Christmas 2010 (a.k.a. The Year Lucy Got EVERYTHING)

Apparently both sets of our parents are now hard of hearing. What do I mean? Well, we gave both sets a list of TWO things we wanted them to get Lucy for Christmas. We also took $100 and went shopping for her ourselves (that actually gets you a ton of gifts!). However, neither set of parents listened to us, and our child now has one of everything. In fact, she had so many gifts, she actually had her own tree in our house (Exhibit A below-Pre Santa)

Lucy's Christmas extravaganza actually started several days BEFORE Christmas thanks to some of our generous friends and her school. She was given several gifts and I was told to let her open them in advance. So she did. She loved every minute of it. I guess you could say her Christmas lasted an entire week. We should all be so lucky!

Of course when her Mimi and Papa arrived from FL, they had to let her open a gift BEFORE Christmas as well. In their defense, it was a plate for her cookies that she was going to leave out for Santa. She helped her Mimi bake snickerdoodles (my ALL TIME FAVORITE) and set them out for Santa on Christmas eve. It was pretty cute!

I guess you could say all of our "Christmas" events really officially began on Christmas Eve. My family (mom, dad, and GiGi) all hosted Christmas Eve dinner. Lucy got to be with her ENTIRE family (we're really not all that big :) and we had fun. Good food, wine, meat, shrimp, and of course...gifts! We had a blast. It was so cool to be able to see Lucy with TWO great grandmas! It is also such a blessing that we can all get together and get along. Although we did have a Clark W. Griswold moment when we got back home, police and all. That is another story for another blog though.

On Christmas morning, Lucy woke at 6:45 (late for her) and all of us, well most of us (ah hem Aunt Leah) were already awake. Grandma had been up since 2:45 with butterflies in her stomach! PLUS...it snowed! We had a REAL white Christmas! We did Christmas at our house first with Bryan's family. It was GREAT! Her daddy and Papa had put together her big gift, a wagon, the night before. She was beyond THRILLED when she saw it. I have to admit, Christmas was a ton of fun with a kid that believes in Santa and totally knows she's about to get 5,410 presents. I can't wait for the next 10 Christmases or so!!!! Some of her favorite gifts were of course the wagon, huge building blocks, a doctor kit (my dream) , golf clubs (her daddy's dream), a princess crown, sit and spin, sushi kit, new cutlery like big people use (only smaller in scale), and well, just about everything else she got. Can you say spoiled? Below are a few of my favorite moments.

After Christmas at our house, we bundled up and went to my mom and dad's house. My grandma was still there, and it was still snowing heavily. When we arrived, we went straight for presents. Lucy was still pretty much on a tissue paper tearing high. She was THRILLED when she saw her new kitchen. She's quite the chef-did you know that? Now, a week later, I can tell you that the kitchen has totally changed my world. She also asked Santa for a baby doll with BROWN hair. He delivered. By now, this kid was a professional present opener. She could not have been more happy. She also got a new table and chair set for our playroom so that my carpet will no longer have play dough ground into the fibers, and she can color on a hard surface. It rocks!

We had a great lunch with my family, then headed BACK to our house to do gifts with Bryan's parents, sister, and grandma (that's right, ONLY Lucy had opened gifts and it was already noon!) Lucy passed out in the back seat in about 3.2 seconds. She slept for 2 hours that afternoon. When she woke, she of course wanted to play with her new stuff, so that's what we did!

When we woke up the morning AFTER Christmas, it had snowed even more! Our FL family was quite delighted. In fact, my father-in-law kept going out on the front porch and taking it all. Finally after about 20 trips outside, he came in and declared he was going to make a snowman. Bryan was rather reluctant at first to join him (he doesn't care for the cold weather and it was 27 degrees), but they dug in and made quite a snowman. There were buckets, spray bottles, rakes, brooms, trowels, and more used in the making of this snowman. Lucy watched from the front door and REALLY wanted to go out. I finally caved (if you remember the last snow we had, there was a bit of a fit thrown when we made Lucy come in). Lucy was THRILLED, and was quite a little helper.

All in all, Lucy's second Christmas was quite a success!

I Should Have Been a Bear

It's true. I should have been a bear. I HATE cold weather. I mean it. I despise it. And for the past month, it has been so cold that I am miserable. I think bears totally got it right with the whole hibernation thing. It is just now winter, actually, yesterday it officially started, but around here, the highs have been in the twenties. Umm, we would have moved to Michigan if we liked that kind of weather. Anyway, I digress...this blog is not actually about me.

Since we've had such INSANE weather (global warming, really?) we've also had SNOW! I do love the snow covered trees and roof tops whenever we get a nice dusting. It makes everything look like a giant Christmas card-just beautiful! However, last week we had a pretty good little snowstorm (3") and a nice little ice storm too. In fact, Mr. Jimmy Mac (our superintendent) actually closed schools for THREE WHOLE DAYS (which is slightly terrifying since we only have 5 snow days and we've already used 3 in DECEMBER!).

Anyway, snow day #1 was beautiful! However, it was BITTERLY cold. I'm talking 19 degrees. So Lucy was OBSESSED with the snow. She watched it fall all day Sunday and Monday morning. We promised her she could go out in it during the afternoon. We bundled her up after she woke from her nap-she was actually the only one of us with proper attire! She absolutely loved it! She kept running around screaming, "Snow!" It was too cute. We did have her mighty bundled up (she was very reminiscent of Randy, Ralphie's brother in "A Christmas Story"). She once fell down and kept screaming for her daddy because she couldn't get up. It was a bit funny. She played and ran and I froze and froze. She face planted several times, and when her hair got wet, I decided it was time to come in. I mean, hello! It was still only 19 degrees!!!!!!

Well, when we told Lucy it was time to go in, the fit started. She went dead weight on Bryan. She threw herself down and the feet started kicking. She was TICKED. I was TICKED too. I was FREEZING by now!!!! It is crazy the things you do for your kids. Needless to say, we finally got her in, but she screamed for a good 10 minutes when we got her stripped down and inside. Apparently she got this "I LOVE COLD WEATHER" gene from someone other than her father and I.

The next two snow days we have no pictures of. It was pretty miserable. We couldn't go anywhere, and you can only play with play-dough, watch Sesame Street, and read the same books over and over so much before you want to kill someone. Lucy wanted to go to school, I wanted to just GET OUT, and poor Bryan didn't know what to think of us girls all cooped up together. The good news is...it's supposed to snow again this weekend. GREAT!