Christmas 2012

What an amazing holiday! The holidays become magical with little kids around. I would love to write a lot more about it, but I"m only working 2 days this week & really have no business taking time to update the blog, but I just spent 4 hours solid on nonstop invoicing so my brain needs a break.

We kicked off this year's celebration with the Conyers Christmas. Due to work schedules, we celebrated on Christmas Eve Eve. I spent all day the day before making my homemade 3 cheese, 2 meat lasagna & a cherry pie. I guess no matter where I go I can't help but play host. We celebrated at Brandon's cousin's house. She just moved to a farm house out in the country & it reminded me so much of being home down south for the holidays. She had a wood stove that heated the house, a pet bunny rabbit and a barn full of horses. Abby had a great time playing with her cousin in the country! She got to ride a full size horse, by herself. And she was not scared at all. She's a natural. She kept begging to ride the horse again & again.

The lasagna was a huge success & there were zero leftovers. Sad face :( 

On Christmas Eve, Brandon had to work, so Nana came over and we baked all day. I recently won a pecan pie contest (no big deal...) and my grand prize was a spritz cookie gun. So we baked about 4 dozen spritz cookies and another one of my award winning pies. By we I mean me, while Nana & Abby played & sampled the cookie dough. 

I made Abby chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast

Abby was proud of the cookies, and selected 10 of her favorites for Santa & Rouldolph, and tried her best to take down the rest on her own. I kept catching her with a fistfull of cookies. Little stinker!

Christmas Eve night was my favorite. All 4 of us (inculding Brandon, not Nana) snuggled on the couch with popcorn and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Brooklyn passed out on the couch, Abby went a bit nuts at bedtime & kept hearing things "I think I hear Santa" "I think I hear Roudolph" I think I hear your dad assembling a dollhouse downstairs so no way in heck are you going downstairs to see if it's really Santa!  Then she needed to find her flashlight so she could go outside & see our chimney. How does a 3 year old even come up with these things!?

Once she was finally asleep in her bed, I went downstairs, poured a glass of wine & Brandon and I assembled the biggest dollhouse ever, an art easle, and a baby walker. Then we spent an additional 30 minutes just arranging things. Brandon said it gives a better effect to pull all the presents out from under the tree, then we kept moving the big gifts trying to make the best display possible. Possibly not normal, but that's just the amount of effort we put forth for our children on Christmas. They're lucky. We're modest.

This was the final product, complete with the Yule Log channel.

Now, our children are complete opposites & I'm pretty sure it's some cosmic joke on Brandon & I so that we never get enough sleep. Brooklyn likes to go to bed early & wake up around 5:30am, Abby likes to stay up later & sleep in. Brooklyn had no idea it was Christmas & Santa had come but still woke up at some obnoxious hour on Christmas morning. And since it was Christmas, I couldn't take her downstairs without her sister. So, I did the most ridiculous thing ever & woke my kid up before she was ready on Christmas. Poor Abby was so tired (probably stayed in her bed listening for Santa until the wee hours) that I told her Santa had come & we should go downtairs & open presents, but she looked up at me with half opened eyes & said, "I'm not done sleeping. We'll go open presents after I'm done with my sleep."

Poor kid. Being the nice, sensitive parents that we are, we went ahead and sang "DECK THE HALLS" at the top of our lungs & threatened to give Brooklyn all of Abby's Christmas gifts if she didn't wake up & go downstairs to claim them. That worked.

Opening present from Gigi & Grandpa B.

Opening presents is overwhelming when you are 3 & 10 months old, so both girls paused in the middle of opening to play with their toys. Note Abby is wearing her new pink snow boots while playing.

Both girls played with each other's toys more than their own at first. Not sure if it's just the idea that something isn't hers that makes her want to play with it more, but Abby has been taking over Brooklyn's Christmas gifts. And Brooklyn is quite a big fan of Abby's art easel. Oh well, at least they're sharing.

Nana & Dadoo came over for Christmas brunch and we had round 2 of opening presents. Brooklyn got some awesome stuff, but by far the highlight of Christmas was the guitar Dadoo got for Abigail. She's been playing it nonstop ever since. She's mimicking Dadoo by tapping her foot as she plays, and she sits on this little princess stool from a toy Nana got her while she puts on concerts. I know I'm biased, but I think it's incredibly impressive that she can make up songs as she goes. Even more impressive is that she actually sang this tunnel song to me later that same day & remembered most of it as she had sang it the first time!

Since it's a bit hard to understand her singing voice, especially with the giggling in the background, here's the lyrics as best I could understand them. Not that they make any sense, but it's pretty funny!

Everybody plays with me in Brooklyn's tunnel

Everybody plays with Everybody's tunnel

I'm singing a silly song

I'm singing a silly song

Everybody plays with my mommy and daddy and Nana in Brooklyn and Abby's tunnel

And my chicken plays it too!

I don't know why?

I got too much toys

That's a box we have here

I got too much toys

I got too much toys

And Romie is on the couch you see

Looking (something made up here)

Nana's poking things

So she pokes fingers

Abby pokes mommy's feet

ow ow ow ow ow

Mommy touched the wall

And I touched daycare I'm too small to touch the sun

Cause it's up high and in the sky and it's flyin'

And it's breaking

After brunch, we went to Theresa's house for Christmas dinner and Grandma Boo Boo (Brandon's mom) had Christmas with us there. I have to say it was a lovely visit & she gave age-appropriate gifts to Abigail for the first time ever. She gave Abby a Big Wheels which I had to attempt to assemble the next day since Brandon was working & I wasn't. Let me say, that was a load of crap! The most labor intensive toy EVER. And once I finally got it assembled, 2 hours later? It was raining so Abby couldn't even ride it. 

So after 6 days at home with my girls I'm back at work today. It was great family time and an awesome Christmas for the kids. But I am kind of glad it's over. All that celebrating was somewhat exhausting.