My poor, poor neglected blog... It seems three children have gotten the best of me these days! Since it's officially already 2013 (ack!), here's a little holiday recap to set things straight and start the new year off right.
Jonathan's parents were good enough to fly in the night of December 18th in order to spend the Christmas holidays with us, but as luck would have it, Lucy was still in school until that Friday. Wednesday Zach and Grandma and Grandpa Cardon surprised Lucy for lunch at her school cafeteria and that night we took Lucy and Zach to our gym's Christmas party where they got to meet Santa. Both my kids were SO brave- which was expected from Lucy, but you never know with our homebody Zach. He told Santa he wanted "Captain America" and then kind of just sat there eyeballing him for awhile and didn't answer any other questions.:)
Lucy of course listed off her wishes and then stayed to chat awhile, true to her nature. But now a word about our gym: I LOVE our gym. When we first moved here we joined Gold's Gym, but they were JERKS for sundry reasons, so we decided to take a chance on this little tiny, local, hole in the wall, privately owned gym. I immediately fell in love with the ladies in the Child Care room because they genuinely loved my kids, and then I started teaching 3x a week shortly after joining, and it just kind of became a big part of our lives. And now sad to say, they announced Christmas Day they're closed as of 1/1/13. I am so sad. I gotta find a new job and a new gym, and new gym rat friends (intended with love) to work out with. Ba-humbug.
Anyway, much to my children's delight Christmas Eve finally arrived! We sent Grandma and Grandpa with the kids to see "Rise of the Guardians" so Jon and I could arrange our "Santa" things for later that night without any suspicion. Lucy sprinkled a trail of "Reindeer Dust" (oats with glitter) that afternoon that led to the chimney for Santa's reindeer to follow. I was hoping the rain would wash it away, but... I had some explaining to do the next morning!
We celebrated with Jon's family's traditional Holy Supper that night-- with fish, flatbread, olives, nuts and cheese. Lucy is old enough now where she is starting to really look forward to this tradition to remind her of Mary and Joseph.
Then we read the Nativity Story from the Bible and sang some Christmas carols to go along with the scriptures. Lucy was mad at me that I wouldn't let baby Leah (who was to play the part of baby Jesus) lay in her "manger."
But this little butterball would NOT have fit. Here's a little glimpse of our sweet Christmas baby! She's already fitting into Lucy's 3 month clothes and eats ALL the time. But more on that later...
Back to Christmas Eve-- we let the kiddos open new pajamas (my family's tradition), to which Zach received super hero jammies and was thrilled, and then had Grandpa read "The Night Before Christmas."
The kids then got out a plate of cookies and some carrots and milk, set out their stockings, and headed off to bed. They were both so excited that Lucy even got a tummy ache, but they actually went down pretty easily and quickly. Thank heavens, because I cannot stay awake past 10 p.m.
We let the kids "sleep over" upstairs with Grandma and Grandpa and apparently Lucy was up at 4:30 a.m. ready to see if Santa had come, but she had to wait 3 hours until Zach and Leah were up too.
Hooray! He definitely came!
Zach did get Captain America AND Iron Man AND a Spiderman bike, so he was quite pleased with his haul.
He got lots of candy and some new movies too! Zachy loves Christmas!
Lucy got some La La Loopsy dolls, a brand new big girl bike with NO training wheels, and lots of other cool surprises. She was very happy too.
After we opened presents from under the tree, we helped Grandma get the Christmas breakfast ready (which is my favorite part of the day). She made cinnamon twists, ham, egg casserole, cheese and crackers, and shrimp cocktail (of which Lucy ate 13 without blinking). Yum! It was a merry breakfast indeed.
Later that afternoon, Jon took Lucy out to try out the new bike and she took to the no training wheels like a pro. She got it after the 2nd or 3rd try! All in all (despite finding out Elder Morris (my little bro) was in the hospital with dengue fever while serving in the DR), and thanks to a little Lord of the Rings marathon, we had a fantastic Christmas.
A couple of days after Christmas we decided to take the crew to Myrtle Beach to "blow our wad" (as Jon would say) on the after Christmas sales, which were phenomenal. The kind of shopping that makes you want to be with your mom (an enabler) and not your husband (the iron fist).:) Leah shopped til she dropped too!
Jon's parents finished out the week with us and left early early Sunday morning to fly back to Washington state, so we were on our own for New Year's. And oh yeah, Lucy lost her first tooth! I had to include that since she is always eager to point out that 3 MAJOR things happened this month to her: getting her ears pierced, riding a 2 wheeler, and losing a tooth. It just doesn't stop!
So we celebrated New Year's Eve with homemade pizza, Martinelli's, and ice cream sundaes and then spent the next day "blowing our wad" again at IKEA in Charlotte. Mommy wants a new king size bed, people!! Hope your holidays were as happy and blessed as ours!
