The Magic of Christmas

Before you have children, people tell you life is more fun with kids. Four thousand poopy diapers into the process, you begin to wonder if you were sold a bill of goods. And then Christmas comes along. There are few things more fun in life than a preschooler on Christmas day who has been asking every day since the first snow, "Is it Christmas yet?". Well, today the answer was finally yes.

On Christmas Eve, we read the Christmas Story. It went fairly well. I am amazed at how attentive my small children were through the accounts of Christ's birth in both the new and old worlds.


After that, we started a new tradition. We decided to give the girls new pajamas on Christmas Eve, thus serving the two fold purpose of 1) Giving them something to open that they can use immediately instead of handing them a toy and then saying "Go to bed. You can play with it tomorrow". And, 2)Giving them something to wear that won't look ratty and gross in the Christmas morning pictures. That's the background behind this lively video:



I don't believe there has ever been a human being so excited about a pair of clearance pajamas ever in the history of the world. Jane cleverly used the distraction to steal Emily's sippy, thus resulting in an off-camera fight.

Christmas morning was almost more excitement than Emily could stand. As soon as she saw her castle she exclaimed, "Oh! I wished for a castle!". Perhaps she watches too many princess movies.

Jane just went with the flow - enjoying her own gifts and carefully choosing her moments to help herself to Emily's gifts. And then helping those gifts into her mouth.

It was a wonderful Christmas. Someday I will look back and miss Christmas with small children. And then I will rejoice in the knowledge that my poopy diaper days are over.

The Big One

Yesterday, Jane turned 1. Everyone keeps telling me how they can't believe how quickly time flew. I always just smile and say "yeah, where does that time go?", but really I'm thinking "Seriously, it's only been a year? It feels like it's been 20 years". But that's one of those things you don't really say in polite conversation.

Here's how Jane looked a year ago:

And here's how she looks now:

It's amazing to see how much she has changed. A year ago she was just a screaming lump. Now she is a happy, mischievous girl that laughs all the time and calls anything with a face "baby". We are so blessed to have her in our lives.

Jane has the dubious honor of having quadrupled her birth weight by 1 year of age. As much as my arms and neck and legs ache from hauling her around, I am much happier with her entering this flu season at 23 pounds than I was at her entering last season at 5 pounds, 12 ounces.

We kept Jane's first birthday pretty low-key. We ate her favorites for dinner - hot dogs and mac and cheese. You don't have to eat vegetables on your birthday.

This was followed by presents

And cake

And then a very necessary bath.

Yay for Jane!
Yay for birthdays!
Yay for whole milk, honey and forward facing carseats!
How time flies!

O Christmas Tree

For future reference: December 5th is a bit late to get a fresh Christmas tree. But through perseverance and a bit of luck, Christmas was saved by the firefighter's Christmas tree sale which had just started a couple days earlier. Not only did we get a beautiful tree, the proceeds went to a local charity.

Last night for Family Home Evening, we decorated our tree and I successfully resisted the desire to spread out some of Emily's ornament clusters.

While we decorated, Jane practiced her stair climbing skills. She still doesn't walk, or crawl with her tummy off the ground but she has figured out the stairs, thus making her a danger to herself which is, I believe, exactly what she intended.
Sorry about the picture. I think I had the camera on Bigfoot Capture mode.