A Nice Holiday

Well, Santa didn't bring me a new job or more sleep, but we still had a very nice Christmas.

I have no complaints about the holiday season that is now coming to an end. I wouldn't mind a few more days of it, but that part isn't up to me. ;-)

I did start it with a little anxiety. I was very excited for this year because I knew Heather would be into it and love her presents, and I thought it was likely that Todd would do great as well. There was a lot to look forward to and each time I heard about someone else getting the tummy bug going around it gave me a little bit of dread. I've been sick over the holidays before and I didn't want the kids to deal with that. (Really, I hope they never have to deal with it, but especially at the holidays.). Thankfully we were spared (at least for now, knock on wood) and all of our plans were fulfilled without a hitch.

Getting Todd to nap anywhere other than my arms or the car has been a struggle, but as he doesn't get nearly as cranky as Heather did without a nap, we just kind of roll with it and try to get him some kind of downtime. We managed one long car ride after lunch, and a couple of times I just held him so he would get some sleep. Not ideal, but thanks to my iPhone it is slightly less annoying than it would be without it!

The highlight of Heather's Christmas was definitely her Woody and Jesse dolls with pull strings (from Toy Story). She found them first under the tree and had to be coerced to open anything else after half an hour of playing with them...in the next room. There were other things she liked and she did let us do stockings first, but I knew that Woody and Jesse would be king and queen of Christmas for her. Santa did such a good job on her stocking that she commented that he 'knows me very well' and 'he is smart'. It was a lovely day at home with my parents and some of us never got out of our pjs!

Todd enjoyed many gifts. The remote control train, the tool bench and several vehicles have maintained his interest. I have to say that both kids enjoy presents that the other received. There have been a few difficult toy moments, but most of the time they do a decent job of taking turns and sharing. It helps that Todd's attention span is short, so he is usually done with a toy before his allotted number of minutes is up. And when Heather challenges Todd's use of something, I think it is more about her plans at that moment and not about being possessive. If her current game involves Woody *and* Jesse, for example, then she can't deal with Todd using one of them at that time. But if she's just playing with Woody, she'll practically beg Todd to play with Jesse.

We also had nice visits in Johnstown and Dayton. Including some snow play at Grandma and Grandpa's, lots of fun presents (many Toy Story or vehicle themed), visits with family friends and the joy of sharing our excellent pictures of the kids by Seedlings Photography with family. Once home, we had both planned and spontaneous get togethers with neighborhood friends and two terrific New Year's day parties to attend.

To top it all off, my circle of friends was blessed with two precious arrivals that I can't wait to meet. I worked a little on the refurbishment of their dresser before Christmas and I hope to help finish some of the preparations in the coming weeks. I guess I need to finish knitting their sweaters. :-P

I hope that your holidays were wonderful as well!

November Recap 2

Children's Museum

The next weekend my parents came to visit, and we decided to take the opportunity to visit the Children's Museum. It was a big hit with all of us. We started upstairs in the waterplay area.

Playing in the water pipe area.

Putting water from the pond into the watermill.
Putting water from the pond into another cup. (Despite her serious look, she was having a great time. She was just concentrating hard!)

Looking for the next toy to play with. She tried out a number of different boats and would have been happy with more sailboats.

When we moved down to the infant/toddler play floor Heather enjoyed the trains.
And she liked watching the fishes like she does at school.


It was a lovely day at the museum capped off by lunch and a quick visit with The Boss' mommy in the art studio where she was teaching knitting.

Meeting Karla

Last weekend, we finally got to do what we've been waiting to do for a long time. We got to have our first playdate and dinner with Karla! The girls were a little wary at first, but after some play time with the parents and a yummy dinner, it was time for some dancing!


And then it was time to play with Play-doh.


Snow

We haven't had a ton of snow yet, but there has been a little here and there. Enough to break our Heather's new winter coat and order her a snowsuit (not pictured) which is a little big but will keep her nice a warm when we go out to play in the snow to burn off toddler energy.

Thanksgiving

This weekend we had a nice Thanksgiving and mini-vacation. After watching some of the Macy's parade, we headed to R's parents' house for Thanksgiving. The house was more full of canines than usual since SIL and BIL both brought their young chihuahuas and SIL brought her terrier, too. The smaller chihuahua crawled on Heather's lap and made her giggle.

Friday we enjoyed a slow morning and Heather took a long nap, so I worked on cleaning up the house. Despite Heather's short nap on Saturday, I manged to get enough done that R could put the tree up that evening.

Today we attended little EJ's first birthday party. It was a lovely fiesta, although it took Heather a little while to understand that those newly unwrapped presents weren't hers. :-)

Zoo Playdate

Heather and I met up with Amanda & Eleni, Jen & Finn, Annie & Marcus & William, and Cara & Max & Andrew (whew!) at the zoo on Friday. I wish I had more vacation days to take for play dates, but I suppose we have to spend some vacation time with daddy, too. :-)

It was hot, but the breeze was nice and we all survived. Lots of water, lots of sunscreen and the knowledge that we moms could shower as soon as the kids went down for a nap.

Not too many pictures of Heather with the animals since this was my view most of the day.

We got there a little early and the carousel wasn't open yet, but we waited patiently.


Max wasn't really sure about this play date idea.

Hanging out by the lion den.


Checking out the fish


A rare photo of two toddlers standing still...for just a moment... (when did Finn get so big?)


Plotting her escape


EJ stands up just like the toddlers. :-)


It was an exhausting day

Social weekend - Friday

I took the day off on Friday to prepare for our trip to visit family over the weekend. Since we wanted to have a low key day at home and I wasn't going to get any packing done outside of Heather's nap, we decided to invite a friend over for a playdate.



This was our first one on one playdate with The Boss and we both had a lovely time. A snack, a trip to the playground and then a ladies lunch at our local coffee shop.

Heather's afternoon nap wasn't quite as long as I had hoped, but I manged to get most of the packing done and finished the rest while she toddled around the first floor. We headed outside to expend a little more energy before getting trapped in the car all evening and found a neighbor who was doing some planting. After some initial clinginess, Heather decided to 'help'.



After 90 minutes on the road we stopped for some dinner at Bob Evans. Heather ate so much and so quickly the other patrons might have thought that we have been starving her. Another favorite restaurant activity is playing with the straw instead of drinking the milk through it.

A day at the zoo

Heather and I met Annie, Marcus, Cara and Max at the zoo today. (The hilarious part of going is that it takes longer to get us in and out of the car than it takes to drive over there...)

We had a lovely time, although Heather did nap quite a bit. She was asleep by the time we got to the lions...
She was not interested in seeing them from another side, either.
She was not impressed by the elephants.
She woke up a little bit in the monkey house (might have been the smell), but the nap she had just finished didn't keep her from yawning at them.
After lunch, she fell asleep again in the aquarium. Hopefully this turtle didn't feel snubbed.

(Note: I attempted a similar shot by the penguins, but there were too many enthusiastic children running around for me to get a good picture safely)


Halfway through the aquarium, Heather wasn't the only one asleep. All three strollers contained sleeping children. :-)
The outside air seemed to revive Heather a little. The polar bears were very cute and pretty active. But there is that yawn again... (you'd think we never let her sleep!)
Next was the white-tailed deer habitat. She must like them since she's awake and not yawning...

By the end of the day it was so warm that we were able to remove all sweaters, hats and blankets! Lovely sun!