was waiting at the airport to see if his plane was going to take off so he could to get back to Indy for a work function. And then we ended up driving to the airport to pick Matt up 2 hours after he was dropped off. I think we were all glad that he got to come back and finish the night with us even though he had to go through the headache of airport delays and driving back and forth to the airport.

Hope you had a great birthday Nana!