Christmas and the New Year

Before I forget about everything that happened over the Holidays, I thought I should jump on here and make a post. We had a really fun, nice, and safe Christmas and New Years. This year for Christmas Eve we had a pretty quiet evening. I roasted a chicken that I had brined with one of Jonathan's famous turkey brines since we forgot to do one for Thanksgiving this year. The chicken was very moist and yummy. We invited my parents over for our little feast and it was nice to actually have other people in our little space. Emily thought that the stuffing was the best part of the dinner - she was scooping it up into her mouth with both fists as quickly as she could. After dinner we had the girls open one of their presents. Then we said good-bye to Grandma and Grandpa and tucked the girls into the car and drove around looking at Christmas lights. Gwen fell asleep faster than Emily did. Jonathan and I stayed up late watching TV together.

Christmas morning Gwen woke up early - how can a three-year-old who can't tell time know to wake up early because it's Christmas? She came into our room and asked if Santa had come yet. We all went downstairs together and opened the rest of our presents. Gwen got a few princess barbies and princess movies. I love that Gwen was so excited that the reindeers had eaten some of our carrots and Santa had some hot cocoa while he was dropping off her presents. Emily, of course, didn't really know what was going on but loved playing with the paper. She also loves crawling around with her hands on books or dvd cases so her hands slide and she can crawl really fast because she doesn't have to pick up her hands. She's really clever like that. These days she's really into walking and has found out that she can push around some of her toys and use them as walkers so she can get around the house. She'll be walking on her own before I know it.

Christmas afternoon we packed up and went over to my parents' house for brunch. While we were there, Jonathan's mom and step-dad stopped by to spoil the girls. Gwen got a princess tea set from them that she adores. She loves to make us pretend to drink out of her little pink cups. My sisters and their families came over for dinner and we all got to spend time together playing Beatles Rock Band until late (9:30-ish hey that's late when you have little kids). It was such a fun Christmas. I swear that each Christmas gets funner as my kids get bigger. The very best present was season passes to Lagoon from my parents. That means that I get a whole summer of spending time with my fun mom, sisters and nieces and nephews. I am so excited for that. I'm also very excited for our other big present - a trip to Disneyland over spring break. I can't even think about it too much or I get really distracted.

Between Christmas and New Years I got to spend an evening with some of my high school and after friends. I love spending time with them, not only because I'm really beginning to value any time spent with people not as into Dora the Explorer as Gwen, but because they've known me for such a long time and we have little inside jokes that are so comfortable and familiar.

For New Year's Eve we went to my parents' house again. They got an amazing big screen TV and sound system so everyone will be spending more time there in days to come. Some of my sisters and their kids came and we had a New Year's countdown at 9:00 - remember that's super late for little kids and then Gwen, Noah (4), and Sam (4) had a sleepover in Grandma's front room. It was Gwen's first sleepover and first time sleeping away from us. I was nervous for her but after kissing her goodnight and offering to stay a little longer my sweet little Gwen looked me right in the eye and said "I want you to leave right now, Mommy." It was pretty obvious that she wasn't as reluctant about this new adventure as I was. The next morning when I came to pick her up I learned that she's not as well behaved as I had believed. Apparently, she's a bit of a goof and kept the other two kids up until almost midnight with her antics. She'd make herself burp and then giggle loudly, she's climb into her sleeping bag head first and then laugh, and she made monster noises to scare her older cousins. I still am a bit amazed that she's big enough to have a sleepover. Really I think it's a bigger deal to me than to her. Hopefully, her aunt's will still want her to spend the night on the rare instance after reading this post.